The iPad cometh?

by Jo Eames

It was only a matter of time before I was handed my first wine list on iPad. And it happened last week, over lunch at the new Montpelier Chapter in Cheltenham, the hotel formerly known as Kandinsky. The re-named, re-built hotel re-opened in November after a two year closure and huge investment by the Swire group and it looks very different from the quirky, boho style of the Kandinsky. I remember the old place well, not least because when its new owners decided to strip it from hat to boots and get rid of the contents, I happened to be on hand (thanks to a tip-off from one of my trusty suppliers) and picked up a huge quantity of the aforesaid quirky, boho furniture at bargain prices. It was a wonderful hoard of 19^th century French and Spanish gilt mirrors and mid-century modern pieces. Enough, infact, to fit out a twenty bedroom pub so lavishly that Alastair Sawday now describes our place in Bedford, The Embankment, as “a small pleasure dome on the banks of the River Great Ouse”. It is, and I suspect will remain, the biggest bank error in my favour, ever.

So I both owe them one, and was intrigued to see what they had done to the place. And it’s smart as paint, in an irreproachably tasteful manner involving hectares of walnut credenza, Eames chairs, directional modern light fittings and the tell-tale fingerprints of an art consultant. I’m sure it’ll delight business and international visitors, but I wonder if the well-heeled locals (who tend, in my experience, to like things a little bit louche) will use it as a neighbourhood night-spot like they used to use the Kandinsky.

Anyway, back to that iPad. Trouble is, I don’t know what to think about it. I can see its advantages – it’s an object of desire (this month), easily updated, can store masses of additional content, saves on printing costs, and most of all shouts hip modernity. I can see its disadvantages too – a £450 trip to Amazon every time someone knocks it on the floor or nicks it, a reproach to those customers who only came out for lunch to get away from the damn lap-top!  And, most of all, it’s yet another thing that will suffer horribly from GIGO. You know GIGO – Garbage In, Garbage Out.  It strikes me an enthusiastic sommelier could spend several lifetimes filling an iPad with fascinating, unmediated stuff about the wonderful wines on the list – video clips, wine ratings, quotes from Jancis, food and wine matches – probably to the detriment of his day job selling wine.

So, not knowing what to think, I picked it up and started tooling around. I fancied a glass of champagne. The buttons on the front page offered White, Red, Rosé or Sparkling. I touched Sparkling and was offered Prosecco or Three Choirs. The Three Choirs claimed to hail from Glostershire. Ouch! Wherever the list is uploaded, I think it’s fair to surmise it’s a long way from Cheltenham. I would have gone on searching for the champagne but, luckily, at that moment a waiter came over with two glasses of the stuff. That Steve Jobs is even more of a genius than I thought!  After lunch, I was chatting to the GM and he said the iPad seemed popular and they were certainly selling more wine at lunch than they’d budgeted.  Which may be an endorsement of the gadgetry – or just a sign that Cheltenham hasn’t changed!