The Wine Merchant issue 118

Dog of the month: Angus Morgan Edwards, Knutsford

A duty freeze is welcome, but Budget will hurt indies

ABudget duty freeze and an 18-month delay to the reform of wine duty have received a muted trade reaction as the catalogue of other economic issues impacting the trade mount up.

In his controversial tax-cutting Budget, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announced a freeze on all alcohol duty, ahead of reform of the alcohol duty system, which will go ahead from August 1, 2023, after a consultation on the change was completed.

Wine will be one of the harder-hit drinks categories, as the reform shifts the duty regime to one based on abv band regardless of the type of alcohol.

The wine trade did get a Budget concession on the change, with an 18-month transition period granted, until February 1, 2025. During this period, all wine with an abv of between 11.5% and 14.5% will be treated as if it is 12.5% abv for the purpose of calculating duty.

Retailers and suppliers say that, regardless of the exact levels of duty that prevail, changes to the regime are unwelcome at a time when the trade is already faced with the impact of inflation, a consumer spending squeeze, staffing problems, global shipping issues, changes

Trade is still faced with sliding-scale duty plan, and currency woes are adding more costs to post-Brexit bureaucracy

COMINGS AND GOINGS

bright ideaS

THE BURNING QUESTION

GRAHAM HOLTER Editorial

round table

Grape

Put a group of independent wine merchants together in a room for any length of time and the conversation will turn, invariably, to staff issues.

Doubtless, for a few unlucky employers, there are cases of trainee managers who turn up late, or perhaps not at all, offend loyal customers and drink the stock. But it’s rare to hear about such problems. The biggest challenge for indies, from a payroll perspective, is recruiting talented staff and then hanging onto them.

fortified wines

56 eastern Europe

supplier bulletin

It’s been suggested that there are about 1 million people missing from the UK workforce, for reasons that economists are still trying to quantify. It will be mainly down to a combustible blend of Brexit and Covid. The first forcibly displaced a vast chunk of the labour market. The second either made people too ill to return to work, or gave them a taste of what life might be like without the drudgery of a nine-to-five existence. Early retirement, or a switch to part-time employment, were options many were eager to grasp.

70 Q&A with peter hall

All of which reduced the pool of talent from which employers have to fish. So where, if you’re a wine merchant, do you find good staff? I’ve heard several stories in recent months of employees being blatantly tapped up in their place of work. (Including one business owner who was

not amused by (a) the tapper’s shameless effrontery and (b) the sexist assumption that a woman could not possibly own the shop she was working in.)

One indie seemed to be only half joking when he suggested the solution was to wander into the St John’s Wood branch of Majestic and casually sound out any of the numerous staff apparently aimlessly patrolling the aisles. Though perhaps that approach has worked for him in the past.

The truth is there’s no simple and foolproof formula for finding a dream employee (though as regular readers of our Rising Stars column will know, dreams can come true, and such people are out there).

The bigger challenge is convincing these stars they should stay. Decent wages are a given, especially with interest rates surging. Training is crucial too, and a willingness to trust: how quickly can the new recruit manage the shop on a Saturday, or play a role in a buying decision?

The reality is that business owners can make the job as comfortable, aspirational and enjoyable as they can possibly afford, and still see their star man or woman poached. It was ever thus, and perhaps it’s about to get thusser. Nobody wants to pay unsustainable wages, but losing staff to higher-paying rivals could ultimately prove costlier than a generous salary review.

THE WINE MERCHANT MAGAZINE

Where do you find decent staff? More crucially, how do you hold on to them?

Ribera del Duero Top 100 Tasting and Briefing 2022

Join Tim Atkin MW and D.O. Ribera del Duero for the unveiling of this year’s Top 100 on Monday 21st November at The View, 18-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE

The Ribera del Duero Top 100 Tasting and Briefing provides the perfect opportunity to taste the very best wines from D.O. Ribera del Duero, as selected by Tim Atkin MW. Discover the outstanding quality and diversity that the region and its wines have to offer. From big, bold and textured wines brimming with rich, old-world sensibility, spice, dark fruit and smoky flavours, to the younger, more fruit-forward and lighter wines that showcase the freshness and vibrancy of Ribera del Duero, and include many of the best wines from the region. Building on the success of the inaugural tasting in 2021, this year’s event will include a briefing with Tim Atkin MW and Pablo Baquera from the Consejo Regulador de la Denominación de Origen Ribera del Duero, where they will discuss the latest Ribera del Duero vintage and what we can expect from the region in the years to come.

Monday 21st November, 2-6pm

The View, 18-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE Register now at: https://bit.ly/RDDTop100T Contact rdd@cubecom.co.uk for more information

BRUNELLO

17 November 2022, 10am–5pm

House, Deans Yard, London SW1P

A UK first, the 2018 vintage of Brunello di Montalcino will be launched ‘En Primeur’ to the UK wine trade in London on 17 November 2022. Well before the official release on 1st January 2023, and in collaboration between the Consorzio of Brunello di Montalcino and Hunt & Speller, the ‘En Primeur’ Launch, called BENVENUTO BRUNELLO, is a comprehensive, trade-only presentation of the 2018 vintage and the 2017 Riservas.

Benvenuto Brunello features some of the most important estates as well as rising stars from this world-famous denomination. Tasters can choose freely from a total of 130 wines, including some of Montalcino’s top crus and 2017 Riservas from over 66 estates, during a two-hour, prebooked sommelier-serviced tasting slot.

Places for Benvenuto Brunello, strictly trade-only, can be reserved on a first-come, first-served, basis here:

a secure and comfortable environment.

Devon indie aims for sustainability

Moretonhampstead in Devon is home to a new hybrid indie. The Bottle Shop was opened in July by Anne Cleminson and Simon Johnson, who were previously owners of The Hourglass pub in Exeter.

“We’re sourcing wine from around the world, mostly Europe,” Cleminson says, “and we’re focusing on winemakers who are working sustainably. That’s very important to us. We have lots of organic and natural wines and lots of traditional wines from small winemakers.”

Conscious of its own eco-credentials, the business is working with many local producers including Papillon Dartmoor Distillery (“they are literally 100 steps from our door”), Dalwood Vineyard and breweries Utopian and Powderkeg. The deli has local goodies from Deli Farm, The Dartmoor Cure and cheese from Fat Mouse.

“We’re working with Sustainable Wine Solutions and we have three on tap, a white a rosé and a red,” says Cleminson. “We have bottles we loan out but people can bring any bottle they want – I’ve even filled up a litre bike flask for someone before.

“The calculation is that one glass of wine off the tap has 96% less carbon footprint than one from a traditional bottle, so I’m really trying to encourage it.

“We’re thrilled about how it’s going so far. We’ve only been open a couple of months so we’re still getting the word out, but we live in such a great area where people really do care about the environment. We’ve got a zero-waste shop in town, so people go and get a refill of olive oil from them and a bottle of wine from us.”

Cleminson is sourcing wines from suppliers including ABS, which has already been providing support with winemaker visits. There’s more activity on the horizon,

Anne Cleminsom estimates that wine on tap has a 96% smaller carbon footprint

with plans for a series of tastings and a number of workshops including darning, wreath-making and book-binding.

Going Native with Bristol wine shop

Native Vine Bottle Shop & Wine Bar opened on Church Road, Bristol in August.

Although this is the third site for the business, it is the first with its name above the door.

Wine buyer Charlie Jones explains: “We’re a sibling company of The Bristol Loaf and we follow them everywhere.

“We have a dedicated retail space within their second venue in Bristol, a big 4,000 sq ft space which is home to a sourdough bakery, a café, and a few other businesses, including a greengrocer and a cheese counter.

“We also run a café and bar at the Bristol Beacon, which is quite an iconic Bristol landmark. It’s a big concert hall and we have a café space downstairs, which is mainly The Bristol Loaf, but the alcohol component is Native Vine. That’s purely

on-trade with no retail at the moment.”

The third, and very specific, Native Vine site is next door to the original Bristol Loaf. It’s retail-focused but operates as a bar three nights a week.

“Bristol is very connected to its food and drink,” says Jones. “It’s a very ecoconscious city and it seems very standard to discuss local and sustainable sourcing in restaurants and bars.

“We’ve got a massive craft beer culture, something like 20 craft breweries in the city. Given all this you’d think people would be quite tuned into the zeitgeist of different drink cultures but I feel like we are a little bit behind on the wine front.

“While everything in our range can be classified as organic, low-intervention or natural, our selection as a whole is quite diverse with some classics in there. We’ve got some more traditional wine styles, stuff that people wouldn’t baulk at.”

Jones is working with a number of suppliers including Les Caves de Pyrene, Raeburn Fine Wines, Wines Under the Bonnet and Winemakers Club. “We stock about 350 lines at any one time,” he says, “but we have nearer 600 or 700 on rotation.”

Katy will keep the focus on spirits

September saw the launch of Spirited in Bedminster, south Bristol.

Owner Katy Kennedy, who has previously worked at Oddbins, Cambridge Wine Merchants, Elixir Distillers and Avery’s, says Spirited is based on the wine bar and shop model but it will be spirits-focused.

Kennedy first became interested in whisky while studying languages at university in Edinburgh, where she also worked at The Whisky Experience before becoming a teacher.

The bar will serve a simple, seasonally changing menu of highballs and a rotating wine list of around 40 wines, which Kennedy is sourcing from suppliers including Cambridge Wine Merchants, Astrum and Vine Trail.

Aside from the by-the-glass menu, bottles of wines can be selected from the shelf to drink at the bar.

“I’ll be doing tasting flights so you can taste different whisky regions, for example, or rum styles side by side,” says Kennedy.

Plenty of collaborations with local businesses are in the pipeline and customers can expect to see pairing events including cheese and whisky as well as chocolate and rum.

“Bristol is a vibrant and exciting city,” Kennedy adds, “and Bedminster is a great district of independent businesses.

“Spirited is all about conviviality and sharing. I want to share the fun I’ve always experienced in the industry with others and advise those looking for just the right bottle for themselves, for a present for friends and family or corporate gifts.”

• After three years of trading, Vine & Grain in Beverley, East Yorkshire, is closing. Owner Kristian Shephard says that trade has slowed to the point where he could not see

it picking up and improving. The shop will remain open possibly until early next month while stock is sold off.

Greg’s on his bike as retirement calls

Southampton’s Cloud Wine has closed and owner Greg Pearce is to retire.

The shop is being let to local brewer Unity, which will turn it into a beerled bottle shop with “a few wines with emphasis on organics and low intervention,” says Pearce (pictured).

“Jimmy Hatherley runs it and used to work here,” he adds. “He thought there would be a gap in the market for an interesting beer shop in town. He has his own brewery, so even better.”

Pearce originally managed the shop when it was part of the Hall & Woodhouse brewery’s chain, but bought it out from the company to launch Cloud Wine in 2001. Before that he worked for Oddbins for 15 years.

“I am quite old, so it was going to happen sometime,” Pearce says.

“But I’m happy that someone’s going to make good use of the shop. I’ll be doing a bit of cycling in the lovely Hampshire countryside.”

• Philippe Messy has closed his Taunton restaurant, Ma Cuisine, and the premises will now be home to his Little Wine Shop Messy blames the decision on what he describes as “spiralling energy and food costs”.

A costly image problem

Everyone needs a bit of stock photography for their websites, mailers and price lists. And although few merchants would be daft enough to thieve a copyrighted image, there have been cases where it’s happened accidentally, and it’s left the business seriously out of pocket.

Sam Howard at HarperWells in Norwich tells the story of the seemingly innocent picture of a Chardonnay leaf, which appeared on a CD of images given to a colleague on a trip to California.

“The winery had obviously gone and sold that image to Getty, who then came after us,” Howard reports. “In the end we haggled them down from £20,000 to £400 and they went away.”

It’s that time again

Nature notes from Peter Wood at St Andrews Wine Company: “You know that it is autumn when wine critics start trotting out ‘the best wines in the world for Christmas are £4.74 and available in supermarkets’ articles.”

Diluting the duty issue

Despite unveiling a raft of economic measures that international financiers have universally hailed as visionary and certain to boost the UK economy, the government seems determined to press on with its hated sliding-scale duty system for wine. The tax goes up with every 0.5% of alcohol, which is already prompting speculation that bottles destined for the UK might mysteriously hit 12.5% abv with impressive precision, even in sun-scorched vintages. Let’s hope HMRC doesn’t start taxing water.

to the software used to gather tax, and train strikes.

The falling pound joined the debit list as the financial markets responded to the taxcutting nature of Kwarteng’s plans.

John Chapman, managing director of the Oxford Wine Co, says: “The 18 months’ grace gives us more time, but they’re still going to bring in this ridiculous scheme of banding, which is going to cause a lots of problems.

“The 18 months is probably because the government can’t implement the change any quicker. I still don’t see how it’s going to work properly. I’m hopeful that they’ll run into more problems and simplify it.

“The good news is the duty benchmark at 12.5% abv. There was a worry about what figure they would pull out, but 12.5% is a tolerable amount of duty. But the idea with the consultation was to point out that it wasn’t a viable thing to implement, and that hasn’t been taken on board.”

Chapman says the industry is already grappling with the software change for collecting duty, from CHIEF to CDS.

“It’s massive headache,” he says. “Every single company that handles any goods with excise has to suddenly spend loads of money to put in the infrastructure and software, and to chase and work with customers so they’ve got the right information tallied. It’s just going to add lots more cost in the supply chain.”

Doug Wregg at Les Caves de Pyrene says: “We’ve been dealing with so many issues as a result of Brexit, Covid, oil prices … whatever, that the last thing we need is a change in the way duty on wine is calculated.

“One of the reasons to leave Europe was to have fewer regulations, but actually the opposite has happened. There is way more bureaucracy being foisted upon us.

“Every year it’s cost another £100,000

from bureaucracy and we could do without more changes.

“A lot of the stuff on alcohol duty has been kicked down the road, just as the EU regulations on organic labels have. That’s been kicked down the road several times because they’ve got too much else on their plate.”

He adds: “The big one is currency. We can take a position on it for three to six months, but we’re not currency speculators. That’s not our position as a small wine company. When you come to pay the bill and it’s 10%-15% more, what do you do? You have to pass it on.”

Matt Harris, owner of Planet of the Grapes in central London, says the longterm issues around duty reform will cause problems, but adds there are much more

immediate concerns for businesses and their employees.

“The proposed tax bands, the paperwork that goes with them and the fact that they’ve kicked it down the road, are annoying, but on a list of a dozen things that are really crap in our industry right now, it’s about number 11 or 12,” he says.

“The fact that my staff are going to see their rents spiral massively, and their ability to live and work in London really be squeezed, is a massive issue for us compared to the duty stuff.

“We are based in an office area hit by train strikes. [When there is one] we lose thousands and thousands of pounds, and we get no grants, no furlough, nothing, and just get told it’s kind of tough shit – but it’s tough shit on the back of a two-year pandemic, and at some point it’s going to lead to companies going bust. These are immediate problems.

“The duty band delay gives us two years to turn round to the government, as an industry, and say, ‘this is ridiculous, don’t be stupid’. There has been kickback already and the hope is that the government will keep pulling back and at some point go, ‘fair enough’.”

“There is way more bureaucracy being foisted on us. Every year it’s cost another £100,000”

Left, Matt Harris of Planet of the Grapes, and right, John Chapman of The Oxford Wine Co

Taittinger invests in new Kent indie

The Tudor Peacock is set to open in Chilham, Kent, next year, with Taittinger on board as an investor.

The business, which will focus entirely on wines from Kent, consists of a shop, tasting room and a small bar, all wrapped up in a beautiful Tudor property, in the middle of a picturesque village. So perhaps it was inevitable that a few locals had a grumble and enough objections were raised to result in an initial planning application being refused.

Almost a year on, hearts and minds have been won over and planning permission is imminent, as co-founder Nick Mogford explains.

“We put in a second application six months ago and we made sure that all our supporters actually penned their support to the council this time around,” he says.

Local residents were given the opportunity to come on board as shareholders, and jumped at the chance.

“We have made it a community project from the start,” says Mogford.

“The villager shares gave all the villagers an opportunity to buy into the business at whatever level they feel comfortable. So we have shareholders ranging from £300 or £400 going all the way up to more than £10,000.”

The business is 60% owned by the four co-founders who are Mogford, his wife Jeanine, Christian Magg and Greg Taylor.

“In all we have about 25 other investors in the business, the vast majority of whom actually come from the village, so it is a real community effort. It’s created a bit of a buzz around the village,” he adds.

Mogford also believes the initial objections, that were only few in number, were the result of a misunderstanding about the business model.

The Tudor Peacock will be a hybrid, but taking into account the e-commerce side of things, around 70% of the turnover will be retail. The bar area will be small, and local cheeses and Whitstable oysters will be available alongside wine by the glass. There will be a tasting room, designed to seat around 16 people.

“We’re going to be doing a series of generic Wine Garden of England tasting events where you can sample all of the wines from the seven vineyards in the one tasting,” Mogford says. “We’ve built relationships with all of those vineyards. We’ll be buying directly from them and we’ve agreed that they will come in on a rotational basis and run tasting events specific to their vineyard.”

The team is working with architects to ensure sufficient sound-proofing of the old building and, for now, they have withdrawn the application to have seating in the rear courtyard. They hope to utilise the area at the front, adjacent to the village square, where pubs already have seating.

“We were aware of the growing Kent wine business, particularly around the area

of Chilham, where Domaine Evremond has planted vines,” says Mogford. “When one of the vacant properties on the village green came on the market we took a punt on it and bought what used to be the village gift shop. It’s a beautiful building, dating back to the 1300s.

“We have a significant investment from Taittinger. They are building a brand new winery just outside Chilham, which will be completed in the next year, but the winery won’t have a tasting room for guests and they were very keen to have somewhere they can access to bring clients down to entertain them.”

• Reuben & Gray in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, closed in May after 12 months of trading, but owner Craig Buchan is in the process of applying for an off-licence for his other business, Nord Coffee House in Harrogate. “I’m trying to bring the Reuben & Grey brand into that,” he says. “Rather than having a full-blown wine shop, we’ll concentrate on the stuff that sold really well in Knaresborough, so the whisky and local gins, and promote it more as a gift shop.”

From left: Christian Magg, Greg Taylor, Nick Mogford and Jeanine Mogford

Rising Stars

Sometimes the ideal employee is tantalising close, skirting around the edges of your business. It could be a friend or an acquaintance who has helped out a few times – but while they’ve shown a natural aptitude, they are otherwise gainfully employed.

Lucy Chenoweth, owner of The Old Garage, had this exact situation with her friend Jess Milnes, but she never gave up and we’re applauding her technique of recruitment by stealth.

Lucy says: “When Jules and I first opened The Old Garage in 2019, Jess was on hand to help with getting the shop ready for our press night and launch. She’s been a close friend of ours for 10 years, and stepped up to help when the pressure was on. She got to grips with regions, appellations, grapes and tasting notes at a phenomenal rate and I tried to steal her at that point, but alas, she was already employed elsewhere – not in the drinks industry – in a managerial role.

“Through 2019 and 2020, Jess always stepped up to help with our feast nights, helping me pair wines with dishes, and in service itself.

“Jess finally joined our team in July, so she may be new to the business, but her thirst for knowledge, coupled with her humour, her palate and how personable she is, just means that customers adore her, and she’s become a firm favourite with our regulars already.

“She’s brainstorming for events, wants to get new crowds of people in, and is keen to show off the things she’s learned. We’re all so proud of her.”

Jess has a background in hospitality and, growing up in St Mawes, has worked in lots of pubs. But she admits her wine knowledge was limited.

