Diary of a Shopkeeper, 4th June

I’m away south for a couple of weeks on a trip that’s a mixture of business and pleasure. I know what you’re thinking: if your business consists of whisky, cheese and wine, then surely every day is a great pleasure. Maybe not every day. But I’m happy to say that yesterday fit that description.

I took the early plane to Edinburgh and caught the tram into the West End, in time to see the farmer’s market at Castle Terrace being set up. The profusion of fresh fish, shellfish and meat was impressive. Even better were displays of tomatoes of various sizes and colours, earth-speckled new tatties, asparagus both white and green, and wild mushrooms in weird bonsai clusters.

But of course I can get Orkney-grown versions of all that good stuff at home.

One thing you can’t get in Orkney is Syrian falafel, so that’s what I had for my breakfast. It was a treat to sit in the sunshine looking up at the castle, munching on crunchy chickpea fritters and crisp fresh salad, all wrapped up in a flatbread spread with hummus. I’d have to go many miles to enjoy something similar at home: all the way to Burray, where the Poly Kettle café does a very similar Egyptian version.

There must be something Edinburgh has that Orkney doesn’t? Crowds of tourists! No, we have those too – just slightly smaller crowds. Edinburgh has a palace: Holyrood House. But we have two palaces in Kirkwall and another in Birsay. (Edinburgh claims to have a second, the Royal Palace, but that’s just a wee bit of the castle: I’m not impressed.)

 One thing I can’t find at home is corn tortillas. My travels in Texas and New Mexico taught me to love these small, yellow, slightly rubbery discs much more than their big, white, doughy, wheat cousins. Luckily, there’s a piece of Tex Mex heaven in Edinburgh: Lupe Pinto’s deli. They sorted me out, as they have over the years for everything from tomatillos for salsa verde to corn husks for tamales.

From there I headed southwards to Bruntsfield Links, where there’s an excellent wine shop called Drinkmonger. It’s run by Alan, who I shared an enjoyable wine-buying trip to Germany with just before Covid hit. It was his day off. But that’s okay: I’ll catch up another time. And wine shelves never have a day off.             

I found the shelves in Drinkmonger particularly interesting, not just because of the excellent wines on them, but also because of the way they were arranged. In our shop, we do it by country. After the obvious white/red split, we arrange the bottles so that all the French wines are together, all the Spanish ones, all the Italian ones, and so on. Within each country we further divide by area, so within France, all the Bordeaux wines are together, then all the Burgundy ones, all the Loire ones etc.

Drinkmonger arrange theirs by grape. So one shelf is filled entirely with Chardonnay: from France, Australia, New Zealand, Spain. Another has Pinot Noir from all over the world. And so on. A few famous grape varieties might have a reasonable amount of ‘brand recognition’ amongst most folk looking for a bottle. Choosing just about anything from the Sauvignon Blanc shelf is going to get you the familiar pleasure of a zingy, aromatic nose and a crisp, limey finish.

But what if the shelf is labelled Bobal, or Godello or even Tempranillo? Would that mean much to most shoppers? Better, surely, to have your Tempranillos grouped together in the Spanish section, and on the Rioja shelf. You know where you are with a Rioja. You’re in Spain. And in for a treat.

Or maybe I’m being shelfish. What do you think?

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 7th June 2023. A new one appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions