idris joins the indies

idris joins the independent trade

The star of Luther and The Wire has teamed up with David Farber of Connaught Cellars to open a new wine shop and bar in Kings Cross. The pair are already partners in the Porte Noire Champagne label

Wine merchant David Farber has partnered up with actor Idris Elba to open Porte Noire in Kings Cross.

The shop and bar, which will open this month, is a continuation of the Porte Noire brand; their collaboration has already produced two Champagnes and a rosé.

Farber, who established Connaught Cellars near Marble Arch in 2016, admits that a celebrity wine can be both a blessing and a curse, but he is adamant that this is no vanity project.

“It is not just a name endorsement where you associate your name and receive whatever percentage commission on the sales, because otherwise Idris would have associated himself with a famous label, not with me,” he laughs.

The venture seems to have come about quite organically, with the pair meeting through a mutual friend some years ago. “Idris loves Champagne,” explains Farber, “and I think at the back of his mind he always had the idea of maybe having his own. I took him to visit a vineyard and winery I thought would work and his first criterion was to make sure we had a quality product and not a flashy or marketing gimmick.

“He wanted to be totally involved and develop his own brand. He has a good palate. In terms of selecting the Champagne, he has very good taste – just not the cheapest!”

So far the feedback, even from fellow merchants, has been good. “I went to a lunch on Saturday with six wine merchants,” Farber says.

“I bought a magnum of the Champagne and one of them said, ‘oh, as much as I want to hate it because it is a celebrity Champagne, it is actually really good’. The reviews it has had from the critics have been positive so that gave us confidence that we were doing something right.”

Located at the base of Gasholders residential development, Porte Noire will include a dining room, a bar and an outside terrace as well as a shop. “Fifty per cent of the floor space is dedicated to retail, including the walk-in fine wine room,” says Farber.

“At Connaught we are mainly French and Italian focused, but the range at Porte Noire will be larger and more international. There will of course be some crossover and the wines we direct import will be sold from both locations.

“At Kings Cross we are going to have a good selection of organic, natural and biodynamic wines alongside a lot of very classic, fine wines. We are also going to have wines on tap, on KeyKeg, at the bar.

“The place looks very high-end but the prices will be very reasonable,” Farber adds. “We want to become a wine destination for the people who live and work there. Just as we did with Connaught

Fifty per cent of the space is devoted to retail

Porte Noire is part of the Gasholders development

Cellars, whether it is on the retail or the bar side, the idea is to create a small wine community. Most of our customers have become our friends and it is about bringing this friendliness and approachability to the wines. We don’t want to have any pretensions in terms of price or service.”

Idris Elba on wine

Do you remember how you first got interested in wine?

My first time being interested in wine was after tasting Francis Coppola’s red. This was a long time back and it was a gift from a film producer. He told me that Coppola’s name looked great on a bottle – and they thought Elba would look great too one day.

You probably get presented with lots of investment opportunities. What persuaded you to go into business with David and how involved do you expect to be?

The opportunity was to be a small part of a history and amplify the work that Sanger [school of Champagne] had been doing. I was so intrigued by the history of the school and the students continue its journey. David became an instant partner. Well, almost! He is very knowledgeable, and walks me though the intricate nature of winemaking, without making me feel like a novice. We make a good team (I hope!)

What’s the best wine you’ve enjoyed in the past six months or so?

A wine called Chocolate Block. Firstly I love the name; it’s already intriguing. It’s a heavy bodied fruity Syrah from 2019. I had it at dinner after a vegan curry and it went down properly.

The many faces of Rías Baixas

Sarah Jane Evans MW’s masterclass reminded a group of merchants why this Spanish region is a world-beater with its Albariño – but is also more multi-faceted and nuanced than they may have thought

Few regions are as associated with a single grape variety as Rías Baixas is with Albariño. And few places on the global wine map have experienced such stellar success in such a short period of time. This is a white wine style that has won admirers just about everywhere.

Yet this is not a one-dimensional Denominación de Origen. It’s true that Albariño accounts for 95% of plantings, but other grapes do make an appearance. More crucially, Rías Baixas is divided into five subregions, each with its particular quirks and characteristics. As we were about to discover at a London masterclass led by Sarah Jane Evans MW, Rías Baixas has more breadth and more variety than even some of its admirers realise.

This is Green Spain, a land of wild coastlines and cool, rainy summers that bear more resemblance to those of London than to the baking heat of Madrid or Barcelona. Many Spaniards holiday here for respite from the merciless sun, and the conditions suit the Albariño grape just as well.

The Rías Baixas DO was created in 1988, Evans reminds us, and although investment has been trickling into the region from various sources, this is still essentially a land of artisanal growers and producers.