“Before Lucy started The Old Garage, wine for me was just about buying a cheapie down at the supermarket – I didn’t realise you could have a drink of wine and not pull a face after every sip,” she laughs.

“But I started helping out with events and learning more and more. The Old Garage is such a cool place to work. It’s so special here as Lucy picks out wonderful wines from all over the place.

“When I decided to change my career, Lucy offered me a job the same day – it was very flattering. It’s all still very new, but I’m learning quickly and really loving it.”

Jess Milnes

The Old Garage Wine & Deli, Truro

Lucy also praises Jess’s tasting ability, and believes “she’s got what it takes to become a brilliant sommelier”. Modestly, Jess says she finds it easier “if I’m tasting casually with Lucy, but it is hard if people put you on the spot. Sometimes I can’t put a name on what it is I’m tasting, what the flavour is reminding me of, but I go with my instincts.

“I’m realising I prefer reds to whites, which has surprised me. I’m really enjoying Pinot Noir. I haven’t got a particular favourite yet, but I do love medium-bodied, smooth wines.”

Having completed her WSET Level 1, and about to start her Level 2, Jess is hoping to explore wine and food pairings so she can run some events in the shop.

She adds: “I think Lucy has been training me for this job for years without me even realising. During Covid Lucy invited me along to experience the judging for The Wine Merchant Top 100 in her garden. Just to taste the wines blind was really amazing and helped sell the job to me, to be honest.”

Jess wins a bottle of Glenfarclas Highland Single Malt

If you’d like to nominate a Rising Star, email claire@winemerchantmag.com

NOT YOU AGAIN! customers we could do without

Drink ... WINE

Listen, you’re the wine expert, not me … I mean I do know quite a lot about wine but I don’t want to take the limelight … you’ll be talking us through the wines, doing all the serious stuff, and my job really is to jolly things along and crack a few jokes, make the audience less intimidated … they’re mostly mums and dads of the Year Nines, nice people but probably never been to a wine tasting in their lives … so I dunno, you might have an Australian wine and I’ll say something like “is it made by convicts?” but not that, obviously not that … or if it’s a German wine I’ll ask you if it goes well with sauerkraut and Black Forest gateau … bad example, I’ll be much wittier on the night … or if you’re talking about how the grapes are crushed by feet I could pretend to find a toenail in my glass … obviously I’ll think of something funnier … and after every wine I could pretend to be getting more and more sozzled and getting all my words muddled up and then make it look like I’ve dozed off and do really loud comedy snoring … well not that exactly, something along those lines … don’t worry about it, you’ll be great, just do the wines and I’ll handle the entertainment … see you on Friday

aim for just after six so we’ve got two hours to rehearse it all ... we’ll smash

Congratulations to the five Wine Merchant reader survey respondents whose names were drawn at random and who each win a Coravin, courtesy of our partner Hatch Mansfield.

Peter Fawcett, Field & Fawcett, York

Anthony Borges, The Wine Centre, Great Horkesley, Essex

Zoran Ristanovic, City Wine Collection, London

Daniel Grigg , Museum Wines, Dorset

Riaz Syed, Stonewines, London

JASON YAPP

Unfiltered

The pleasures and the tax breaks of collecting rare, but not unique, wines

source of origin onwards, rather than loose sales of individual bottles, but rarity does make for exceptions.

I am the proud owner of a single halfbottle of 1967 (my birth year) Château d’Yquem that I purchased several years ago from a wine broker, who had bought it at auction from the estate of the MP, diarist, connoisseur and bon viveur Alan Clark. I am saving that for my dotage as, according to the American critic Josh Reynolds, it is both “spellbinding” and “breathtaking” and should drink well for two decades yet.

Like many of my ilk, I have always enjoyed collating collections of objects and my interest extends to comics, corkscrews, records, books, art and wine.

Especially wine. As a general rule, it is best if something is scarce but not unique. I am the fortunate owner of several bottles of wine that are the only known example of their kind, but strangely none of these has a significant monetary value.

Collectors want to collect, so have little interest in the unattainable. Ideally, you want things to be scarce, but there to be several recorded examples of them. Thus you are better off possessing a copy of the Sex Pistols’ 1977 God Save the Queen recording on the A&M label or the Rolex Daytona Lemon wristwatch with the 1970 Paul Newman 6264 dial, of which there are 11 known examples, than something that is a genuine one-off.

Wine is an interesting commodity as it is regarded by HMRC as a “wasting chattel”, so the official viewpoint is that it is something that loses value over time. This is emphatically not the case if someone is careful about what wine they elect to buy and, critically, store it properly, which means, at a time when few houses have proper cellars, professionally.

That, of course, comes with commensurate costs of roughly £1 per bottle per year, by my back-of-an-envelope

calculation, but it’s probably worth it in terms of provable storage provenance. If you enjoy a career in the wine trade you may find, as I have, that wine storage is a tax-free fringe benefit, in which case you are fortunate.

At Yapp Brothers we subscribe to the excellent, professional version of the wine-searcher.com wine evaluation website, which is a rapid and pretty reliable method of divining the probable market value of any wine in your possession.

Most wine trade professionals prefer unopened cases of 12 bottles (or equivalent) with provenance from the

I also have a bottle of Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the 2001 vintage, my youngest son’s birth year, that looks to be trading well into four figures a bottle. He’ll have to approach me when I’m in very good cheer if he wishes me to broach that.

Although it is gratifying when wines you buy inexpensively appreciate substantially in value over time, that is not the principal driver in creating a wine collection. The enjoyment is in the searching, finding, acquiring and editing wines that capture your interest. The other thing that is exceptional about wine is that if things don’t turn out as you had hoped, you can always drink it.

Jason Yapp is director of Yapp Bros in Mere, Wiltshire

br i g h t i d eas

In a nutshell: When it comes to publicity, print media is effective, events are fabulous … but should you take a punt on a YouTube series? When the online food and travel guide, TopJaw, came calling, Corkage let them in and is still reaping the rewards.

Had you heard of TopJaw before they called you?

“No, in fact I thought it was a scam because they called me while they were on the motorway on their way to Bath and said they wanted a table that evening. I had to Google them and literally my jaw hit the floor when I saw their viewing figures.

“They’re a couple of lads who are completely obsessed with food and drink. They’re quite phenomenal and very entertaining. Their films are brilliantly made and well edited and seen by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people on YouTube.”

You got voted the best out of the 15 places they visited on that particular road trip, so they must have had a great time at Corkage.

“They don’t ask for freebies, they pay for everything themselves. They’d already eaten in about four places before they got to us and they still ate and drank for England – they spent about £250 with us.

“We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of visitors here because they’ve seen us on TopJaw. It can be hard to monitor these things generally but you just know when people are coming in because of that video.

They just have that look in their eye and they recognise you and say ‘we’ve seen you on TopJaw, that’s why we’re here’ –it’s like a cult! You cannot buy that sort of publicity.”

Let’s talk about print media ... “There’s a magazine in Bath called Circus Journal. The content is very food and drinkled and we have just put one of our recipes in there with a wine pairing. The editor of the magazine has been in for some events and hosted some things here, so he’s a fan of our wine shop and our food too.

“We’re going to do a similar editorial for the Christmas edition, just with a sprinkling of pixie dust. They approached us and it’s good content for them so we don’t pay them anything.

“It helps that so much print media is also online. When Jay Rayner wrote a piece

maximising media Marty Grant Corkage, Bath

about us in The Observer some years ago, it went ballistic and six or seven years on we still get bookings off the back of that, because it comes up in online searches.”

What’s your role in The Great Bath Feast?

It takes place every September. They shut down the main bit in central Bath, and a lot of chefs, and sidekicks like me, do presentations in a cookery tent that seats a couple of hundred people. For the last couple of years it has been organised by Richard Bertinet and Richard and I are doing a slot on the Saturday. He’s going to do a couple of dishes and I’ll pair some wines. We did it last year – it was great.”

Have you got more events lined up? “Pre-Covid we were doing at least one event a week and now we’re starting to get back into gear and we will ramp events up again.

At the end of October we’re doing a thing with Toppings, our local bookshop. Oz Clarke is launching his book on English wine so we’ll be pouring English wine, from different estates that we rate, for about 100 people.

“After that we’re planning another wine event where we’ll be pouring wines with a Christmas focus, so clarets, Burgundy and things that work with turkey and sprouts. It’s not a big event, but it’s big for us. It will be free of charge but hopefully we’ll see some healthy Christmas pre-orders as a result.”

The TopJaw team

TAKE FIVE

Bastien Martinole could talk for hours about the 25 or so wineries that his company represents in the UK. We’ve agreed to keep it to five, for reasons of time and space, but it becomes clear very quickly that even then, it’s a conversation that could go on for hours.

Martinole, a Bordeaux native with a degree in winemaking and wine marketing, came to Wales to improve his English. “Then I fell in love with a Welsh girl and stayed here,” he reveals.

The company he joined has recently rebranded its agency business as RDM.

“It was previously Fine Wines Direct UK,” he says. “We were trying to separate our agency business from our core business, which is an on-trade wholesaler in Wales, a shop and online retailer.

“Fine Wines Direct UK started in 2009 and has been growing ever since. During lockdown we really started looking at supplying the independent off-trade. We doubled the size of our own bond. We were lucky because we were able to take on a warehouse next door. We’ve also got our own transport, up to a certain point. We do everything in-house so we can keep our costs very streamlined and give good value for money with everything we offer.

“We have very strong brands that we have been very successful with in the on-trade, so the next stage is to develop that to go into more independents around the country.”

BODEGA ESCORIHUELA GASCON

“This is the oldest winery in Mendoza and the wines are superb. They have organic and experimental vineyards where it is all about the terroir. I had a preconception about Argentina, which was big, heavy, jammy Malbecs, but these have refinement and elegance. They have converted me. The presentation is also good. If you look at them on the shelf, they really stand out.”

THORN-CLARKE

“We have been working with them for about a year. They just fitted into our portfolio so well. They are family-owned, and pioneers in Barossa. Their Grenache bush vines are 50 years old.

“They have a range from entry-level to super-premium. They have a leaner style for Australia. The whites have quite high acidity. The reds are very well balanced, still 14.5%-15% abv but they have a real freshness. These wines made me look at Australia in a different way.”

MARQUÉS DE CÁCERES

“We have been working with Marqués de Cáceres for about 25 years. It is a very important brand in Rioja and still owned by the the Forner family. About eight years ago they launched a new range called Excellens, aimed at the independent sector.

“The family had to flee during the civil war and went to Bordeaux. When they returned they had a French touch to their winemaking, using French oak and a shorter time in barrel. The wines were more approachable.

“You can go from entry-level to the reserva, gran reserva and super premium and just before the summer we had some library vintages. It’s great to be able to offer that range of price and style of wines.”

FAMILIA RIVERA FERNANDEZ

“The most famous of their estates is Pesquera. Sadly Alejandro Fernandez, or, as he was known, ‘the king of Tempranillo’, passed away recently. He was a very influential winemaker who helped to put Ribera del Duero on the map.

“They have four vineyards, two in Ribera del Duero and one in La Mancha and one in Zamora. The wines from Pesquera are relatively approachable in price.

“Condado de Haza in Ribera del Duero is very interesting. The vines are planted at 800m, giving the wines lovely freshness and acidity while maintaining body and complexity. The wines are quite special.”

ALLAN SCOTT

“Nigel has known Allan for over 20 years. He’s a real pioneer, one of the first to plant Sauvignon in Marlborough. He was also one of the first to plant Riesling. The Pinot Noir from Central Otago is my favourite wine, it’s absolutely incredible.

“They use indigenous yeasts, natural fermentation, no filtration, very light barrel ageing … the wines are super-elegant in a Burgundian style and yet with a fruitiness that you get from New Zealand.”

Bastien Martinole introduces some of the key agencies in the RDM Wines portfolio

From left: Greg Williams, director; Nigel O’Sullivan, owner; Bastien Martinole, sales director

CVNE Monopole Clásico Blanco 2018

It would seem odd to clap a wine in the surroundings of a trade tasting but we had to suppress the urge to do exactly that in this case. Viura is topped up with a little manzanilla and aged in sherry casks, emerging with a beguiling herbal aroma, a chalky mouth feel, salty minerality and notes of toast. Electrifying stuff.

RRP: £27.30 ABV: 13.5%

Hatch Mansfield (01344 871800) hatch.co.uk

Le Jas des Papes 2017

This Châteauneuf-du-Pape estate has been subdivided and renamed over the years, and now finds itself under the stewardship of Michel Audibert, who farms the vines organically. A wine that would enhance any Sunday roast, with elegant tannins and a darkfruit richness that is multilayered, but never gets too complicated.

RRP: £29.95 ABV: 15% Ledbury Wine (01684 299579) ledburywine.co.uk

Kelly Washington Pinot Noir 2018

The Gibbston subregion of Central Otago tends to bring out the agricultural and more herbacious personality of Pinot Noir. The 2018 vintage saw warmer conditions, so the fruit is riper and more generous in the glass than might be expected, with an enticing aroma and juicy palate.

RRP: £34.95 ABV: 14% Jeroboams Trade (020 7288 8888) jeroboamstrade.co.uk

Zuccardi Apelacíon

Cabernet Franc 2018

Mendoza’s reputation as a source of world-class Cab Franc is gaining momentum all the time and this Uco Valley example emphasises the point. A concentrated, mouthwatering wine with a well-judged blend of green notes and luscious fruit. Foudre ageing adds some polish, but you sense a hands-off approach in the cellar.

RRP: £17.75 ABV: 14.5% Hatch Mansfield (01344 871800) hatch.co.uk

Corte del Golfo Coda di Volpe Irpinia 2020

Campania’s Coda di Volpa variety translates as “tail of the fox”, which describes the pendulous appearance of bunches on the vine. This is a great all-rounder, with breezy aromas of herbs, and a languidly fruity palate, energised by some citrus notes. A really good find at a very attractive price point.

RRP: £12.99 ABV: 12.5% Buckingham Schenk (01753 521336) buckingham-schenk.co.uk

Hollick Red Ridge Shiraz Cabernet 2021

The fruit comes from Wrattonbully and Coonawarra and combines in a blend that seems to have been intended for early drinking and casual occasions. There’s just enough plummy depth, a little bit of spice, and a slight crunch. It wears its alcohol lightly, which may account for why the bottle emptied so quickly.

RRP: £9.99 ABV: 15% Daniel Lambert Wines (01656 661010) daniellambert.wine

Bodega Altocedro Los Poetas Semillon 2019

Wine drinkers in the UK have yet to fully embrace Semillon as a single varietal, which is almost certainly our loss. Here it’s on its best behaviour and eager to please: juicy and fruity, floral and tropical, but delicate at the same time, and with no oak to interrupt or contradict the message.

RRP: £13.79 ABV: 14% Condor Wines (07715 671914) condorwines.co.uk

Château Oumsiyat Cuvée

Membliarus Assyrtiko 2020

You want Assyrtiko to give you a bit of a jolt and this one, from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, certainly obliges. There’s also a little Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier in the mix, to leaven the austerity. But at heart this is, as you’d expect, a wine that’s all about freshness and minerality, with a pleasant lemony kick.

RRP: £11.75 ABV: 13% Hallgarten & Novum Wines (01582 722538) hnwines.co.uk

Christopher Lewis

so I got very good at Pop Master – my pop knowledge is superb, but only up to 1998. From Rye it’s very easy to nip up to Kent and I love the train. We have a line that goes from Ashford to Eastbourne, so I’m pretty well placed here.

On theRoad

CHRISTOPHER IS ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF JEROBOAMS WITH RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE INDEPEPENDENT TRADE IN KENT AND EAST SUSSEX

I have a love of South African wines. I worked in Johannesburg for a couple of years as well as travelling there in my gap year. I remember taking the train from Johannesburg to the Cape and waking up in the morning to the sight of the mountains at Worcester –it really is the most stunning place. I’m very fond of my South African connections and the wineries that we work with. Diemersdal has just launched a Sauvignon that’s a great success and their labels are particularly fun.

I’ve been at Jeroboams for 15 years and, until recently, I had been based in London. I’ve relocated to Rye and I’m really looking forward to working with the independents in Kent and East Sussex. Previously I was mostly focused on the on-trade and spent a lot of time working with sommeliers and buyers in restaurants. With the off-trade it’s a nice difference for me because I am often meeting with the owner of that shop. The fact that we champion family-owned wineries and work with proudly independent businesses makes it all very personal.

I always knew I wanted to sell and I have always enjoyed meeting people but I couldn’t face selling anything that was dull. I fell into wine really and I’ve always enjoyed it. It’s a very fun and rewarding career. The added benefit of course is working with all the families around the world and getting to know them.

Since I started work at Majestic Wine in 1987 I’ve also been on the wine side of various breweries including Whitbread, Eldridge Pope and Cockburn & Campbell. That’s when I used to spend my life driving. I racked up a lot of mileage and

People often ask for organic or veganfriendly wines and there are many in our portfolio. Domaine Gavoty in Provence and Château de Montfrin in the Rhône are among our organic producers, for example, but I think it is more helpful to talk about provenance. We are working with small-scale, family-owned producers with wonderful stories behind their wines. So some may not be certified organic, but they have traditionally worked in sustainable and ethical ways, and the wine is made with such care.

One of the best parties I ever had was an 18th on a boat and the whole thing was groaning with chilled vats of Blue Nun. I’ve come a long way since then! I can’t pick a favourite wine because for me it depends where you are and whom you are with. It’s all about enjoyment and whatever you feel like at the time. If you’re going to make me choose, I will say a really good Mâcon with your mates. They all tease me in the office because I joke that I have a commercial palate. I’ll never be an MW or a buyer, but I

do know what sells. I know when I’m on to something, and really at the end of the day I know the wines that will work and make the tills ring.

I’ve got a lovely collection of antique wine glasses and I hate it when I smash them. It’s quite a hotchpotch collection that I’ve bought over the years including Georgian, Art Deco and some Lalique glasses. Also, I’m outnumbered by Belgians. My wife, Cecile, is Belgian, and we even have a Belgian dog called Maud. She’s a Schipperke and a sweetie-pie and she enjoys our walks on Rye nature reserve or out at the country park in Hastings.

Favourite Things

Nervous Naked calls back founder

Naked Wines is to recall its founder and former chief executive Rowan Gormley to an advisory role as the e-commerce business said it was finalising revised plans for its strategy.

The position is unpaid and is expected to last no more than three months.

Emma & Will Evans

Wandering Palate, Eccles

Favourite wine on our list We have very different tastes in wine but we both agree on Bolney bubbly. It’s our go-to for celebrations and allows us to talk to all our customers about the merits of English sparkling wine and getting people to think outside the norm.

Favourite wine and food match White fish or mussels with Albariño; Barolo and steak; but is there anything greater than a rich, creamy cheese paired with a zippy, refreshing white?

Favourite wine trip

Earlier this year we spent a few days in Venice before hiring a car and heading west to Valpolicella, then north to Alto Adige and back south via Prosecco. Northern Italy is truly one of the most diverse and magical wine regions where you can literally see, feel and breathe the flavours from standing there.

Favourite wine trade person

Most people we know in wine are our suppliers and they’re all what we would call good friends – we’d enjoy a bottle with all of them.

Favourite wine shop

Flawd, a natural wine shop in Ancoats that’s run by restaurateurs and chefs. They put on this insane food menu cooked with just a hob or something, but each dish packs so much punch – and the wine menu, which seems to change daily, is immense.

Naked is among the e-commerce businesses that are feeling the pinch from inflation, especially the rising cost of marketing. Its shares have shed over 80% this year.

“There’s clearly a lot of nervousness around its strategy,” said Jonathan Pritchard, retail analyst at Peel Hunt. “Gormley will do a good stabilising job.” Financial Times, September 16

Magpie

Burgundy to beat carbon target

Burgundy wines are aiming for carbon neutrality by 2035, well before the national target of 2050.

The specific objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from viticulture in Burgundy by 60% by 2035, which would make it possible to reach the “incompressible base of emissions below which the viticultural activity is impossible”, Jean-Philippe Gervais, technical director at the BIVB, told AFP. Actual New Magazine, September 21

Champagne harvest may almost double

Expectations are high for the 2022 Champagne vintage thanks to a forgiving spring and favourable summer conditions.

Estimates from Agreste, the French agricultural ministry’s statistics department, predicted that the harvest in the region will be almost double that of 2021. It seems that forecast was correct, with the Comité Champagne describing this year as a “solar” vintage due to the intense summer heat.

Drinks

Vineyards at Chamery

Red blotch virus alarms Aussies

A grape disease that hasn’t been found in Australia before has been identified in three states.

Red blotch virus has been detected in South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria.

According to Australian Grape & Wine chief executive Tony Battaglene, it was picked up during random bio-security testing.

“It looks like it’s come in when people have brought in grape vines from, probably, the US,” he said.

The virus prevents photosynthesis in grape vines, impacting the fruit.

ABC, September 23

Perrin and Pitt pamper pores

Hollywood star Brad Pitt has launched a skincare range featuring active ingredients sourced from Famille Perrin’s Château de Beaucastel vineyard in the Rhône Valley.

Le Domaine Skincare features a serum, a cream, a fluid cream and a cleansing emulsion, all of which are vegan and suitable for all skin types.

The products are made from organic matter that was previously discarded after the grapes had been pressed. Decanter, September 22

• International Airlines Group has launched a new wine delivery business, which will allow customers to earn and redeem Avios [British Airways Executive Cub rewards] on purchases. The Wine Flyer will operate under a new subsidiary of IAG Loyalty, and will replace BA’s partnership with Laithwaites Wines.

Business Traveller, September 26

BURNING

?

Where in the wine world offers the best value for money at the moment?

�I’d suggest Eastern Europe, particularly Romania and Moldova. We do a Romanian Pinot Noir, Budureasca’s The Vine in Flames. We sell it at £15.99 and you could quite easily put it on the shelf as a £30 Burgundy and no one would know. Moldova has a very good winemaking history and I think we’ll see it, and other Eastern European countries, becoming more prominent, especially those that have historically traded with Russia and now want to trade with western Europe instead.

Matt Thompson H Champagne winner H Lightfoot Wines, Wentworth, South Yorks

�South Africa, without a doubt. It’s really good value. It seems to be holding the price on some amazing stuff. In the £10-£12 range, there’s the Seriously Cool Chenin Blanc from Waterkloof, which is probably the best value wine on my shelves at the moment. But I’ve got some amazing South African at £8 a bottle. False Bay is also from Boutinot. Their Chenin, Syrah, Sauvignon and Pinotage wipe the floor with anything else around at the moment.

Ann Hayes Ann et Vin, Newark, Nottinghamshire

�Italy is great value. There’s a lot of variation but that also means points of difference. Sampietrana is one of our biggest sellers. Spain is also good for value and there are a lot of wines that are new to customers from the smaller areas in the northern and central parts of the country, so we’re introducing people to things like Monastrell. We’ve also been selling a lot of Greek wines to people who are coming back from holidays. That’s good quality and value, rather than cheap.

Stuart Rothwell The Vineyard, Ramsbottom, Lancashire

�Everyone I buy wine from has faced increased costs over the last few months. France still sticks in the £10-£12 price range and Italy does some fantastic lower-priced wines. When you go off to Argentina, South Africa and the US it tends to be higher price points. The majority of wines that punch above their weight are Italian. We’ve got a beautiful Primitivo from Puglia at a good price point that delivers on flavour and has a lingering taste.

Tim Pearce Tim’s Wines, South Petherton, Somerset

Champagne Gosset

The oldest wine house in Champagne: Äy 1584

Tower Summit 2022

Nish Patel, Shenfield Wine Co

January was very good. It was February and March that were concerning. We probably lost a bit of footfall.

Although we are in an affluent town, there is definite concern and people are nervous. But when you look at the numbers, our average basket sale has actually gone up a bit. Footfall has dropped a little. I looked at it again this weekend and it’s pretty stable.

Prices have gone up because inflation has gone up, but we’ve tried to hold as much them as we can and we’ve worked hard with our suppliers to get good deals.

Will specialist thrive as the

There are unpredictable times ahead

Seven independent merchants were summoned to the Tower of London last month for a round table discussion on a variety of issues of importance to the UK wine trade.

Our coverage kicks off with a coversation surrounding the economic outlook and how indies are already being affected by the cost-of-living crisis.

More reports from the debate will appear in our November edition.

The Tower Summit is organised in association with Hatch Mansfield

I think we are quite resilient to a certain degree. I’ve looked at our entry level and I’m making sure we have a wider selection. There is a percentage of our customers who are looking for more of a bargain.

The problem we’ve faced with the rising costs is trying to replace things at the bottom end. Lots of people are quite accepting that prices will go up because we’ve seen it across the board in every single market.

Where we were able to get something in at £8 or £9, that’s suddenly £10 or £11. That’s our entry level. The difficulty of importing is that you can’t do small shipments at the bottom end any more.

Freddie Cobb, Vagabond Wines

Robin Eadon, Dulwich Vintners

There are certainly some customers who have been regulars for years and have changed their price point – there’s a certain product they’d always go for but they’ve dropped to the one below.

An example would be a crémant at £16. A few people who would ordinarily take that have gone down to the Cava at £11. That’s in Dulwich, which is historically quite recession-proof.

Like Nish, we’ve seen a slight reduction in footfall but the average spend has stayed pretty constant. For us, we’ve seen that you just cannot predict what’s going to happen. So you could have a poor Saturday for some reason and a very good Wednesday for no reason at all. It’s really unpredictable.

We’re obviously a bit more hybrid than most but I would concur with what has been said about the unpredictability. You can have a quiet Saturday but an absolutely booming Tuesday for no reason whatsoever. So managing stock levels for that can be challenging at times.

Round about July we suddenly saw our guests starting to go for more entry-level wines than they ordinarily would have done.

At Vagabond we wanted to come up with a plan at the beginning of this year to minimise costs across the supply chain and be quite imaginative in doing so. As a result we’ve been able to keep our prices relatively stable. You can definitely see in July and August, customers are going for things that are a little bit friendlier on their wallets.

Graham Holter, The Wine Merchant

When the cost-of-living crisis does bite, is that going to play out even more?

specialist wine shops the economy dives?

– and in many ways the turbulence has already arrived, indies say

Freddie Cobb, Vagabond Wines

Yes and no. People will always want to drink wine but a lot of our customers are aged 20 to 35 and they are probably feeling it a bit more than most. When they go out we think they will be looking for a meaningful experience. We think their spend on the evening will go up, but they will go out less.

I think we’ll probably hold less stock because my average spend stays the same, but I’m selling fewer units. People are looking to buy better or not buy at all. I feel that I’ve lost a lot of customers who buy at that lower price point, and I don’t do offers because I feel it devalues the product.

I think the people who buy at the middle price band are not so worried about the rising cost of living compared to the people who have upgraded from the supermarket to buy our entry-level wines. The customers buying £15 to £25 bottles or a case every week … I don’t think it’s going to affect their habits so much.

Sam Howard, HarperWells, Norwich

though our sales are up 20% on last year and are really strong, I do worry if the town struggles.

The sourdough in the deli was £4, then £4.50; it will be £5 by Christmas, and at some point customers are going to say they’ll go to Waitrose. Those bread customers also buy a bottle of wine from us, so if they stop coming in that is a concern on a small scale for us.

Mitch Swift, The Bottleneck, Broadstairs

I am more at risk of losing those customers who shop at our lowest price points of £7.50 to £10 because, as I have to increase those prices, that customer will just go to the supermarket instead.

Some customers have said to me that they only shop from me for special occasions now. You accept that you lose their custom, but at the same time you have that issue of getting the lower-end price point of wine in. Do you open yourself up to getting one or two pallets of something, knowing you are going to make a high margin, or do you swallow the margin and stock the wine?

We start at £9.99 and there’s a couple around the edge at £8.99 that we use for our trade customers. We don’t sell to hotels and traditional trade – our trade customers are concessions or wedding venues.

In terms of retail, we have seen the Tuesday spike, and we’ve put that down to people working from home. We are 90 minutes from London and we have people who have changed their working patterns. The Saturday moving to a Tuesday is just because of that.

Our neighbouring shops are really struggling. They are opening more erratic hours and you can see their stock levels in their displays are way down. One of our little delis is in a small market town of about 9,000 people. If it becomes an unattractive place for people to wander around then that is a problem for us. Even

Conor Nolan, The Secret Cellar, Kent I’ve worked Saturdays and they can be really quiet – and then midweek can be mad. And then the Saturdays in August, when I thought everyone would be away, were bumper Saturdays. You just can’t predict it.

A £2.5k energy cap is still a large amount of money for anybody to pay and I think, come October 1, people are going to go, “woah, what’s going on?”. If you look at the fuel prices and everything else going on in the world, you can’t look at your crystal ball and say it’s going to be a good Christmas. We don’t know what it will look like. Will they buy in advance?

We bought Whispering Angel for the Jubilee but Waitrose were discounting the hell out of it. But the people who came in for it paid full price for it and didn’t care.

Our four shops have very different demographics. Tunbridge Wells has no parking and there are a lot of people working from home, so we do a lot of deliveries, and they want volume. Oxted is next to the station and we get a lot of

Tuesday to Thursday trade; you don’t see so much on Monday and Friday. At Wadhurst we have parking, so people come in their cars and bulk buy. We get people who we’ve never seen before, who are just passing through, and they drop a grand on high-end wine. Then you get the regular people who come in. It’s a very mixed business.

Graham Holter, The Wine Merchant

As a supplier, how is Hatch Mansfield making sense of the current economic climate?

what are we here to do? We need add value in the supply chain and we want you to work with us.

We tend to start at about £8; there are some wines that are a bit lower. We had a lot of people ask if our prices were going up in September. They didn’t. We aspire to have one price list once a year. It would have to be something catastrophic to change that.

We’re not just selling to indies. We are not small, so we can absorb certain things. We print a price list and send it out to all our customers. It’s expensive to reprint all your prices and then start having those difficult conversations. That’s time spent on doing things that ultimately aren’t that constructive.

Graham Holter, The Wine Merchant

The accepted wisdom is that specialist wine shops tend to do OK in an economic downturn, especially as people spend less on eating out but want nice wines to drink at home. Is that the way things are likely to pan out this time?

Sam Howard, HarperWells, Norwich

can’t re-negotiate a better deal across two shops – and people with more shops and multiple fridges etc have done their own maths – that is a problem, because that’s just bottles going out of the shop for free.

James Manson, Hatch Mansfield

Historically we’ve always done things fairly counter-intuitively. In the global financial crisis wine importers were letting people go and we employed more people because we saw it as an opportunity to go out and try to win some market share.

We are fully aware there are challenges coming for the indie sector and we want to work with our customers, listen to them and do things that will add value and help.

When lockdown hit we took the decision to reduce our minimum order to £250 from £500. Actually, in hindsight, we didn’t need to do it because everyone’s minimum orders went up because as we all know retail sales increased significantly.

We’ve kept it in place, though, because as Mitch says, managing cash flow is really important. Our view is if we’re not holding stock or helping with things like that, then

In the last recession I was dealing with private clients. I was young and it was an unnerving time for me but people swapped into buying ultra-premium wines, and high net worth individuals did lay cases down and did come out of it fine.

This time round I don’t see it being fundamentally any different with those kinds of customers. But if we look at our own energy costs, if they double and we

Freddie Cobb, Vagabond Wines

We’ve got machines, fridges, lights, music … whatever it might be, in all our stores. The last thing we want to do is be in the position where we are having to decide whether to keep that fridge on or let that part-timer go, or vice versa.

We all know that the teams within each store are just as important as the wines themselves. We are just having to put pressure on the government wherever we possibly can and try to get help from elsewhere like VAT cuts, duty rates, things like that. We need help.

Robin Eadon, Dulwich Vintners

We upped our stock levels a bit ahead of Brexit and were bringing in stuff from Europe because of the uncertainty and that stayed in place during Covid. We do always run at quite a high stock level, which does mean we can insulate ourselves slightly against those things. But the biggest cost for us is always rent and wages.

You have to make the decision whether to pack the store with part-time staff who possibly aren’t able to reflect your proposition perfectly, or do you trim your team down and run with really good people who represent you well? Then you have to look at all sorts of things like

“In the last recession, private clients were buying ultra-premium wines and laying cases down”

trimming down hours, or opening on different days just to try and manage it.

The rising cost of living also means that job seekers are looking for a higher wage.

Since the last economic downturn, I think the people who are drinking wine have changed. You do get that 20 to 30-year-old age bracket who never would have gone to their independent to buy something fun or different. We have people drinking fine wine out of plastic cups in the park. I don’t know whether those people are going to change the way they think about those costs or not.

We’re not really concentrating too much on trimming down. We are more interested in trying to push the things that we’re good at: trying to get more people drinking wine and trying to up their average spend.

Mitch Swift, The Bottleneck, Broadstairs

That younger category is so used to spending so much money on a night out, that one bottle of wine at £15 to £25 is less than a night out. They go to a pub and buy Pinot Grigio at £8 a glass.

I think this younger demographic is a really good group that has moved on to buying wine because they want to learn. They are open to talk to us and experiment and try things.

Nish Patel, Shenfield Wine Co

I agree with Robin. Covid has been an

amazing two years for the independent wine industry. I opened a year before the financial crash and we grew throughout the whole 10 years. Our demographic is very different to what it was. Over the last two years we’ve seen a lot more younger

Tower Summit 2022

ASSOCIATION WITH

people, 20 to 30-year-olds, coming in. They are not necessarily that well-educated but they are open to spending serious money on wine because they want a journey.

James Manson, Hatch Mansfield

Those younger people who are coming in spending the money haven’t yet gone through a financial crisis, so maybe come October I think there could be a bit of a wake-up call.

I think there’s a big unknown round how this cost-of-living crisis directly impacts wine production. So whether you are looking at the increasing costs from yields going down due to climate issues, or the cost of glass and packaging … up until February glass was still going up in price, then all of a sudden the crisis in Ukraine happens and the price of glass goes through the roof. Then fuel costs are directly impacting the drinks business as a whole.

Sam Howard, HarperWells, Norwich

That’s exactly my point. In the financial crisis you could take that philosophy and you could say, ‘I need 50 grand’s worth of sales’ and you could go out and practically do it, but this time you can’t do it because the supply chain is so broken.

We had a two-pallet order of Prosecco going in and out to a private school for its summer event and the price was negotiated, there was no backing out from it. The order was placed eight or 12 weeks

in advance and confirmed, but they ran out of glass. The big supplier helped us out and shifted about and found UK stock for us, pulling it off other accounts. But we had to meet them in the middle, at 50p a bottle.

Conor Nolan, The Secret Cellar, Kent

We’re looking at Christmas now and asking are we going to buy direct from producers or UK suppliers, and the answer is all UK supply – the simple reason being that we don’t have to commit to pallets and pallets of something, and that keeps your cash flow going.

“We’re not really concentrating too much on trimming down. We are more interested in pushing the things we’re good at”

Let’s talk about colour

The days of wine being simple to pigeonhole as red, white or perhaps pink are long gone. The lines are blurring all the time, and that’s something we should embrace, argues David Williams

We wine people love to talk up the sophistication of our favoured product. We can go on for hours, weeks – careers – about the endless complexities and variables of its production methods, origins, ingredients, and the artisans or artists who interpret them.

And yet, when it comes down to the daily nitty-gritty of selling wine, we still rely on the most basic categories imaginable: more than country, region, grape variety or sweetness, the most important factor in dictating where a wine appears in a shop or a wine list, and in defining when and who will pick it up and buy it, is colour.

We all know people (or have customers) who define themselves by colour: the red-wine drinker who will only ever be talked into a glass of white once the temperature’s officially exceeded 35°C, and even then would probably rather switch to beer. Or the white-wine-only people who find red “too dry” or have read something somewhere about tannin and hangovers. And fair enough, I can see why the rigid, binary categories are useful for them.

Increasingly, however, I’m finding the habit of prioritising colour as a shorthand for wine style to be somewhat limiting when it comes to understanding, navigating and enjoying wine as it’s

actually made today. There are too many wines that don’t fit in the boxes they’re given; too many in which the colour is actually a pretty poor guide to the structure, weight, texture and flavours you can expect once you start drinking them.

The engine for this train of thought was set in motion during a recent visit to Alsace. As with their peers in other areas of the world with a high concentration of smaller and, for want of a better word, artisanal producers, the winegrowers of

Alsace have been playing around with the maceration times of their white wines. This has led to some really intriguing creations that sit on varying points on the spectrum that these days is now generally labelled “orange”.

Some producers were happy to use the term; some were in fact consciously making a wine to fit the “orange” category in response to demand from their customers. Others, however, notably natural wine-scene favourite Jean-Pierre Frick, rather chafed at the description. While the three enticing burnished ambergold wines Frick showed me over dinner would most definitely fit on the orange spectrum (and are indeed sold as such by importer Les Caves de Pyrene and other retailers), Frick himself preferred to stick to the term “macerated”.

There was a similar reticence at another of the region’s star producers, Josmeyer, which makes a wine from very old-vine Pinot Gris with a week-long maceration that, thanks to the colour in the grapes’ skins, has a lovely pink hue and flavours –fresh strawberries, gentle peppery spice –that might tempt some retailers to put it in the rosé section, or, given the subtle tannic squeeze, the red, but which could also, given its varietal composition, be sold as a white (and indeed, a quick consultation

Céline and Isabelle Meyer of Josmeyer

online tells me that is exactly how many retailers categorise it).

Confused? Well, the boundaryhopping only continued as the week progressed. There were Pinot Noir wines by the likes of Léon Boesch and Domaine Bohn so gently infused and pale in the glass that, while undoubtedly qualifying as red wines, could easily be placed on the darker (Tavel-like) end of rosé. Some of Zind-Humbrecht’s intensely powerful and resonant Grand Cru Gewürztraminers, while exhibiting classic gold-white wine colour, had a tannic pull

that, tasted blindfold, could very easily have you expecting an orange or very light red.

Of course, Alsace is only a microcosm: this colour-fluid, pigment-bending trend has been happening all over the world over the past couple of decades, challenging the traditional rigid, binary categories, inspiring all kind of experimentation and leading to some of the most exciting winemaking – and wines – around. Tasting at the Dirty Dozen in London in September, I was struck by how many of the wines on offer from the 12 importers, no matter how they were labelled in the catalogue,

seemed to fit into the centre of a Venn diagram where all the colours – red, white, rosé, orange and amber – meet.

Indeed, it’s the predominance of these wines – the lightly “infused” reds, the macerated whites, the textural rosés – at what might be called the cutting edge of wine that is the most significant legacy of all the Sturm und Drang of the natural wine revolution.

Does that mean the end of wine’s colour obsession? Quite the opposite. It’s time we started celebrating colour as we do flavour in all its multifaceted, confusing and sometimes-contradictory glory.

ANDREW WILSON

Outside the box

Couriers sense big business with drinks deliveries. So why all the secrecy?