Vineyards are typically tiny, she says, with mechanisation very much the exception rather than the rule. The iconic granite-posted trellis system remains popular, though some producers now favour more conventional pruning regimes. (Part of the reason for the trellis system’s popularity is that families could also cultivate vegetables on the land beneath the canopy.)

“Rías Baixas has the same number

Wines from the London line-up

of growers as Burgundy even though Burgundy has 30,000 hectares and Rías Baixas has 4,000,” Evans says. “There are 178 wineries here and 3,800 in Burgundy.”

If the number sounds low, bear in mind there were just 30 when the DO was created. Since that time, volumes have multiplied almost eightfold, to 23.5m litres in 2020.

The theme of the tasting, hosted by DO Rías Baixas at the Ibérica restaurant in Victoria, central London, was “the many faces of Rías Baixas”. Guests were introduced to all five subregions, with a selection of seven wines, paired with tapas dishes, giving a flavour of each.

Salnés

“Salnés is the biggest region,” Evans says. “Cambados, in the middle, is a great tourist town. There are some small producers around there doing some absolutely wonderful stuff. Salnés has the most wineries and vineyards and it’s wet. It has a very distinctive style. It accounts for about 60% of the vineyard area.”

With an average June temperature of 22.5˚C, this is one of the cooler regions, where saline characters (a feature of virtually all Rías Baixas wines) are most pronounced.

We sample Adegas Gran Vinum Esencia Diviña 2020 (RRP £13.99, Milton Sandford Wine).

“This is a young, straightforward example of Salnés that has had nothing done to it,” says Evans. “It’s aromatic; you do get that peachiness, and really lovely acidity. It’s a pure example.”

We also try Agro de Bazan Gran Bazan Etiqueta Ambar (RRP £16, Boutinot).

“This is a good example of a single-estate wine. It’s located 1km from the sea and it spends eight months on the lees. This is like ducking your head under the water and being washed by a wave; that saltiness. It’s a wine you have with oysters … the seafood in the area is terrific and this is so appetising. It makes your mouth water.”

O Rosal

“This is very close to the Portuguese border, and it runs along the Miño,” says Evans. “And while the message from most of Rías Baixas is granite, a lot of these soils are schist. It’s warmer down there and the wines are peachier and riper.” The first wine we try is Lagar de Cervera Pazo de Seoane 2020 (RRP £16, Armit Wines). It turns out to be a bit of an outlier, with Albariño making up just 60% of the mix. The remainder is 12% Caíño Blanco (“definitely the variety that gives the acidity”), 21% Loureiro (“which is quite aromatic”) and 7% Treixadura (“which has a lovely texture”). “It has a huge amount of flavour,” Evans concludes.

The second wine is Quinta Couselo Selección 2015 (RRP £22, H2Vin).

“This spends 40 months on lees. There’s a niche category of these. When you’re having an aged Albariño it can turn into a completely different wine. It still has acidity and freshness. They’ve also extracted a kind of oiliness which is interesting and would go with fish.”

The wine has a 5% Loureiro component and a similar proportion of Caíño Blanco. “It’s a really interesting and gastronomic wine,” says Evans.

Condado do Tea

“A little bit further inland and further upriver is Condado do Tea. Here you begin to see the mountain influence. It is the largest of the subzones though production

Viticulture in Rías Baixas is a small-scale enterprise, with pergolas still commonplace

is only in fact 20%. It’s the most southerly, most inland and the warmest – the average temperature in June is 24.5˚C.”

Bodegas As Laxas Sensum Laxus Brut

1999 (RRP £20, Just Galician Wine) is the only sparkling wine in the tasting, made in the traditional method.

“People in Galicia said there’s no way you can have sparkling Albariño; it’s a bit like having sparkling Sauvignon Blanc,” says Evans. “But actually I think it does work.” Tasters appreciate the 8g/l dosage, which rounds out the natural acidity.

Corisca Finca Muiño 2019 (RRP £20, Vinceremos) is an organic wine made from 45-year-old vines – ancient by Rías Baixas standards. The wine has spent 12 months on its lees

Here the fruit is more subdued, with a soft earthiness coming to the fore.

Soutomaior

Nestled in the hills at the head of the Rías de Vigo, Soutomaior is the smallest of the sub-regions. Soils are light and sandy over granite bedrock.

Its representative at the tasting is Noelia Bebelia Preguiceiro 2018 (RRP £23, Ellis of Richmond) and it’s the only red in the line-up, made with equal quantities of Caiño, Sousón and Brancellao. Another organic wine, “it smells delicious and there’s a leafy quality that is very appetising,” says Evans. The wine comes into its own lightly chilled.

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