This was followed by a “trip test”, which simulates being carried at a one-metre height and then the carrier tripping and the box being thrown two metres forwards, with a requirement for the box to roll over several times in the process. It’s worth saying that this test is far harsher than the ISTA (international standards) drop tests (80cm dropped twice, with a shake test to simulate travelling in a van).

You have to ask why you would send your valuable drinks products with a courier that thought this might happen to your parcel in transit in the first place. While I can see the point of testing for a worst-case scenario, we would not expect a case of wine to be accidentally dropped more than once in transit, and pretty much the whole of our range would pass this test.

Over the years, we’ve tried to establish which couriers take bottles and liquids and what, if any, information they provide on the minimum level of packaging required. It has almost always proven trickier than you might think.

No courier wants to be the first to openly advertise that they carry bottles and liquids. It’s very much down to individual sales personnel and depots to agree with their customers. But things are finally starting to change. The boom in internet sales of drinks over the last few years has opened the couriers’ eyes to a large and profitable market ripe for the picking.

We recently made some minor tweaks to the design of our six- and 12-bottle transit packs that had already been approved by a well-known courier, which meant going through the whole approval process again, despite the fact that hundreds of the packs were going through their network each day with minimal issues.

I thought I’d share our recent experience of getting our transit packaging approved.

It might offer some insight into what’s involved and what couriers are doing to support the wine trade.

It’s interesting for anyone who sends wines regularly to know that one- to threebottles and magnum packs are not a major concern for couriers, as long as they’re sensibly packed in strong double-wall outers and the bottles are separated.

Four-, six- and 12-bottle packs are a different matter completely. Ours were required to pass an initial “drop test”, which involves being dropped from a height of one metre, five times – on the base, on a long side, on a short side, the bottom corner and on the top corner.

Once the initial drop test is passed, it’s monitored for around 400 to 500 consignments through the courier’s network before being given final approval. Once approved, it still doesn’t mean your bottles are insured; standard information on insurance is still very much a grey area. As we understand it, it’s down to the individual contract with your local depot and is generally a cost on top.

The good news for the wine industry, and for us as a packaging supplier, is that finally our packs for one, two, three, four, five and six bottles, as well as magnum shipping boxes, are courier approved, with our popular 12-bottle version still being worked on. Other couriers we’ve spoken to seem more relaxed … but unwilling to allow us to market to our customers that our packaging is approved.

I’ll never completely understand why there’s so much secrecy surrounding how best to send wine and with whom, but here’s a little insider tip. While we are not in a position to openly promote any courier’s packaging approval agreement specifically, talk to APC and Parcelforce before some other couriers. They seem the most helpful – and are not expecting to drop your parcel six times in transit.

Reggio Emilia

Andrew Wilson is chairman of WBC

The initial test involves the box being dropped from a height of one metre, five times, followed by a trip test, rolling over several times

José Tejedor

I always wanted to be back in the country I was born. I am from Rioja, with family from Zamora and Navarra. After years working at wineries all over the world, I feel fortunate to be back in such a special area, a world reference for quality wine and with such a fantastic quality of life.

Working for a family with such a long winemaking tradition and sharing its values is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Being part of a historic winery founded in the 19th century is an honour and a great responsibility. And working under the leadership of Almudena Alberca MW is a dream come true.

Cosme Palacio is and has been an innovative winery since the outset. Innovation and overcoming challenges is part of our DNA. We have modern facilities that allow us to express the terroir through the wine and guarantee maximum control of the entire production process and, therefore, excellent quality. Cosme Palacio wines are a unique example of harmony, balance and expressiveness, thanks to a series of pioneering decisions that were made in the early 1980s, such as the exhaustive selection of grapes, the separate vinification of each vineyard, ageing in the best French oak barrels and extended maceration. They are elegant wines, adapted to the present times.

We believe that Laguardia is a unique place to grow Tempranillo and Viura because of its terroir, with its chalky bedrock and its cooler microclimate giving

Chief Winemaker Bodegas Cosme Palacio, Laguardia, Rioja

greater freshness and elegance to the wines, coupled with the long history of its people in vine growing. The Cosme Palacio range has always been ahead of its time in being made from grapes solely from this area, rather than blended across Rioja, and the new village category of Vino de Laguardia allows us to highlight the fact that the wines reflect the distinctive soul of this incredible place.

This is one of the earliest harvests in Rioja. We have to be very careful to monitor the ripeness and the level of tannins. This year has been one of the warmest in Rioja’s history but the vines have survived incredibly well, bearing in mind that all the vines that supply grapes for the Cosme Palacio range are over 30 years of age, with some very old parcels going into the 1894 wines, so they are better placed to cope with drought than younger vines. It is going to be a challenging harvest but we are used to giving the best of ourselves to get the best from the grapes.

Working in a sustainable way in the vineyard and managing our resources in a responsible way is essential. And that same philosophy continues throughout the winemaking process, with the entire team working to ensure the winery remains an icon of Rioja across the world.

We are at a very exciting stage in the development of the winery. Guided by one of our strategic pillars of the company, which is excellence in the production of prestigious wines, we have implemented

The winery is named after its revolutionary founder, Don Cosme

Palacio, who established it in Rioja Alavesa in 1894, creating one of the region’s most innovative and modernising forces.

This year, José took over as chief winemaker following a career that has taken him to France and Chile, reporting to winemaking director Almudena Alberca MW.

Wines imported by North South Wines

several significant changes in the winery. We have revived a very personal style of the winery and launched Cosme Palacio Blanco Reserva – first vintage 2018 – a few months ago, a new wine that reinforces the winery’s commitment to the great white wines of Rioja.

Cosme Palacio Blanco Reserva 2018, DOCa Rioja

92 points, Tim Atkin MW

The selection of Viura grapes from 40+ year old parcels and lightly toasted French oak barrels where the wine is aged for 10 months on its lees, followed by 24 months in bottle, make this a seductive expression of white Rioja with creamy, buttery notes of fine patisserie.

Cosme Palacio Vino de Laguardia 2018, DOCa Rioja

94 points, James Suckling

The very embodiment of elegant Laguardia Tempranillo, from vineyards at 500m-600m altitude, aged for 12 months in new French oak: concentrated forest fruits balanced with freshness, mineral notes and a long finish.

Cosme Palacio 1894 Tinto 2017, DOCa Rioja

95 points, Tim Atkin MW 1894 marks the foundation of the winery, and this wine, from low-yielding old vines planted in 1920 at more than 600m altitude, reflects the best combination of tradition and innovation. The parcels are vinified separately and aged for at least 15 months in 500-litre French oak casks.

GLENFARCLAS SINGLE CASK: PERFECTED OVER 53 YEARS

A limited-edition release presented in a bespoke Glencairn Crystal decanter

Glenfarclas has launched a special edition of its Highland single malt. Aged for 53 years in a firstfill Oloroso Sherry cask, the natural rich colour, complex flavours and treacle toffee aromas provide a snapshot of the time that the cask was laid down over half a century ago.

In the 1960s Glenfarclas was at the heart of a revolution in the world of whisky that saw distilleries begin to express their own styles and bottle under their own single malt labels. The Speyside distillery began to expand and new warehouses and stills were added, along with a new pipeline to supply more spring water from Ben Rinnes. The company also started bottling under bond and exporting 12-year-old single malt to Switzerland, the US and Germany.

Times may have changed, but it’s what has stayed the same that makes Glenfarclas unique. With over 185 years of family ownership, the company is now under the direction of fifth-generation family member and owner John Grant. The Glenfarclas spirit and family pride continues in the quality of its famous single malt whisky, renowned for its excellence across the world.

The 1960s were a special time at Glenfarclas. Coal remained the primary source of fuel, there was still a curling rink, cattle courts for dairy and only 15 warehouses on site; today there are 38, with four more on the horizon. This period followed a relaxation of post-war barley rationing and the repeal of the 1880 Spirits Act (that banned mashing and

doubling

Rich and tantalisingly smooth, this limited bottling of 168 is presented in bespoke decanters handcrafted by Glencairn Crystal.

DUNCAN

MCLEAN

Northabout Big cruise liners provide a miniature opportunity that’s worth grabbing

oblige with a 10 Year Old miniature but, as we’re often told, “we can get Highland Park at home”. And that’s whether home is Kent or Kentucky. Scapa is a rarer beast, and more sought after. But sadly, 5cl bottles are an extinct species.

Can’t they buy a full-size bottle? In theory, yes, and a few do. However, they’re not allowed to keep them once they’re back on board. A significant part of the liner’s income is from charging steep prices at its bars, for not especially interesting wines and spirits. (A passenger told me yesterday their onboard choice was Grant’s or Grouse.) The last thing they want is anyone smuggling fine single malts into their cabins to drink from their coffee cups.

Any bottles taken onboard must be surrendered to the purser, who only returns them when they reach the ship’s home port. Hence the popularity of miniatures, which can be hidden in a pocket or handbag – or sipped from discreetly while wandering the streets of Kirkwall.

What of the wine, you ask? For the same reason, we sell few bottles to cruise passengers, though we have been able to strike up a relationship with a couple of the smaller, quality-focused liners and top up their stocks whenever they dock here.

Cargo-laden sailing ships no longer stop off in Orkney waters as they did in the 19th century. The great naval fleets of the first and second world wars, when Scapa Flow was the headquarters of North Atlantic operations, are long gone. Once or twice a week, oil tankers arrive to drink their fill at the Flotta terminal. I see them, newly anchored, as I drive home from the shop in the evening. The following morning they’re gone.

The most visible ships these days – and for us, most economically significant –are the cruise liners. Around 170 stop here every year, mostly between May and September, making Orkney the most popular cruise destination in the UK.

It would be a grossly inattentive shopkeeper who didn’t pay attention to 125,000 visitors strolling past their

front door. Especially when the resident population is only 22,000, and the nearest city (Inverness) is five hours away by car and ferry. The winter months are long and dark, and generally very quiet. It’s crucial that we find what these cruisers want – and give it to them.

Unfortunately, what they often want is something no one can give them: miniatures of Scapa Single Malt. Our other whisky distillery, Highland Park, does

Luckily, we see plenty of independent travellers here for a week or a fortnight. If we catch them before they gravitate to the supermarkets, we can supply them with everything they want, and often surprise them with the quality and range of the wine we offer.

Meeting up with retailers from across the country at portfolio tastings this spring, I was envious of how many reported soaring sales during the Covid years. The total lack of tourists in 2020, and the much-reduced numbers in 2021, came close to snuffing out our 163-year-old business. But we survived. And with planned liner visits up in 2023, and hoteliers reporting bumper bookings, it may be that those same tourists, whose absence nearly sunk us, will see us through the impending cost-ofliving crisis, when locals turn to homebrew and Lidl.

Reggio Emilia

Duncan McLean is proprietor of Kirkness & Gorie, Kirkwall

Any bottles taken onboard must be surrendered to the purser, who only returns them when they reach the ship’s home port

Thinking alike … most of the time

Majestic Wine is something of a pantomime villain in the independent trade – the big-spending, big-box rival that we love to hate. Indeed it often seems that some indies define their existence by being everything that Majestic is not.

And yet Majestic has actually helped the indie sector thrive, by recruiting, training and enthusing a conveyor belt of talent. Its alumni have gone on to set up countless indie wine businesses, Grape Minds being a case in point.

Michael Jelley and Graeme Woodward got to know each other at the Majestic branch in Summertown, Oxford. “I came in as a trainee in 2016 and Graeme had been there for some time since he graduated,” says Michael. “It was a really strong team.”

The pair opened their own shop, in the familiar environs of Summertown, in 2018 and made enough progress to open a second, about 20 miles away in the south Oxfordshire market town of Wallingford last year. A wine bar, in Oxford, is on the cards, to be financed partly through crowdfunding.

That arm of the business is a separate legal entity. Grape Minds itself has three other shareholders, two of whom have family connections and one who is a customer.

Graeme Woodward and Michael Jelley became firm friends at Majestic and went into business in 2018 as independents.

Would that friendship survive the trials of running a wine business of their own? The opening of a second branch, in 2021, and the imminent arrival of a Grape Minds wine bar, should give some clues to the answer.

“They are all very supportive, so we are very lucky,” says Jelley. “As far as we know they are not looking for an exit and if they were we’d buy them out, no qualms. It does seem to be working and growing.

“We haven’t taken out any loans: it was the way we wanted to be secure in the first place. It’s strong enough that, if the business took a dive for a bit, we could hopefully ride it out.”

How has the second shop here in Wallingford been working out for you?

By Graham Holter and Claire Harries

Michael: It’s flown. We’ve been excessively pleased with how it’s taken off. We thought it would work but that it would be a slower burn, and actually it started breaking even within a few weeks, so we’re pretty happy.

I always thought this was a pretty good location and I’ve got a few friends who live here who thought it would be a place where a wine shop would thrive. So we had a look around and saw the wine selection in Waitrose was pretty high-end; there’s a thriving

Graeme Woodward (left) and Michael Jelley, shortly before the Wallingford branch opened in 2021

wine bar already, and a good bookshop and a butcher, and those are all fairly positive indicators that people want to shop in independents.

Graeme: The turnover of Summertown is bigger, but that’s because we’re about to reach our fourth anniversary soon. We hit the ground running from day one because Michael and I were both working in Summertown before we opened, so we knew everyone.

Wallingford was more of a step into the unknown, so we’re building that customer base from a position of zero. You have to remind yourself at times we’re not expecting to take the same amount

“There’s a thriving wine bar already, and a good bookshop and a butcher, and those are fairly positive indicators that people want to shop in independents”

of money as Summertown. Actually, we think we have already garnered a loyal customer base. The reception has been wonderful. Personally, I’m really excited to be heading into the Christmas trading period with this first year at Wallingford under our belts. This is where the hard work will really pay dividends.

How have you organised the staffing across the two sites?

Michael: I’m mainly in here and Graeme in Summertown but that’s down to geography. I live on the east side of Oxford and he lives in Witney.

Graeme: Luc [Bouet], our manager at Wallingford, is leaving us soon because he has a wonderful job at Corney & Barrow as a fine wine buyer. For a chap as young as he is, it’s an incredible opportunity.

We’re obviously gutted because he’s fantastic, but we are really pleased for him and when other young, ambitious people want to come and join us, we can point to Luc and how we’ve helped him progress. We’ve already booked in our first dinner with him so we can catch up with how he’s getting on. We’ll all bring a wine.

At Summertown, there are two other full-time staff with me. We have an assistant manager and a full-time trainee sales assistant. They are two wonderful people, Gillian Beattie and David Morton, who both came to us as a result of lockdown and decided to change their careers to something they really enjoyed. They wanted to work with people and with a product they loved.

Michael Rosewarne will be Luc’s replacement.

How much bigger is the Summertown shop?

Michael: In floor space it’s negligible, about 10%, but storage space, almost infinitely. There’s a cellar under that shop that’s probably the size of this floor space, if not bigger, and a triple garage out the back.

What does each of you bring to the business? Do you have different strengths?

Michael: We seem to make things work. Graeme and I are similar enough that we don’t have wildly different ideas about things and different enough that we can complement each other’s skill sets.

He’s very good at detail; things that need to happen. Ordering ahead of time, making sure that everything we need to do every week gets done. I’m quite good at designing a system and forgetting about it two weeks later. In terms of making sure that the money works out and we’re paying and being paid properly, he’s extremely good. Graeme: We are both maths graduates who decided not to take a career in the City but to sell wine for a living. We both love our sport and eating nice food, so yes, we are very similar people, but luckily those slight differences we have in our characters seem to work well together. There are certain things that Michael can do that I can’t and vice versa, which is

pretty good as it tends to mean we have most things covered.

Has being in business tested your friendship?

Michael: Not really. We were friends in the context of working together, so that kind of helps. We have an appreciation of what each other does so there’s never any resentment or difficulty.

Given your Majestic background, were there things you wanted to emulate from that business, and things you wanted to veer away from?

Michael: In all seriousness I think Majestic do a pretty good job with most things. There were things that we thought they didn’t do brilliantly, particularly on the commercial side. Obviously having people who have tasted all of the wines is helpful, which we do.

Graeme: Majestic was a brilliant grounding. They taught me everything about running a shop. Since leaving Majestic and setting up Grape Minds, we’ve pinched the things we love and tried to improve on the things we don’t.

The fact that Majestic have two prices, a single

“Majestic was a brilliant grounding. They taught me everything about running a shop”

bottle price and a multi-bottle price, we love. But what we really don’t love is that feeling that if you go in and buy a single bottle, you are probably paying over the odds for it.

We have got two prices on everything and, hand on heart, we think if you are buying a single bottle of anything in the shop you are getting good value, and if you buy a case you are getting great value.

The admin involved is heavy but to me, one of the downsides of independent shops is their slightly quirky pricing. If you’re in the supermarket, you know everything is going to be the price as advertised, but you go into an independent and something is £12 and you get offered a 7% discount, for example, the customer doesn’t really know what they are spending. So rather than relying on the customers to do the mental arithmetic for themselves, we wanted really clear and transparent pricing.

Do you still work with your original suppliers?

Michael: Most of them, yes. There are a few who have come and gone. As long as they help us get the wine our customers want then we tend to stick with people. We’ve found some easier to work with

Late afternoon in the Wallingford shop. Jelley expected a slow start, but the store was breaking even within weeks

than others but, by and large, it’s been pretty good.

A lot of importers are struggling with Brexit, Covid, fuel tariffs, transport hold-ups etc, so most people are getting things wrong. There’s a very small amount of people who are still able to give us the level of service we thought they would and had done previously. Of course, there are valid reasons, but all we ever really want from a supplier is to tell us if it’s going to go wrong, so we can tell our customers and put an alternative in place. There are things that are frustrating.

Liberty were absolutely brilliant in their performance over Covid. They couldn’t have been more wonderful in how they handled things, how their deliveries worked and their understanding of business continuity. They got that absolutely right.

Where’s your entry-level price for wine?

Michael: £7.25. You can definitely get something under £10 that is worth recommending. Under £8 there’s probably about 10 lines. We look to Moreno, mostly, and some stuff we import direct.

Graeme: We started off direct importing about four years ago, from one winery in Italy. We’re probably up to 60 or 70 wineries now, mainly from France, Italy and a little bit from South Africa.

I guess 90% of our Bordeaux range is imported by ourselves. Our Loire Valley range is imported by us and it’s brilliant because you get to deal with winemakers. It’s been tricky to manage over the last year with the increased costs of shipping and the delays. A large part of what I do is forecasting and ordering and working with those wineries. It means we have brilliant wines that we love and if a customer has a question, we get to WhatsApp the winemaker. That’s something an independent can do. A multiple or a supermarket will never have that ability.

It’s relatively easy to go and find a nice Provence rosé for a medium price point, but it’s not that easy to go and find a really great selection of house red and white from the south of France and Italy so you can have different options for customers.

Out of the wines you are direct importing, what percentage of those are on the shelves at under £10?

Graeme: If I look at our Loire Valley shelf, 40%

“A lot of importers are struggling with Brexit, Covid, fuel tariffs, transport holdups etc, so most people are getting things wrong. Of course, there are valid reasons”

Michael Jelley outside the branch in Wallingford, a town where locals like to support independent traders

of it is under £10. There is definitely still value to be found in the Loire and there’s not many styles you can’t find there either.

We have one Bordeaux under £10, one at £10.50 and one at £11, but out of those 30 wines, to have six of them under £14 is good.

We focused early on in having a really good range at under £10 because we didn’t want people to think we’d just turned up in Summertown to sell really expensive wine. We have put a lot of effort into them and they are brilliant. As a result they have remained core to the range and now a lot of the wine we bring in is more £12 to £20 bottles, and there is a lot of interest in our more esoteric wines, such as wines from Jura or an Alsatian Pinot Blanc that’s been aged on its lees for six months.

I feel that in Summertown we have been able to do that because we’ve taken those customers on a journey.

What are the mainstays of your range or does it vary?

Michael: There’s a slight difference between the two shops. We have a very good house Champagne. We also have the Hundred Hills, which we are very lucky with; it’s pretty spectacular. It’s distinctively English, you’re not getting a Champagne approximation, you are getting something with really concentrated fruit, lovely freshness of acidity and the balance is spot on.

We’ve got two reds, one Lyme Bay and one from Black Book and they are both brilliantly interesting wines. I really like the Seyval Blanc [from Black Book] which we showed at a tasting. It’s fab, bright and fruity, so it’s a little bit more Prosecco-ish. But it’s traditional method and you get a really deep leesy flavour to it as well, so it’s extremely unusual.

We’re quite traditional here, probably more so in Wallingford than in Summertown, but the people who go off-piste have got free rein in here. Luc and I have got a few customers that we’ve really built a rapport with and can recommend things we know they’ll have fun with.

Do you run tasting events?

Michael: Yes, twice a week. Mostly they are ticketed events, but if people buy something the discounts mean it’s basically a free event, and if they don’t buy anything then they will have had a fun evening for a reasonable price. We do private tastings as well. The cost varies but ideally we cover the cost of the wine plus £50 for whoever spends their evening working.

Is there anything you’d like to go bigger on in the range or perhaps shrunk down a bit?

Michael: Initially we found it difficult to source good value Rioja, and we’ve now got too much, because we got too excited whenever we found a good one. White Burgundy is more and more difficult to source at an affordable price and there’s no let-up in appetite for it. You just need a shop that’s 50% as big again so you can fit everything you like on the shelves, really.

Graeme: We would like our fortified and spirits range to be broader. We’ve only got finite space, so quite where we’d pinch that extra space from, I’m not sure. When you compare our sales to other independents I think we probably come up short

in diversity when it comes to having Pineau des Charentes or mezcal – the sort of spirits that people turn to an independent for. That’s one of my jobs between now and Christmas.

Have you always been pretty disciplined about keeping the range at a manageable level?

Michael: The most satisfying wine you buy is the cheap wine. The one where you go, “gosh, I can sell this for less than a tenner, and it’s great”. That’s a real joy. I have more confidence that if it’s a bit weird and a bit more expensive, we can sell it, as we are quite good at finding the right customer for the slightly less usual bottle of wine.

Graeme is quite good at reining me in and pointing out that if we only have three of those particular customers then we don’t need 20 bottles of that wine on the shelves.

Now you’re planning a wine bar in Oxford. Tell us more.

Graeme: The crowd-funder for the wine bar officially launched the day after the Queen passed away and we thought, do we push it back or do we go for it?

We didn’t feel it was right to shout about it and be all-singing and all-dancing. So we launched and I reached out individually to everyone who had

Each bottle is displayed with “clear and transparent” pricing for both single bottles and half cases

already expressed an interest.

With 10 days left we’re about £10k off our target, so we are on track – we had 28 days to raise £25k. Now I’m back from holiday, I’m going to drum up some more interest on social media.

I know I said before that we might open it pre-Christmas, but it will definitely be a February opening.

It’s been wonderful to listen to so many customers come in and tell us that they’ve been waiting for a wine bar to come along and that it’s exactly what they need. You wouldn’t swap that reaction for the world.

What else do you think will happen next year?

Michael: I think there will be more things to come. The thing we set out to do when we first started, and it was just the two of us in Summertown, was to be as prepared as we could be to seize whatever opportunity presented itself.

We had a van, even though we didn’t really need one very often, until the pandemic, and then suddenly we had the capacity to go large. Having three people in each shop, capable of looking after them when we’re not there, means that when something presents itself we can hopefully move more quickly.

Our online presence isn’t as strong as it might be, so it might be a case of bringing warehouse operations into play and doing that more effectively. If we spot somewhere that comes up and we can staff it, we will move as we need to.

“The most satisfying wine you buy is the cheap wine. The one where you go, ‘gosh, I can sell this for less than a tenner, and it’s great’.”

Graeme: I totally agree. We just want to be in a position where if we spot an opportunity we can go with it. We are looking forward to Michael [Rosewarne] getting settled at Wallingford so Michael [Jelley] can come back and work at Summertown, so we can work together a bit more closely again.

As wonderful as the expansion has been, we’ve only socialised about three times in two years. We need to go back to being those two friends who work together and have the inspiration for the business.

Who knows what the wider world has in store for us over the next 12 months, but the new wine bar will keep us busy. We just have to keep agile and try and react the best we can.

TIM PEYTON

platform for all manner of craft beverages, such as premixed cocktails, mezcal, natural wines and of course the latest array of craft beer specials. Specialising in each of these niches allowed us to attract a diverse customer base.

Notes from the shop floor

Specialise in more than just wine by recruiting a genuine all-rounder

Enter any wine shop across the country and you’re bound to encounter some beers and spirits. But very few outlets will devote equal space to wine and, say, beer or treat them with the same degree of respect.

Why is this? Is beer seen as an inherently lesser relation to wine, something not worth investing in? Or is it just that a wine shop is a simpler proposition than a “drinks store”, and perhaps the owner’s passions lie primarily in wine? Perhaps there’s also a tacit acceptance that it’s not possible to be a one-stop shop for all boozy needs. “We’ll stick to our strengths and let others stick to theirs ...”

But why limit yourself to just your strengths? In hiring a broad range of people, it is possible to expand your specialism into other areas, and thus broaden your customer base and appeal. The ideal scenario is surely that your business becomes synonymous with quality alcohol in all shapes and forms in your area.

I used to get enormous satisfaction from the customer who, after selecting a few bottles of wine, turned around to grab a few beers too, and maybe a bottle of hot sauce from the counter. Diversity of product creates a bigger pool of customers, and more avenues in which word-of-mouth promotion (still the best form of PR) can travel.

From my experience as retail manager

for Real Drinks, I’ve seen it is possible, though hard, to provide something for everyone. But it isn’t possible without the right people. Most of our shops were a completely even split of beer and wine. This combatted the common perception of us as a beer shop – after all, we were called Real Ale for 15 years.

We achieved this by spreading the expertise of staff across beer, wine and spirits, giving the experts in their field a degree of autonomy in product selection and allowing their investment in the range to push sales, and train other staff. So, while the business was set up primarily as a beer business, it was able to morph into far more than that.

The shops became a freewheeling

This approach is not without its issues, of course. When high street rents are at a premium, how can you house a decent range of various categories into a small shop? Surely any wine shop worth its salt must stock at least 700 wines, to capture the diversity of the noble grape? But I’d argue that quality and focus can be achieved in even the smallest of spaces.

The selections of a properly engaged member of staff can be better than even the most experienced retail operator, provided they truly know and love the category they are buying for.

In a recent visit to one wine shop, I was told that they “only stock local beers” and so there were no German helles or pilsners. This is a laudable environmental policy, though at a commercial level it’s simply shooting yourself in the foot. The addition of a few German helles lagers, such as those from Augustiner or Tegernsee, would have shown an awareness of the benchmarks of lager brewing to the connoisseur, while offering better value to the regular customer. I’d have put my house on these lines becoming best sellers in the shop in question.

It can be daunting to foray into other areas, and of course you don’t want to lose your USP or sacrifice shelf space of fast-moving lines. But a more open-minded approach towards other categories can reap rewards, and while your innovations may not bear fruit initially, provided the footfall in your shop doesn’t decrease, word of mouth will spread, and (new) folk will flock.

So if you run a wine shop, look to hire staff who know beer, or spirits, and if you run a beer shop, hire wine experts and cocktail lovers. Aim to fill the knowledge deficit in your store, trust in your staff, and leave your prejudices behind if you want to create a truly diverse drinks experience.

Tim Peyton is a wine lover and independent retail operator since 2009

Reggio Emilia

Diversity of product creates a bigger pool of customers and more PR

Jorge Navascués

Tell us a about your background. I am a product of winemaking. My destiny was written before I was born as I grew up in a wine family. I have been working with my father all my life throughout Spain, from the Canary Islands to La Rioja. Nowadays I am in charge of Viñedos del Contino and Virgen del Galir, as well as developing my personal wine projects.

As a winemaker in Rioja, how much of the job is about maintaining tradition, and how much is about innovation? It is a very interesting question. We always try to maintain traditions but innovation is needed to get back to the good old days. There is a very good Spanish saying to explain that easily: “There is nothing trendier than a renovated tradition.”

CVNE has three wineries in Rioja. Why is this, and what unique role does Contino play in this portfolio? These outstanding and iconic wineries are all very different. CVNE belongs to Rioja Alta, and Viñedos del Contino and Viña Real to Rioja Alavesa. The main difference is that Contino is a single estate, while Viña Real wines are made from plenty of very old plots from different villages, parcels and places.

Do you think single-estate wines will become more important in Rioja? I really hope so. If we want to give more relevance to our most special vineyards, we must keep working on single estates.

Is there an overriding CVNE house style or do all the wineries work differently?

Pagos del Galir Godello 2021

This is actually the best Pagos de Galir Godello we have made so far. We really believe we are close to getting our own Godello style with this wine. Valdeorras is the warmest Galician region and it means the wine shows ripeness and electricity at the same time.

Head winemaker

Contino & Virgen del Galir

We share and think the same aim, which is looking for the real expression, identity and personality of each winery. We try to bottle a piece of our land, a breath of our climate and the uniqueness of our history. It is important to us that each winery offers a unique and different style.

Is there a difference between the wines you make at Contino and the wines you would have made 20 years ago?

There should not be. We have been working very hard over many years in our search to maintain the same quality and style from vintage to vintage. Naturally some aspects of our viticulture system, our winemaking techniques and our ageing programme have evolved.

How big a challenge is climate change?

It is a challenge everywhere. I really believe latitude will be relevant in the coming years (Viñedos del Contino is located at one of the highest latitudes in Spain). Of course we will keep making wines with La Rioja’s king of grapes, Tempranillo, but varieties such as Graciano or Mazuelo will become a must in our blends.

What have you found most exciting about making wine in the Virgen del Galir winery in Valdeorras?

It is always a big challenge to make wine in a new region, especially if this appellation has unfamiliar grapes, soils and climate, but at the same time it is very exciting and thrilling. The only challenge about working in a new region is the matter of time. It takes more than 10 years to get the hang of knowing the real behaviour of the local

Jorge joined the esteemed single-estate winery in 2017 and has over 20 years’ experience behind him, working throughout Spain as well as abroad. He has also consulted on various projects in areas such as Cariñena, Calatayud, Navarra and Somontano. Jorge also heads up the winemaking at Virgen de Galir.

Wines imported by Hatch Mansfield

grapes and getting all the information about the patterns of climate and weather.

What do you like most about your job? Winemaking is not a way to earn money for me, it is a lifestyle. I don’t ever want to retire. The best part of my job is that every year – and actually every single day – is different .

Contino Garnacha 2019

I fell in love with Garnacha grapes from Contino at first sight. What we love most about Contino Garnacha is its purity, uniqueness and personality. The further north you go the better the conditions for premium Garnacha, and this wine is made from one of the highest latitude Garnacha vineyards in our country.

Contino Vina del Olivo 2018

It is a huge privilege for me having the chance to make one of the most famous Spanish wines. The 2018 vintage was superb and the weather was very generous with this outstanding plot. It perfectly expresses the greatness of one of the most special parcels that I have ever seen and the ideal conditions of one of the best vintages we’ve seen in 20 years.

The soul of Sicily

Gaspare Catalano, winemaker at Carlo Pellegrino, talks about both Marsala and the company’s expressive still wines, many made from indigenous varieties

There’s huge interest in Sicily at the moment. Do you think that the wines are better than ever or is the world simply catching up with how good the wines are?

The strong appeal of the Sicily brand, the continuing high quality of its wines and the very good price-to-quality ratio of Sicilian wines allows us to reach new consumers –both younger drinkers and those who are more educated. Sicily is the biggest island in the Mediterranean but it could be compared to a continent in terms of its biodiversity.

There is an increasing demand for regional wines and indigenous grape varieties worldwide; Grillo and Nero D’Avola are widely appreciated, as is niche production coming from volcanic areas like Pantelleria.

How would you say the Pellegrino style has evolved in the past few decades?

Is there an overriding house style, irrespective of the vineyard and variety? In recent decades, lifestyles have changed a lot, in terms of awareness of respect for the environment.

Pellegrino is no different, and in its own small way it has brought about enormous changes that allow us to say that we are playing our part too. For example, small

measures such as lower consumption of plastics, installing photovoltaic panels, and switching to recyclable materials are part of the path we have decided to take.

All these steps have also led to evolution in our wines. We think harder about the sustainability chain and have introduced some clever winemaking processes that result in less waste, in all fields, from energy to wine products.

The attention and care we have dedicated to winemaking in recent years has given rise to new styles. One prevails above all, which is freshness. The style that defines Pellegrino is a style of fresh wines with acidic notes; wines with panache, and very persistent aromas. Obviously, each grape variety gives different impressions because each has different aromatic characters.

How differently do you have to manage the four Terre Siciliane vineyards, given their different terroirs and varieties?

Pellegrino produces six varieties in Sicilian Terre Siciliane vineyards: Inzolia, Catarratto, Malvasia, Zibibbo, Malbec and Frappato.

Each of these is managed in a different way, starting from the timing of the harvest, vinification and processing.

We progress, for example, from the

processing of a Frappato rosé, to a Malbec managed like a DOC with very low yields. Malvasia, on the other hand, is the first to be vinified during the harvest, while Catarratto and Inzolia are the varieties that come in last. We love to work with all three in a different way, giving unique imprints to each variety.

How important is your Marsala heritage and how big a contribution do these wines make to the wider Pellegrino business?

We have been producing Marsala for over 140 years now, and it is in our DNA.

For about a century after its foundation, Cantine Pellegrino was an exclusively Marsala business and since the beginning, with the help of the French winemaker Oscar Despagne, it worked hard to bring the quality of Marsala Pellegrino to the top level.

In terms of business, we can consider the 19th and 20th centuries as the golden age

of Marsala. In that period in the city, there were about 200 wineries, producing and exporting Marsala around the world.

Starting in the 1980s, however, Sicilian wine lovers shifted their interest towards dry wines, which are fresh, and lower in alcohol. The consumption of Marsala decreased year by year.

Today only about 20 producers of Marsala remain. We are proud to be among the oldest ones, and indeed that Pellegrino is recognised as the best quality, and that our family name is the symbol of a centuryold tradition.

Today Marsala represents today 25% of Pellegrino’s production, which is exported mainly to the UK and USA, but we also have a good share of the domestic market.

The expertise we have in cultivating white grapes like Catarratto, Inzolia and Grillo for Marsala production actually gives us the capability to produce modern, fresh and enjoyable dry wines, with a recognisable imprint of the Marsala terroir.

Wines

The wine packaging looks smart. Is this something that has recently been changed?

The new Pellegrino presentation perfectly fits with the company’s evolution in recent years. It represents a company investing in continuous quality improvements, acting as a pioneer and looking to the future, but being aware of its heritage as well. The “New Vintage” Pellegrino brand manifesto celebrates the pleasure of the wine universe, through a style that draws on the contagious enthusiasm of the 1950s and 1960s.

What can we expect to see next from Pellegrino?

We’ll keep going, investing in the enhancement of native grape varieties. We’re testing the potential of Perricone, a grape variety that has been forgotten for a long time, and we’ll probably launch a new Frappato. We’re also exploring ideas like the concept of underwater ageing.

Above: Torri Pellegrino Below: The Pellegrino family

Cataratto vines thriving at the 19ha Kelbi vineyard

DRAYMAN

head, moderate sourness and bright fruit. 2-0 to Belgium.

Timmermans Pêche v Atom Hidden Layers

The Judgement of Slough

How do British fruit beers compare to their Belgian counterparts?

No beer style meets with such widespread opprobrium as fruit beer. It appeals neither to those who want a no-nonsense beer and put it in the same mental compartment as fruit cider, nor drinkers of fruit cider who do so because they profess not to like beer.

Yet some fruit beers, especially classic Belgian iterations, are among the brewing world’s most divine inventions, balancing authentic sweet fruit and lip-smacking sourness from a wild yeast lambic beer base.

In the modern beer world of shouty cans and impenetrable naming schemes, a valid question is to what extent youthful homegrown fruit beers can shake a stick at their continental forebears.

To explore it, I assembled Belgian and British fruit beers in my kitchen, in what might go down in history as the Judgement of Slough.

The rules of engagement: a head-tohead between one classic Belgian and one modern Brit, in each of four flavour groups: blackberry/cassis, cherry/kriek, strawberry/framboise and that whole peach/apricot axis.

Lindemans Cassis v Track Brewing x Women On Tap Blackcurrant Fruited Sour

The Belgian is deep inky red, like a welloaked Rioja; the Track collaboration for International Women’s Day is the crimson of a stop light.

The 3.5% abv Belgian is light, soft, with a balance of sweetness and characteristic

lambic sourness – lush, deep and juicy. The Track is just a bit lacklustre, just underpunching on weight, fruit and sourness. It becomes brighter over time, but with the Belgian the life is there from the start. 1-0 to Belgium.

Boon Kriek v Brew York Kirsch Russell Escape From LA Brew York’s Kirsch Russell (geddit?) is billed as a cherry maple pie pastry sour. Unfortunately, it’s actually got an odd and overpowering whiff of curry powder and a head that looks like a white shirt that’s been in the wash with a Liverpool top. It’s woody, smoky, bitter and a little bit vegetal. Perhaps chucking “maple pie” in a cherry beer isn’t the best use for it.

The Boon, on the other hand, is classy, with a cherry marzipan nose, moussey

A pattern is emerging, with the Belgian representative displaying an on-point pungent peachy nose, with a beautiful balance of sweetness and sourness on the palate.

Hidden Layers, from Hull’s Atom, is quite a contrast, though not unpleasantly so. It’s got that modern craft haze, an attractive foamy head, a soft apricot nose and an agreeable nuttiness. Some vanilla adds creaminess and there’s a phenolic wheat beer-like presence too, though the ingredient bill only shows the oats as an extra cereal, accounting for the fulsome body.

A tight one, but the Timmermans shades it. 3-0 to Belgium.

Fruli Strawberry Beer v Samuel Smith Organic Strawberry

The Fruli is brilliantly pink, exuberant, juicy and moreish, with a blast of fresh strawberries and a gorgeous Champagnelike effervescence.

The Sam Smith’s is a beery copper colour with a whiff of red firehouse liquorice that settles into a balance of beery bitterness and fresh berry flavour. Let’s call that one a draw.

So what have we learned? First, sometimes less is more. Fruit alone can be enough to elevate a beer without chucking in pastry or milkshake elements, and, interestingly, the four lowest ABV beers were the Belgian quartet, playing into modern trends around wellness and moderation.

Second, there’s no substitute for freshness.

Third, “craft” doesn’t just doesn’t just mean new, or novel, or small, or wacky. Experts who’ve honed their skill over decades, sometimes centuries, have earned their reputation for very good reason. Their use of natural yeast also reflects a sense of place in the same way as fine wine.

They are at least as, if not more, worthy of the term “craft” than many of those to whom it’s more readily attached.

It’s billed as a cherry maple pie pastry sour. It’s actually got an odd and overpowering whiff of curry powder

Pedro Gil Adega Cooperativa do Cartaxo, Tejo wine region

The Tejo region has a number of co-ops and Cartaxo is one of the biggest ones. It was founded in 1954 by a group of 22 members, in a region where winemaking dates back to Roman times.

Currently Cartaxo has 190 members with a total of 850 hectares, based on two Tejo terroirs. Forty per cent are in Campo, where most of our white grapes are grown, and 60% in Bairro, which is where the majority of our red grapes are cultivated. The yield on reds is around 9 tonnes per hectare and on whites around 12 tonnes per hectare.

I have been the oenologist and production manager of Cartaxo since 1998. I have a technical team working with me all year long. All our members have permanent support from our technicians to help manage their vineyards.

We are always encouraging our members to use new methods and techniques in their vineyards, and we reward the good quality of the grapes they deliver to us. We already have some key strengths in the Tejo region: our indigenous grape varieties, the characteristics of our terroirs, and the climate. We keep investing in modernising our methods and technological capability. This constant improvement in quality has made it possible for us to concentrate more on the medium and premium ranges.

Since 2006, a grape evaluation

and classification system has been implemented that values and rewards quality. We have also encouraged our members to plant certain grape varieties with superior oenological and commercial value, within specific rules. For example, we reward lower yields per hectare, mainly in Bairro, where those varieties have the conditions to produce very good fruit.

We produce an average of 10m litres of wine per year and so we offer a wide range of wines, from entry-level, off-trade wines, to medium and premium wines, more suitable for on-trade sales. We export our wines to 20 countries. Our biggest markets are France, the USA, Poland, Switzerland and Brazil, and our focus is on producing very good wines on all levels.

We’re proud to say that Cartaxo is the most awarded Tejo wine producer, both in Portugal and abroad. We’ve also received excellent scores from wine magazines and from wine journalists. The UK is a very important market for us. We hope that we can expand our presence soon.

We have a long tradition of producing high-quality fortified wines. Our Bairro terroir and Fernão Pires indigenous white grape variety give us a starting point for this type of wine. We believe in the potential of this category but it is still a niche market, where commercial success depends not only on the high quality of the wine but also on good marketing, and so it will go step by step.

Adega Cooperativa do Cartaxo

is an important part of Tejo’s viticultural scene, pooling the talents and resources of 190 members.

Specialising in red wines, the winery is also known for its fortified styles and is the most awarded producer in the region.

Wines are imported to the UK by Portugalia

Tejo wines have a deep-rooted heritage in Portugal. From deepest history to recent times, one feature characterises the region and its wines: freshness. Tejo produces some of the freshest, most vibrant, and affordable wines in Portugal today.

Plexus White Sparkling

A very competitive and interesting sparkling wine, extremely pleasant, versatile and fruity, with notes of melon and citrus.

Bridão Clássico Red

Excellent harmony and complexity, nicely expressing the characteristics of the region, and with an excellent qualityprice ratio.

Bridão Private Collection Red

Genuine, typical and authentic: a perfect blend of Touriga Nacional and Alicante Bouschet, ageing mostly in Portuguese oak barrels.

Tradition and innovation

Under Adrian Bridge’s stewardship, the Taylor’s, Fonseca and Croft port business has bolstered its offer with some well-judged NPD. It believes it can continue to thrive this Christmas, and in the future

Anyone who has met Adrian Bridge knows that his default setting is optimistic. He relishes challenges and has a mind that fizzes with ideas. It’s no surprise to find him bullish about port sales in the UK as a potentially difficult Christmas approaches.

“There is concern that there will be a recession, and I think we must be conscious of the fact it could be there in the background for consumers,” he admits. “But experience tells us that most people will want to have a good Christmas. Even in tough economic times, people want to get together and celebrate – and of course port is part of that.”

The Fladgate Partnership brings together some of the port trade’s most celebrated names, principally Taylor’s, Fonseca and Croft.

“The independent wine trade is probably more important to our Fonseca brand than our Taylor’s brand, insofar that Taylor’s is in all channels of distribution,” says Bridge.

“Fonseca we keep for restaurants, hotels and the independent trade. Fonseca has a very different style to Taylor’s – it has all that big, powerful, luscious fruit – it’s more southern European in that sense. It’s big and boisterous and welcoming, compared to the more reserved and refined style we think of as Taylor’s.”

Fortfied wines generally, and port in particular, recorded stellar sales during Covid restrictions, in the UK as well as other markets.

“I think the reason for that was that people were at home, certainly lingering at the end of a meal and maybe they were playing games as a family,” says Bridge.

“People were conversing, and I always like to describe port as the oil of good conversation. It does come at the right moment in a meal, which is typically the way it’s served in the UK.”

It was always going to be tough to maintain sales at that level, but some of the momentum has been maintained.

“Having seen strong growth in 20202021, I suppose it was inevitable, when people started going back out to restaurants and back to the old way in which they used to live, that port sales would come down.

“Restaurant wine prices are very high, and then you have to travel back after dinner, so lingering around with a glass of port becomes unlikely. So we have seen port sales fall back in 2022, but obviously

we don’t quite know how that will end up, because the bulk of UK sales are in October, November and December, so it’s this time of the year that merchants should be getting the port in, in time for Christmas.

“If you go to a restaurant it’s difficult to get a drinkable bottle of wine for below £35, £40, depending where in the country you are, but that sort of money goes a hell of a long way in an independent wine shop. I don’t see why there won’t continue to be strong port sales this Christmas.”

Breadth to the port range Bridge encourages independent merchants to give their port ranges some variety. Fonseca Bin 27 is a good all-rounder and an ideal base from which to build. “That’s all about young, fresh fruit,” he says. “It’s relatively easy drinking – someone new to port would find Bin 27 very appealing.

“You can also deliver a wonderful vintage port to people, wines that are already mature that can be stocked.”

Independents are also seen as a natural home for the Taylor’s range of aged tawnies, which are available in 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50-year-old styles.

“Aged tawny is interesting – we have seen the sales increase all over the world, mostly driven by North America, but if I look at the UK that is also a strong aged tawny market, particularly with 10-yearold,” says Bridge.

“Taylor’s is the leader of this category. You can go beyond the 10-year-old to the 20, 30 and 40 and this year we have released, for the first time ever, a 50-yearold – it’s called the Golden Age. It’s a £180 bottle of port but nonetheless an

Adrian Bridge: aged tawny sales are booming

extraordinary present for someone who is 50 years old or for some other reason wants to celebrate 50 years.

“That’s new and something we should be calling the merchants’ attention to. A 50-year-old is a tricky person to buy a present for, as they have mostly got what they need in life. Wine is something that people look to, but it’s very difficult to get a 50-year-old wine that’s drinkable. Yet if you go to an aged tawny, you’re getting something that, over that 50-year period, has been concentrated from four or five litres of port down into one litre. These things are absolutely stunning to drink, with great length.

“Most people who go to buy a wine of that nature know they can’t go to a supermarket for that. They know they need to go to a specialist to get guidance.”

Keeping things exciting

Since the pandemic, The Fladgate Partnership has added about another 100 hectares to its vineyard holdings, which is as sure a sign as any that the business is upbeat about the category’s long-term prospects. Bridge and his team have also been busy building hotels and a new landmark tourist attraction in Porto, World

of Wine, and his latest fascination is ultrapremium chocolate. But port remains at the heart of it all.

At the premium end, the business is finding an eager market for its largeformat bottles, but there’s also been an encouraging response to its 25cl ready-todrink canned products.

“We launched the Taylor’s Chip Dry & Tonic in April 2021 and then the Croft Pink came in June. That is a really interesting customer base; a younger audience.

“With the Chip Dry & Tonic there’s some lemon essence in there and a little bit of mint, so all you need to do is chill it: it’s all done for you, it’s got that convenience, and that is what we anticipated would make it appealing – not just to a younger generation, but also for different moments of consumption, like on the beach or at a picnic.

“The older generation might think that’s not the way to do port, and there’s a slight shock-horror. But we’re seeing pull-through [to mainstream port sales]. Someone who buys a premixed Croft Pink, for example, might then go and buy a bottle and mix it themselves for a party.”

Bridge also believes that consumers are more willing to think of port as a food

accompaniment. With a nice juicy, salted steak, people look for a bigger, rounder heavier red, maybe an Australian Shiraz that’s coming in at 14.5%,” he says.

“It’s not a long shot to go from there to a bottle of Bin 27, where you are going to have a lot of rich fruit and balance, and the marriage between the two is amazing. I think the younger generation is more willing to do those exploratory things, which appear to be a shock. But in many ways, that’s the purpose.

“We need to keep pace with how consumers consume and if we’re not relevant to them we will disappear.

“I don’t think you can sit back and say, ‘we have 330 years of history, lots of people drink port because of tradition and the aspirational aspect’ and that’s enough. I don’t think that’s the case. We have to continue to figure out how to make something that excites people.”

Sponsored by Mentzendorff

Quinta do Panascal, source of acclaimed single-quinta ports from Fonseca

port’s feeling positive

David Williams takes stock of a category that weathered the Covid storm particularly well, and has a spring in its step as it looks towards the challenges ahead

Theweather has taught wine producers all about dealing with the vicissitudes of life. They know their annual income will rise and fall depending on how much sun or rain they’ll get and when, and that it can be lost entirely in a matter of minutes to a hailstorm or a late spring frost, the kind of cataclysmic events that are still quaintly known in insurance circles as “acts of God”.

For all the reserves of stoicism and resilience they must have stored away like vats of emotional tawny over years of dealing with variable vintages, however,

the sang-froid of Adrian Bridge and his colleagues at The Fladgate Partnership must have been severely tested by the act of God known as Covid when it struck in 2020.

This wasn’t so much a problem with export markets, which, for companies like Fladgate or Symington Family Estates, which each sell to more than 100 territories around the world, are the main destination for most of their wines. Port sales in the UK, the world’s largest market for premium port, held up very well during the pandemic, growing by 11% in volume and 2.8% in value in 2020, according to the

Port & Douro Wines Institute (IVDP).

But it was very much an issue domestically. Between January and August 2020, sales of port in Portugal plunged by 40%. The reason? A complete absence of the tourists who between them had, in the preceding decade, done so much to increase domestic port sales to the point, in 2017, when Portugal became port’s main market.

Many of those domestic consumers had in fact come to Porto, which, in the 2010s, had become one of the fastest-growing city destinations in Europe. By the end of 2019,

Porto had seen a 57% rise in overnight stays and was receiving some 3.3 million tourists a year. This in a country which itself had enjoyed a tourism boom, after the government made the sector a priority as it looked to recover from the euro debt crisis of 2011 to 2014, since when it grew its annual international visitor numbers by 13% to 12.7 million, pushing it into the top five countries for tourism in Europe.

The Fladgate Partnership was one of the key players in that development. It transformed the options for luxury accommodation by opening the multi-

award-winning, five-star wine-themed Yeatman Hotel in Vila Nova de Gaia in 2010, and its acclaimed Vintage House hotel upriver among the terraced vines in Pinhão, in the heart of the Douro Valley. It also has two luxury hotels in Lisbon.

The next step for the company was even more ambitious: the €100m regeneration project, World of Wine. Based on the renovation and repurposing of several centuries-old port cellars, the Fladgate Partnership describes WOW as “more than

Miguel Martins Vallegre

The fifth-generation family business has a tradition of making both fortified and still wines in the Douro. The UK importer is Vintrigue Wines: vintriguewines.com

The production of DOC wines continues to be Vallegre’s main focus, specifically DOC Porto, DOC Douro and DOC Moscatel do

Douro. The wines are sold and enjoyed in almost 40 countries and have scooped medals and accolades in several international competitions.

“Modern, entrepreneurial, dynamic and sustainable” are words that Martins uses to describe the business. “Our house style, while grounded in the knowledge that’s been passed from generation to generation, is based on creativity, innovation, respect for the environment and customer satisfaction,” he says.

Those values will help Vallegre deal with the challenges presented by climate change. “Over the past six years we have noticed a shortage of water,” Martins says, “with mild spring and winter conditions, and hotter summers.

It’s

harvest time in the Douro when we speak to Vallegre general manager Miguel Martins. “We had a very dry year and a very hot summer,” he says. “We estimate that quantity will probably be lower than in previous years. The quality depends on the magic of winemaking – but, as always, our expectations are high.”

The company’s base is at Quinta da Vista Alegre, in the Cima Corgo sub-region, a few kilometres from Pinhão. It’s a magnificent landscape, with breathtaking views of the river, and a place where nature flourishes.

It’s proper mountain viticulture, and almost impossible to mechanise, so pruning and harvesting are done by hand. “It’s all about hard manual labour,” says Martins. “Our reward is the beautiful

surroundings we enjoy every day.”

The business has been making wine here since the 19th century, but the name Vallegre was created as recently as 1998. It’s a blend of the parent company’s two most important quintas – Valle Longo and Vista Alegre.

The firm has been family-owned for five generations and, although port remains its most important output, there is also a growing specialism in still wines.

Martins says that, from a viticultural perspective, the two categories are “very similar”. He explains: “We only have to decide at harvest time which grapes we want for still wines, which are picked earlier, and which we require for port wines, which are picked later.”

“This leads to early and sometimes irregular maturation. This means the harvest starts earlier. Until now we have not watered the vineyards, in order to stress the vines and have a more concentrated, higher quality grape. But due to climate change, having more blazing sun and less rain, we might have to reconsider this in the near future.”

Another challenge, which Vallegre is confident of meeting, is attracting younger drinkers to the port category.

“We strongly believe that all consumers are important,” says Martins, “so we keep investing in our traditional, experienced consumers. But we do recognise the need to captivate younger consumers and encourage them to start drinking port. It is very important to educate them but also to understand the role of enjoying port in less traditional ways, especially mixed as attractive and refreshing long drinks, with less alcohol.”

Porto Vista Alegre Fine White / Fine Rosé

Wines that tap into the demands of the newer generation. Very refreshing port wines, meant to be served very chilled, or, to appeal to younger consumers, as a long drink like port tonic.

Porto Vista Alegre Reserve Ruby

Traditional port with a twist of sophistication and finesse. It pairs very well with cheeses and a range of desserts.

Vallegre Special Reserve Red – Old Vines

Our top still wine: a natural field blend, produced only from very old vines and aged for at least 22 months in new French oak casks. Powerful and elegant.

museums … it is an entire district full of new and exciting things to do, explore, and learn. Seven museum experiences, 12 restaurants, shops, a temporary exhibition space, an events space and a wine school”.

Despitethe absence of international tourists, WOW opened its doors as planned in summer 2020. And, after another tricky summer of travel restrictions in 2021, 2022 has seen visitor numbers in Porto return towards prepandemic numbers, with many flocking to the new WOW “quarter” – and many boosting domestic port sales back towards their 2019 peak.

But the benefits of tourism for port producers extend far beyond sales in Porto’s bars, restaurants and wine and souvenir shops. At a discussion of Portuguese wine hosted by The Wine

Merchant and Wines of Portugal, one of the key reasons given for the current rude health of Portuguese wine in the UK was the role played by returning tourists, who look both to buy wines to remember their visit and spread the word about the country and its wines to friends and family.

Merchants see that port has clearly benefited from the same process, with a high proportion of the circa-2.5 million visitors that make it to Portugal from the UK each year either getting introduced or re-introduced to the product when they are at their most relaxed and receptive.

Not that port’s rejuvenation is, by any means, just about the spin-off effects of tourism. The sector has rarely been more creative than it has in recent years, both in terms of marketing and new product development, with the rise of white port being an example of where all three elements meet.

The success of white port, after all, is traceable to its popularity as the base of

the G&T alternative port tonic, enjoyed by tourists in Porto and elsewhere in Portugal, enthused about back in the UK, and then catered to by new products such as Quinta de Pedra Alta’s No 3 White Port or Taylor’s Chip Dry & Tonic in a can.

These kinds of accessible products have an appeal that goes way beyond port’s traditional demographic. But the industry’s bedrock of serious fine-wine enthusiasts has also been well served in recent years.

There has been a boom in small-batch bottlings of colheita and other aged tawny ports from the likes of Sogevinus (Kopke, Barros, Calem) and the British houses, notably Taylor’s and Graham’s, for example. And the run of fine recent vintages (notably the unprecedented run of four exceptional vintages from 2016 to 2019) has done much to boost the popularity of classic vintage port while greatly adding to the quality of LBV – all the while reminding port producers that the vicissitudes of life can lift you up as well as down.

Antonio Sorgato Bodegas Toro Albalá

My origins are Italian and Belgian. Wine was not important to me until I met my wife, who is from Montilla. When we came to live in Spain I began to be interested in wine, studying and appreciating the history that existed behind each label.

Paco Muñoz, the general manager of Toro Albalá, hired me. I knew that Montilla-Moriles had no future, but I needed a job, I made a bet with myself: to take Montilla-Moriles to the top of the world. I have been at Toro Albala for 25 years.

Pedro Ximenez dates back to the 16th century. It was brought to Andalusia by a soldier from Flanders called Peter Siemens – not a very Spanish name, which was translated as Pedro Ximenez. After phylloxera, the variety was planted again on American rootstocks, just in the Cordoba area, where the grapes had better yields in sugar and quality.

It is still a little understood grape since the Jerez area is permitted to use the name

The Andalusian wine producer has revolutionised the way that Pedro Ximenez wines are understood and appreciated. Don PX Gran Reserva won the Fortified Wine Trophy in the 2022 Wine Merchant Top 100. The UK importer is Winetraders: contact 01993 882440 or visit winetradersuk.co.uk

“Pedro Ximénez” on the label of its sweet wines. So the consumer believes that Pedro Ximenez is a whole range of sweet wines. When consumers taste a Fino de MontillaMoriles made from Pedro Ximenez, they can be confused.

We are the first PDO in Europe to harvest our grapes, at the end of July. We have to be careful from May, with fungus caused by rain, then the heat of July and August. We have the hot air of the sirocco, which burns the grapes. From one day to the next, the grape can become ripe, and very delicate, with a very thin skin. It must be harvested with great care. Also, we must work very well with the terroir since the rainfall is very low here and we cannot use water irrigation.

Toro Albalá has reached its centenary. We have a saying in the company that “quality should always exceed quantity”. There is a family environment, with both workers and owners.

There was a time when Toro Albalá

shared vinification with other wineries because we did not have the up-to-date facilities that we wanted. Now we have our own winery and cutting-edge technology. Antonio Sanchez Romero is the soul of Toro Albalá winemaking and in Andalusia, and he has transferred all his knowledge to a new director of winemaking, Cristina Osuna.

How do we convince new drinkers to take the plunge with PX? I always give the same example to people: if I had a plaid shirt factory and the consumer now wants striped shirts, I should adapt to consumer demands. But we must be realistic. We must make higher quality wines, have a better presentation of the bottles and carry out tastings of these wines with gastronomic dishes. Help people understand there is a generation behind these wines.

I have perhaps one ambition left before slowing down: that Bodegas Toro Albalá is recognised among the great wines of the world, something unique and rare.

Don PX 1999

This wine is the leader in the portfolio, aged for 20 years. With an unsurpassed aromatic profile, it is an all-rounder in gastronomy, offering excellent quality for the price –extraordinary when we think it was 87,120 days to wait before the bottling.

Don PX Convento Seleccion 1955

Convento pays homage to the old monastic tradition in Andalusia of ageing casks of PX for many years. It represents an opportunity to taste what has never changed in Toro Albalá: the essence of tradition at an affordable price.

Don PX

Don PX is our workhorse wine. It represents a project between myself and Antonio Sanchez: we are the first winery to bottle a sweet PX in its natural state. It is a unique, majestic wine, from the Pedro Ximenez grape, which may surprise consumers.

The magic of Madeira

Since the early 1800s, Blandy’s has been setting the pace in this famous fortified wine category. It’s a brand that consumers will be seeking out this Christmas, but not just because of tradition

The Blandy’s story is a long one, stretching back seven generations on a picturesque subtropical island off the coast of Morocco. Over that time, Madeira’s fortunes have waxed and waned. But the Blandy family has been a constant, innovating as well as finessing, achieving excellence in a category that inspires fierce loyalty from its devotees.

Blandy’s is the only founding member of the Madeira trade to still be managing its own company – step forward Chris Blandy – but the focus is as much on the future as the past. Madeira’s Colheita category

is a perfect example, being pioneered by Blandy’s in 2000. These are vintage wines with a maximum age of 18 years, allowing time to develop the wine’s complexity yet preserving its youthful vibrancy.

In 2014, Blandy’s was the first to release Madeira in large-format bottles. The family is also championing the revival of the island’s noble white grapes, planting their seven hectares with these rare varietals.

Michael Oppenheim, brand manager at UK importer Fells, says that premium styles are currently leading the way in the Madeira category, as they are in fortifieds

as a whole.

The UK’s leading Madeira is Blandy’s Duke of Clarence, a three-year-old wine that is channelled through the multiples. For independents, the natural starting point is the 10-year-old styles, each based on a single grape variety.

Blandy’s 10 Year Old Bual is a medium sweet wine with distinctive flavours of figs, prunes and a nutty earthiness. The 10 Year Old Malmsey has more of a toffee and raisin character, thanks to a shorter fermentation period that results in more residual sugar.

The rugged island landcape

Blandy’s 10 Year Old Sercial is produced from grapes grown on the upper slopes of the south of the island, where the cooler climate promotes a brisk acidity. The medium dry Blandy’s 10 Year Old Verdelho has spicy and dried fruit notes, and warm marmalade characteristics.

There are 15 Year Old versions of both Bual and Malmsey, for consumers looking for even more depth and complexity. And, of course, the Colheitas, which come into their own at this time of year.

“They are referred to as the baby vintages,” says Oppenheim. “The idea behind that is that you are able to release a vintage at a good price. These wines are something like £54 for a 50cl bottle. These days you are looking at £270 to £300 for a full bottle of vintage Madeira on shelf, so it hits a good price point.

“Also, by limiting ageing to just 18 years, you are keeping a lot of the vibrant, youthful fruit characteristics in there. Once you go beyond 20 years, which is the law for making true vintage frasqueira Madeira, all those tertiary ageing notes and lovely aromas start appearing.”

The classic food pairing is cheese or dessert but, thanks to its acidity, Madeira is more adaptable than might be assumed.

“We did a dinner with some of London’s top sommeliers and we had a whole menu with Madeira,” Oppenheim reports. “The whole menu was matched with Madeira and its versatility with food is incredible because the acidity is really good and some of the styles are really fresh, and there’s lots of different styles to match with different courses.”

But, he concedes, “for most people it will be a glass of Malmsey with their sticky toffee pudding”.

Oppenheim says that the popularity of Madeira as a tourist destination has had a positive impact on sales.

“Madeira is getting incredibly popular for tourists,” he says. “Between 100,000 and 120,000 visitors come through the doors of the wine lodge each year. It’s the leading wine tourism attraction on the island.

“Madeira is marketing itself more as a place to hike in the mountains or go deepsea fishing, so it’s attracting a different crowd to the island – and a lot of those people are British.”

The advice to indies is to allow novices to taste the wines and to perhaps experiment with different serves. It might go without saying that Madeira is best served chilled, but its potential as a long, mixed drink is less well recognised.

“If you’re a big fan of spirits, and you like a Scotch or an old fashioned cocktail, Madeira is good like that and it has half the alcohol,” says Oppenheim. “You can easily have it at the end of a meal, on the rocks.

“A 10 year old Sercial with a bit of tonic, or on the rocks with some angostura bitters in it, or a slice of orange, is wonderful.”

FREE BLANDY’S S AMPLES

Wine Merchant readers can receive a free selection of Blandy’s 10 Year Old Madeira. To qualify, send your name and company details to charlotte@ winemerchantmag.com, using the subject line Blandy’s Madeira Offer. The first 35 applications from UK-based independents will receive their wines direct from Fells.

“I did a dinner with some of London’s top sommeliers and we had a whole menu with Madeira. Its versatility with food is incredible”

Michael Oppenheim, Fells

Chris Blandy: seventh generation

A revolution in Jerez

David Williams assesses the most important changes to the rules governing sherry production since the DO was formed in 1935 – and what these mean for merchants

Sherry is not generally associated with radical change. The category’s Andalusian home is, rather, a place where time slows down, and where the vaulted bodegas lined with barrels of slowly ageing wine foster a sense of profound calm and unbroken connection to the unchanging rhythms of tradition.

There was an element of surprise, then, at least for casual observers of the great Spanish fortified wine, when the Sherry Consejo Regulador emerged at the end of last year to announce a raft of changes to the way the wine was made and marketed – changes that are without question among the most important in the region since the DO was formed in 1935.

In terms of how it will affect the day-today structure of the industry, perhaps the most significant change so far (and the DO is toying with others) is the introduction of a single, pan-regional production and ageing zone.

Throughout the 86-year history of the DO, Sherry producers have sourced their grapes, and in some cases processed them into base wines, from across the region, but ageing was confined to the towns of the famous Sherry Triangle: Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barremeda and El Puerto de Santa Maria.

The new regulations, however, will mean producers can age their wines across the region’s production zone while, crucially, retaining their place in the Sherry DO.

Also on the production/labelling side, another key development reflects a significant trend in the region: the rise of unfortified flor wines. Producers making wines that conform to all the other standards required for manzanilla and fino, such as a minimum 15% abv and two years’ ageing under flor, can now use the terms even if the wines have not been fortified.

Expanding the category in this way is undoubtedly a big, genre-bending step that prompts questions about where retailers and sommeliers should put sherry on their shelves and lists since it now straddles both fortified and still or “light” wine

categories. But the changes could get even more radical if the DO incorporates still wines that, as well as being unfortified, have not been aged beneath flor and that have abvs below 15%, as some expected it to do last year.

The fino and manzanilla categories are also the subject of another important intervention by the Consejo. In what had become a major sticking point for producers in Jerez and El Puerto, some Sanlúcar-based producers had been using “fino” rather than “manzanilla” on labels for a specific style of richer, weightier flor-aged wine. This practice has now been explicitly banned by the Consejo, which insists that all biologically aged wines produced in Sanlúcar must be labelled as manzanilla, albeit with a 10-year grace period of transition to clear stocks of the old Sanlúcar finos.

No less eye-catching, if less immediately consequential given the dominance of Palomino and, to a lesser extent, Moscatel and Pedro Ximenez, is the re-admittance of a handful of traditional local grape varieties into the official Sherry vineyard.

Mantúo Castellano, Mantúo de Pilas, Vejeriego, Perruno, Cañocazo and Beba, all of them widely planted in the region before phylloxera, and all almost extinct after the louse did its worst from 1894, will now be permitted in Sherry DO wines, which should pave the way for further plantings of varieties that some of the region’s more adventurous producers were already using in wines without official DO status.

Also in the vineyard, the Sherry DO is upping its efforts to make the most of the region’s terroir by releasing a revised and detailed map of its various “pagos” or vineyards – an important bit of work given that even the most engaged of Sherry consumers don’t really perceive it as a wine in which the vineyard plays quite the same, style-shaping role as it does in light wine production

That terroir and local grape varieties should form a part of the Consejo’s plans

shows just how far Sherry has come in recent years and is illustrative of the direction the Consejo believes it needs to take if the region is going to remain relevant as a wine producer through the next century.

As has been the case in other traditional Spanish wine regions, such as Cava and Rioja, the Consejo, its hand forced somewhat by the work of the more progressive producers, has grasped the need to acknowledge the role of the vineyard and local varieties in appealing to modern wine consumers. Producers and administrators have realised that, while the fascination of its unique ageing techniques still plays a vital role in making sherry special, there is a compelling story to tell about the long history of wine in this region that extends far beyond the walls of its vaulted bodegas.

RISING SHERRY SALES

Change in Sherry comes at a propitious time for sales in the UK. The category was an unlikely hit during the pandemic, with sales rising by 13% in volume and 15% in value in 2020, according to Nielsen, making Sherry the star of a booming fortified category that itself grew by 7.5% in value and 12% in volume. Shipments continued to rise during 2021: total volumes around the world were up by 21% in the year to August.

Expanding the category is a big, genre-bending step that prompts questions about where retailers and sommeliers should put sherry on their shelves and lists

A re you on holiday?

I am.

Yes, hot on the heels of not being on holiday I decided to go on holiday because as Brene Brown says, Space is the Breeding Ground for Productivity and Creativity. Secondly, have you noticed? We’re living in a shit-tip last-gasp empire caught in a particularly unpleasant and prolonged death rattle, overseen by Lizards who will wring it all out for every last drop of money or good feeling that ever it had and thirdly, maybe occasionally one can get too close to the shop and the comforting rhythms of Sunday club/Sexy Monday/ Delivery Tuesday/Boys Wednesday/ Off Thursday/Craig Show Friday/Who’s Doing the Wall Saturday (repeat), whilst Motherwell Jim and Aromatic Darren’s prolonged and unexplained absence plus daily unnerving Chokka Blokka man get a little bit oppressive. I didn’t want to break free, but the breaking free certainly broke the non-freedom which I think would have eventually broken me. Plus Christmas is coming.

Even though my Yogabot instructs me that When I Relinquish the Need to be in Control My Life Becomes an Effortless Flow, I made some very controlling plans for a series of trains that would take me to Vienna via London and Brussels in a seemingly Effortless and at some points seemingly endless Flow.

Yes, Vienna! Not, Oh Vienna, for as anyone who has been to Wien knows, Ultravox gets a bit overdone when you’re there, not by any of the fine and elegant Viennese but by us, the shit-tip last-gasp subjects caught in our particularly unpleasant and prolonged death rattle, which in this context sounds pretty much like “this means nothing to me” fuelled by an unnecessary third bottle of Gemischter Satz.

Yes, the train! Not, Oh the Train, for as

Vineyards in the Hunter Valley

23. VIENNESE FANCY

Phoebe Weller of Valhalla’s Goat in Glasgow temporarily relinquishes all control of daily affairs and heads for Austria, travelling in trains of great speed on roads of iron

Lunches and therefore d) you can take little knives with you on the train. You can take the girl out of Glasgow, but you can’t take Glasgow out of the girl.

I stocked my picnic bag with some cans of wine (thank you South Africa and Niepoort!), a small pot of yellow-labelled Stilton mashed with butter, some nice Comte wrapped in beeswax that went a bit funny in the end but all stomach complaints were righted in Vienna (oh, Vienna!) with their plentiful and welcome sauerkraut, which was enough to iron out any dodgy train cheese.

anyone who has taken the train on the continent knows, the toilets work, the booking works, and things are methodical, planned and don’t smell like piss*. I took the train because a) it bolsters my green cred; b) when you fly your “soul” (another time) takes time to catch up; c) train journeys are basically an excuse for a daylong Amazing Lunch or several Amazing

Vienna was all coffee and cake and feeling inferior with my endless Sprechen ze English. The return journey was dominated by an excellent Caesar Wrap bought at the Chunnel entrance using Boursin as a bed for mayonaissey chicken and salad – bravo, Belgium – plus a bag of tablet popcorn and tea on the LDN-GLA leg. No one does tablet popcorn and tea quite like we do in Blighty.

*This is untrue, several trains were late, the booking is not fullproof/foolproof and yes, there was one train that smelt a bit pissy. This means nothing to me.

Thorman Hunt Rhône En Primeur Tasting

A chance to explore the quality on offer from the region’s 2021 vintage.

To register, contact Vanessa@ thormanhunt.co.uk.

Tuesday, November 8

67 Pall Mall

London SW1Y 5ES

Les Crus Bourgeois du Médoc Tasting

An opportunity to taste a selection of wines from across the 2018, 2019 and 2020 vintages from the threetier system: Cru Bourgeois, Cru Bourgeois Supérieur and Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel.

The tasting will be split into two sessions. The first will run from 10am to 1pm and the second from 2pm to 5pm.

For more information contact louise@phillips-hill.co.uk or jo@ bellevillemarketing.com

SAVE THE DATE!

Register to attend: eventbrite.

Wednesday, November 16

St James’s Room

Pall Mall

SW1Y 5ES

2018 Brunello di Montalcino En Primeur Tasting

For the first time in the UK, the 2018 vintage of Brunello di Montalcino will be launched en primeur, well ahead of the official release in 2023.

This event, called Benvenuto Brunello is a trade-only presentation of the 2018 vintage and the 2017 Riservas.

Ribera del Duero Top 100 Tasting & Briefing 2022

Join Tim Atkin MW and DO Ribera del Duero for the unveiling of this year’s winners, representing some of the best wines from the Spanish region.

The region’s diversity will be on display, from the bolder Reserva and Gran Reserva styles through to the younger, more fruitforward Cosecha wines.

The event will include a discussion with Atkin and Pablo Baquera Peironcely from the Consejo Regulador about the latest vintage, and what can be expected from the region in the future.

Contact rdd@cubecom.co.uk.

Monday, November 21

The View, Lincoln’s Inn Fields London WC2A 3PE

Davy’s 2021 Rhône En Primeur & Back Vintage Tasting

2018 BRUNELLO DI MONTALCINO EN PRIMEUR LONDON

Tuesday, November 15

116 Pall Mall

17 November 2022, 10am–5pm Church House, Deans Yard, London SW1P 3AZ

London SW1Y

A UK first, the 2018 vintage of Brunello di Montalcino will be launched ‘En Primeur’ to the UK wine trade in London on 17 November 2022. before the official release on 1st January 2023, and in collaboration between the Consorzio of Brunello di Montalcino and Hunt & Speller, the ‘En Primeur’ Launch, called BENVENUTO BRUNELLO, is a comprehensive, trade-only presentation of the 2018 vintage and the 2017 Riservas. Benvenuto Brunello features some of the most important estates as well as rising from this world-famous denomination. Tasters can choose freely from a total 130 wines, including some of Montalcino’s top crus and 2017 Riservas from over 66 estates, during a two-hour, prebooked sommelier-serviced tasting slot.

New Zealand Winegrowers New Release Tasting

Join the New Zealand Winegrowers team for a day of discovery at the first New Release tasting since 2019. Wines from the 2022 vintage will be among those on taste.

Benvenuto Brunello features some of the most important estates as well as rising stars from the denomination. Tasters will have the choice of around 130 wines, including some of Montalcino’s top crus and 2017 Riservas from almost 70 estates.

An informal walk-around tasting offering guests the opportunity to taste barrel samples alongside a corresponding wine from one of the previous five vintages.

Places for Benvenuto Brunello, strictly trade-only, can be reserved on a first-come, first-served, basis here:

To book a sommelierserviced tasting slot, scan the QR code.

Thursday, November 17 Church House Dean’s Yard London SW1P 3AZ

Wines will be showcased from a variety of producers from Côte Rôtie, Saint Joseph, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Hermitage, CrozesHermitage. Vacqueyras and Cairanne.

To register, contact Luma Monteiro: lumam@davy.co.uk.

Wednesday, November 23

The Royal Overseas League St James’s Street London SW1A 1LR

THE NEW EUROPE

From the rising stars of Tokaj’s Furmint to a cult ItalianBulgarian Pinot Noir producer and the Romanian answer to Torres, David Williams picks out some of his favourite producers from central and eastern Europe

HUNGARY

Mád Wines (Alliance)

It would be fair to assume that the eyecatching name of this decidedly modern producer has done no harm to its sales. Indeed, you get the feeling, when looking over the glossy, lifestyle imagery on the brand’s website, or its crisp, cleanly designed packaging, that playing on the doublemeaning – Mád being one of the Tokaji region’s most historic winemaking villages –was all part of the marketing plan. The wines, made in partnership with a network of local “smallholders”, are very much in keeping with the slick, accessible brand image. Whether it’s dry Furmint or classic sweet wines, these are immaculate, brightly fruited wines of wide appeal at very decent prices that, over the last decade, have played their part in shaping attitudes to modern Hungarian wine among UK independent merchants and their customers.

Istvan Szepsy (Top Selection)

Few individuals have done more to refashion Tokaj as one of Europe’s most exciting finewine regions than Istvan Szepsy. Part of a family that can trace its winemaking history in the region back to the 16th century, Szepsy’s primary concern since the end of Communism has been to grow his family’s holdings of top vineyard land (he now has more than 50ha, the majority of which is grand cru-rated). In doing so, he has become perhaps the single leading authority on the region’s distinctive grape varieties and its volcanic terroirs. Furmint, of course, leads the way, and Szepsy, who now works alongside his son, Istvan Szepsy Jnr, makes some stunning terroirdriven dry examples. But the sweet wines at one of Europe’s top estates are no less scintillating and evocative.

Oremus (Berkmann)

The Álvarez family were among the first to see the potential for rebuilding Tokaj as a fine-wine region in the post-Communism era. Just four years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1993, the family responsible for arguably Spain’s most celebrated red wines, Vega Sicilia in Ribera del Duero, bought up a collection of historic vineyards in Central Europe’s most celebrated sweet-wine region, and began the process of building a modern winery (opened in 1999) incorporating a network of cellars dating back to the 13th century. The consistently impressive portfolio made by the Oremus team includes some of Tokaj’s finest Aszu sweet wines, and a stunning dry Furmint, Oremus Mandolás, drawn from a plot planted solely to the variety and aged in the region’s traditional 136-litre oak barrels.

Disznoko (Gonzalez Byass)

The way in which an impressive new wave of dry wines has come to complement the established sweet wines in Tokaj (and in the process help the region reach a new generation of drinkers), has much in common with goings on in another historic European wine region, the Douro. Intriguingly, a key, agenda-setting player from each region is part of the same French group, AXA Millésimes. For the Douro’s Quinta do Noval, read Tokaj’s Disznoko, with the latter joining the insurance group’s wine holdings, after years of state control, in 1992. Both are at the very top of their respective region’s quality pyramid, with mastery over the traditional product (vintage port and Aszu Tokaji) now joined by world-class dry wines. In Disznoko’s case the dry Furmint, which is taken from three vineyard plots and fermented in stainless steel, is among the most vividly mineral and racy examples of the great Hungarian grape variety, and is a worthy accompaniment to a full range of tangily elegant stickies.

Bolyki (Best of Hungary)

Dry Furmint white wines from Tokaj are undoubtedly the break-out stars of Hungarian wine in the UK in the past five years. But the country’s other wine regions have been undergoing a revolution that is every bit as profound. In Eger, which is sometimes given the tag of “Hungary’s Burgundy” thanks to its positioning on the same latitude as the French region, a younger generation of Hungarian winemakers is shaking up such traditional styles. Among them is János Bolyki, who makes a superbly drinkable update of the classic Bull’s Blood red, aka Egri Bikavér – a blend, in this case, of Kékfrankos, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Zweigelt, Blauburger and Portugieser that is perhaps more Loire-like in its mix of spice and snappy, sappy red and blackcurrant fruit. Also worth looking out for from Bolyki: a fragrant easy-drinking white blend and an aromatic, crunchy Kékfrankos.

Kovács Nimród (Boutinot)

The Eger-Burgundy comparison is certainly relevant from a varietal point of view when it comes to the white wines in the portfolio of Kovács Nimród. Made from fruit sourced

from two of the producer’s premier and grand cru-rated Eger vineyards, the Battonage Chardonnay gets 16 months in a mix of Hungarian and French barriques with plenty of lees-stirring for a rich, aged style. Founded by the eponymous retired businessman, Kovács Nimród is based in a series of seven 18thcentury cellars, and, as well as both oaked and unoaked Chardonnays, makes wines from Pinot Noir, Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet Franc alongside the local Kékfrankos and Furmint.

St Andrea (Best of Hungary)

Father-and-son winemaking duo Gyorgy Lorincz and Gyorgy Lorincz Jnr’s St Andrea is another Eger venture that has something of the Burgundian about it. It’s not about the grape varieties: the Lorincz family is all about the local selection of Olaszrizling, Hárslevelű, Furmint, Kadarka and Kékfrankos. It’s more about producing what they call “terroirspecific character wines” – red and white –from their collection of grand cru vineyards. Their methods are paying off with increasing international acclaim, not least a Best in Show Award from the Decanter World Wine Awards for their single-vineyard Bikaver from the limestone soils of the Nagy-Eged cru.

Pajzos Megyer Tokaj

Etyeki Kuria

Korona

Holass (Indigo)

Partners in business and life, Hungarian Imre Holász and Belgian Ellie Bauwens’s Holass project is an example of a type of wine-producing approach that has become increasingly popular with young, ambitious vignerons from California to Swartland and Burgundy: a micro-négociant. Having made their first wine from an abandoned vineyard in Lake Balaton in the mid-2010s, they have gone on to partner with organic and sustainable growers across the country’s main winegrowing regions, making singlevineyard, single-batch bottles. Terroir is the couple’s thing. But whether it’s an Olaszrizling, Juhfark, Furmint and Hárslevelü white blend from Somlo or a Kékfrankos from Sopron, a consistently elegant stylistic signature is always apparent.

St Donat (Novel Wines)

Alongside Eger and Tokaj, the wine region around Lake Balaton has been at the forefront of Hungarian wine’s 21st-century renaissance. Owned, since 1994, by the Kovács family, but with a winemaking pedigree that goes back some 200 years, Szent Donat is a reliably excellent exponent of the varied Balaton terroir, with a portfolio of organic wines that takes in well-made traditional-method sparkling wines and a set of expressive single-vineyard wines made from house speciality grapes Kékfrankos and Olasrizling (Welschriesling).

ROMANIA

Cramele Recas (Alliance)

Like Torres in Spain, Concha y Toro in Chile and Paul Mas in the Languedoc, Cramele Recas is an example of that rarest of breeds: a mass-market producer able to make low-price wines that maintain genuine character without cutting corners. English owner Philip Cox, his wife Elvira and their winemaking team have more than 900ha of vineyards to play with,

giving them the flexibility to make a variety of styles and labels. They are still perhaps best known for their reliably juicy and varietally true Pinot Noirs, which are consistently the best sub-£10 versions of the grape variety in the world. But there’s a streak of experimentation here, too, that has led to a highly creditable high-volume orange wine and well-made wines from hitherto unusual (in the UK at least) indigenous grape varieties such as Feteasca Regala.

Balla Geza (Novel Wines)

The sheer scale and competence of Cramele Recas has seen the company hoover up the few spots granted to Romanian producers at most UK retailers. Specialists such as Bath’s proudly eclectic Novel Wines are, however, proving that there is an appetite for Romania’s growing boutique scene, with producers such as Bella Geza hitting a circa-£13 sweetspot with a range of real quality, interest and balance. Founded by the eponymous winemaker and wine academic Dr Geza (a chemist) on the banks of the river Mures, east of Arad in Transylvania, Balla Geza’s 124ha are planted to a mix of the local (Kadara, Feketeleanyka, Feteasca Neagra) and the international (Riesling, the Cabernets, Blaufränkisch) in a distinctive – and distinctively packaged – range.

BULGARIA

Nachbil (Boutinot)

Another small-scale Transylvanian, this time from the north west of the region and farming just 23ha of land organically, Nachbil has a lot to offer a modern independent wine merchant. In the words of importer Boutinot: “Unusual grape varieties? Check! Organic? Check! Natural? Check! Nice packaging? Checkety-check-check!” Among the trio of wines imported by Boutinot, you can find the fabulously (and deliciously) obscure orange Grünspitz, from what is believed to be the sole vineyard devoted to the variety in the world, as well as an organic Feteasca Neagra red and a more conventional-sounding (but really rather vital and vivid) Riesling.

Château Burgozone (Delibo)

Although it makes much of its position on the same latitude as Tuscany and the Southern Rhône, Château Burgozone’s most significant geographical feature is its proximity to the River Danube. The estate’s 100ha of vineyards stretch down to the banks of the river as it meanders through northern Bulgaria, providing a very specific microclimate. Founded in 2002, the familyrun producer soon developed a reputation for sound viticultural practice at a time when care for the vineyard wasn’t always the priority in Bulgarian wine production, which was still coming to terms with post-Soviet life and increased competition from the new world. It’s a reputation that continues to this day, thanks to a range of immaculate varietal wines made from Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier under the Côte du Danube label.

Edoardo Miroglio (Swig)

Edoardo Miroglio has been a profoundly important figure in modern Bulgarian wine. Initially drawn to Bulgaria from his native Italy by his interests in the textile business, Miroglio, whose family owns Cantina Tenuta Carretta in Barolo and Malgra in Asti, soon began contemplating the possibility of starting a winery in the ancient winemaking area of the Thracian Lowlands. By the turn of the millennium, Miroglio had planted some 220ha in the benign conditions around the village of Elenovo, with a spanking new winery up and ready by his first vintage in 2005. With Italian winemaking consultant Marco Monchiero at the helm, it didn’t take long for the wines to capture the attention of UK importer Swig, and the wines, notably the bargain cult hit, Soli Pinot Noir, now have a devoted following. Pinot remains the standout, but a white blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and Riesling, a Merlot and, most excitingly, a red made from Mavrud, Bulgaria’s distant relative of Nebbiolo, all punch way above their low £10s price point.

Imre Holász and Ellie Bauwen

Nachbil vineyards

MY HUNGARY

Audrey Zarach, Malux Hungarian Wine & Spirits

How is Hungary getting on in the UK wine market?

My dad started up Malux Hungarian Wine & Spirits as a hobby 20 years ago. And since then, we’ve seen this gradual rise of excitement. I was delighted to see that Hungary came joint 16th with New Zealand, ahead of France and the USA, in The Wine Merchant survey asking independents which wine regions they are most interested in.

What is driving that interest?

Hungary is a little country, but it makes a lot of wine, and it has a massive winemaking history. It has about 65,000 hectares in total, producing 2.9 million hectolitres a year, which is more wine than New Zealand. We just want to shout about it!

You have to remember they had a 45-year gap under the Russian occupation, where everything really came to a halt. But in the past 30 years, there’s been massive development. The younger generation have worked and studied abroad, and they have generations of expertise in their families, and they’re bringing back focus and clarity.

There are some really exciting wines coming through. With Covid, and people sitting at home, consumers have been much more interested in lesser-known parts of the world.

Which regions are setting the pace?

Tokaj is Hungary’s calling card, it’s the jewel in the crown; everyone relates to that. And it’s great to have it as a starting point. But there are 22 different regions. So yes, you have Tokaj, and Eger with Bull’s Blood, but there’s a lot of exciting focus going on, putting regions forward as a brand.

Even geographically, Hungary shares a lot of similarities with top French regions. Tokaj is on the same latitude as the Loire; Etyek is on the same latitude as Champagne, and makes excellent sparkling wines; Eger is little Burgundy; Villany is

great for Cabernet Franc … there are lots of different regions, promoting different focuses.

What about grape varieties?

Hungary has so much to offer in terms of versatility. Furmint is the variety that’s been pushed in recent years, and that’s partly because it’s easy to say. It’s great. But it’s quite steely; Hárslevelű is a great grape to blend with it. For wine merchants with Enomatics, we have some really rare grape varieties, a lot of versatility, surprise, delight … wines that you can drink through the whole meal.

It’s often said that Hungarian wines are great food wines. Yes. There is great texture and notable acidity in Hungarian wines. That texture lends itself to food, and the versatility of flavours and textures means the wines make versatile pairings, whether Asian spices or Mediterranean tapas or meat. The heavier whites work well in dishes you’d put red wine with, and conversely, lighter reds like Kadarka work with dishes you’d have white wines with.

A lot of the recent revolution in Hungarian wine is about dry wines. But are sweet wines still popular? Sweet wine we take for granted, but it’s very pertinent for festive times, and very undervalued: when they get to try it, people give so much positive feedback because of the acidity and perfect balance. It’s incredibly labour intensive. You need 22kg to 24kg per puttony; one experienced harvester can only pick 12kg a day. People go up and down the vines for weeks, picking each berry.

I get very excited about my winemakers. They are truly inspirational people. That’s the message I want to get home to people just clicking on a button to order their wine.

The spectacular Tokaj landscape

A château in vineyards near Sopot, Plovdiv Province, Bulgaria

A Toast to Ferrari Trento – Sparkling Wine Producer of the Year

to Ferrari Trento, which was awarded the Sparkling Wine Producer of the Year Trophy for the fifth time at the 2022 Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships. The trophy is awarded to the producer with the highest number of gold medals. Ferrari led the way with 11 gold medals across its range. Ferrari Trento’s story dates back to 1902, when a young Italian oenologist named Giulio Ferrari made his first trip to Champagne. Struck by the French region’s geographical similarities to his native region, he realised the Trentino Mountains’ extraordinary – yet untapped – potential for growing Chardonnay. So began a lifelong dream: to create Italian wines in the traditional method, that could hold its own against the world’s finest Champagnes. Today Ferrari is Italy’s most awarded sparkling wine producer and is also the official sparkling wine of Formula 1®

LOUIS LATOUR AGENCIES

Introducing Colbalte vodka, a brand new addition to the Louis Latour Agencies portfolio

is a unique French vodka from Aÿ-Champagne made from a combination of Chardonnay,

Noir and Meunier grapes from the Montagne de Reims. It is a terroir vodka that fuses minerality, roundness of fruit and freshness, bringing balance and a silky-smooth finish.

is exclusively made from healthy and ripe hand-picked grapes which are vinified and then distilled with their lees five times. This unhurried process helps to infuse Cobalte with its personality and identity, producing a French vodka of extraordinary purity and finesse.

was awarded Gold medals by 2022 The Spirits Business Global Vodka Masters, 2022 Meininger’s International Spirit Awards and 2022 Concours Mondial des Bruxelles.

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hallgarten wines

New Aged Tawny Ports from Sandeman and Ferreira

Sandeman has been blending Aged Tawnies for over 150 years – one of the first Port houses to specialise in this style, its range is now the most highly awarded of any Port house. New this year, following the approval of this new category of Aged Tawny by the Port Institute, is the Sandeman 50-Year-Old Tawny Port. A blend of Tawnies aged between 40 and 70 years in the cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia, this is the pinnacle of premium Tawny Port, with staggering complexity and length.

New to the Ferreira range of Aged Tawnies is the Dona Antónia 30-Year-Old Tawny Port, a blend of Tawnies aged between 25 and 40 years. Presented in a wooden gift box with a unique onion-shaped bottle inspired by Port bottles of times gone by, this is a stunning example of Ferreira’s more evolved style of Tawny that is defined by a signature richness. Founded in 1751, Ferreira is the oldest Portuguese Port house and remains the leader in the domestic market.

Sandeman and Ferreira winemaker Luís Sottomayor was crowned Fortified Winemaker of the Year at this year’s International Wine Challenge, while Sandeman’s 40-YearOld Tawny Port NV and Unfiltered Late Bottled Vintage Port 2017 won the IWC Tawny Port Trophy and LBV Port Trophy respectively, and the Ferreira Quinta do Porto Port 2019 scooped the IWC Vintage Port Trophy.

New wines to the RWA portfolio All on offer for the winter season

La Chita, La Mancha, Spain

STYLE

Taking European winemaking philosophy to an enclave of fine Chilean terroir, Haras de Pirque, owned by Italy’s well-known Marchesi

embodies the defining character of this famous winemaking family: innovative spirit. The horseshoe shaped, gravity-fed winery, is inspired by the estate’s former fame as a thoroughbred breeding farm, founded in 1892.

of the six labels, including Chile’s darling Carménère, and Antinori’s beloved Cabernet Franc, is made according to organic certification. The Hussonet Gran Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon is named after a leading international race horse, while Albaclara means ‘Bright Sunrise’ – inspired by those that greet its Leyda vineyards.

find out more or explore our portfolio of award-winning wines, contact your Berkmann account manager now or

Roda I 2017 Vintage Launch

from 90% Tempranillo, 6% Graciano and 4% Garnacha, the 2017 is a characterful wine that is aromatic with layers of black fruits, plum and blueberries, black pepper spice and subtle white flowers. The palate is fine with good volume and high quality tannins.

I is an interpretation of Rioja from Bodegas Roda, the masters of Tempranillo that have long lead the way in research and development in the region. Since 1998 they have identified 552 clones of Tempranillo and hand selected the best clones to cope with climate change. Their vineyards are organic and much emphasis is put onto encouraging the flora and fauna to thrive alongside the old bush vines. Bodegas Roda firmly believe “a wine is a reflection of the landscape”.

Suckling-

RIVER VALLEY, SONOMA,

all started when Dr. Elias Hanna, sought a break from the city and found a place in the country to relax with his family. He purchased 12 acres of Sonoma countryside and taught his children to grow fruit and vegetables, raise chickens and ultimately make wine. In 1985 they turned their family pastime into a business and Hanna winery was born. Christine Hanna took the helm of the business from her father in 1991, now it has over 250 acres in 5 premier vineyard location and an annual production of 50,000 cases. Hanna winery remains devoted to the diverse terroir of the region, the farm to table movement and true Sonoma lifestyle. Chris has surrounded herself with like-minded risk takers and change makers, including winemaker Jeff Hinchliffe, who puts sustainability initiatives at the forefront of the wineries mission, leaving Hanna wellpositioned for generations to come.

Q&A

Breaky Bottom Vineyard, East Sussex

How do you relax?

With music, and a glass of whisky in the evening.

What’s the best book you’ve read recently?

I love reading, but I don’t read enough. Too busy with physical work. I’ve recently read some Seamus Heaney poetry. He’s a great man. Koizumi Yakumo/Lafcadio Hearn was my great-great uncle, born in 1850. He became a very important travel writer. He went to Japan in 1890 and remains the most respected of writers from the west. I’ve just been given a book by Suzanne Simard, a professor at Columbia University, called Finding the Mother Tree. Trees are more important than we believe and can actually talk to each other. We think we know everything, but we know so little.

Do you have any sporting loyalties?

I used to play rugby at school and I still sit on the edge of my seat if it’s played well. May the best team win, boys or girls. I also used to row at Henley. It’s an amazing sport.

Who’s your favourite music artist?

Peter Hall spent his early childhood in Gloucestershire before his family moved to London. He arrived at Breaky Bottom, a smallholding in the South Downs, between Lewes and the coast, in the late 1960s as a tenant and soon saw its potential for vine cultivation. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in the modern English wine industry, and as a pioneer of sparkling wine in the UK.

What’s the first wine you remember drinking?

Morey St Denis, with my French grandpère, Alex Mercier, in the south of France, aged about 12. He had a restaurant in Soho before the First World War, Le Petit Savoyard, which was very popular with ministers of the Crown and high court

judges. He never made any money. He was a fabulous cook with a wonderful cellar. He taught us about all the wines of France. He told us to first acknowledge the label, respect the wine, but, with a clap of hands said, “remember, it’s only fermented grape juice”.

What job would you be doing if you weren’t in the wine trade?

I wanted to join the navy because I thought there were wooden ships, still, with sails, like the ones I saw in books I got for Christmas, or in a jigsaw puzzle.

There is a parallel between what I see would happen on a ship and a small property like Breaky Bottom. I know every flint of significance. On board ship it’s the same thing. You know every rivet.

Music for me is the highest art. When I was living in London as a boy I went with my elder brother Rémy and listened to wonderful music. Ben Britten: the Four Sea Interludes in Peter Grimes. Schubert’s String Quintet, D956: just magic. Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs: fabulous. I also love great jazz. I’ve got a photograph of Louis Armstrong that he sent me. When I was first here as a bachelor I got flu and for a week I was in bed. I heard lovely jazz on the radio so I wrote Louis Armstrong a letter in a brown envelope just marked “Louis Armstrong, USA” and they delivered it! Jimmy Giuffre’s The Train and the River is just terrific west coast jazz.

Any superstitions?

When I first came here it was tiny, no electricity, standpipe outside for water: one room downstairs, and two tiny beds up. Very optimistically for a young man I bought a double mattress. That first night

“I wanted to join the navy because I thought there were wooden ships” Peter Hall

upstairs I was listening to jazz and every now and then, despite the calmness, I heard bang. Then the bang became more insistent, and I became a bit nervous. Suddenly, I felt two hands pushing hard on my back. I sweated … eventually I said out loud, “I know you’re here”, and immediately the hands released. A short time after that, my hand was squeezed –like a lovers’ handshake. I’m born and bred a Catholic and happy to have had that education. But come on, when you get to 12 or 13 … does the good Lord exist? I’m an agnostic still, not an atheist. All is not revealed. I’m intrigued.

Who’s your favourite wine writer?

There are many who write nice things about my wine. Oz Clarke, Jancis Robinson, Hugh Johnson … I don’t want to offend any of them but if I must pick one, Andrew Jefford. He’s a very dear friend. He’s a gentle soul and such a fine writer. A real wordsmith.

Give us a Netflix recommendation. I don’t know about Netflix. When I’m really tired – and you get more tired as you get older – I just watch a bit of TV, and something a bit old fashioned. The Vicar of Dibley is amazingly rude for something that went out at peak time.

Which historical figures would you most like to meet?

Two Nelsons: Mandela, and Admiral Lord. Gandhi, Luther King: champions for racial harmony, still so lacking today.

What’s your most treasured possession?

The bust of my dear mother, Jeannine Mercier, or my father’s bronze toad. It was given to him by a man in a restaurant who said it had brought him bad luck. It was in London, wartime. Pop said, OK, I’ll take it, but before the food was served there was something in his mind that told him to get the fuck out of there. So he went out, with the toad. There was a direct hit with a bomb which blew the whole place up. So it brought my father good luck.

What’s your proudest moment?

I’m too modest to respond. Maybe the realisation, as I age, that money causes so much grief in the world. I do understand human nature – we’re driven to pursue it. But I’m proud to have arrived at this point. Human beings should care more for each other and less for money and profit. But I was flattered when in 2021 Hugh Johnson, suffering under Covid, chose 10 wines of the world to “cheer us up”, and my 2010 Cuvée Reynolds Stone was the only English wine on his list.

What’s your biggest regret?

I don’t have any big regrets. I am grateful for my good fortune, from childhood onwards. I’m a lucky bugger.

Any hidden talents?

I think I would have done OK with music: a cello player, or dare I say a conductor. But I chose a different path, so these talents, if they existed, remain hidden. When I was 35 I had a cello and someone stole it, but I was already too old to learn to play properly. My father was an important writer of short stories and I think I could have – or may yet – write prose or poetry. I must dip my quill and try, but I’m currently so blooming busy trying to make sound English fizz. So I’ll have to wait a wee bit.

What’s your favourite place in the UK?

I’m a hermit, so it’s got to be Breaky Bottom. I don’t like the way people constantly want to visit “everywhere”. Ten years from now our roads will choke to death with traffic. Before the arrival of trains almost everybody stayed within spitting distance of the place where they were born. Though I acknowledge the adventurous Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan and many others. I probably would have gone with them.

If you could be granted three wishes?

No more wars, no more wars, no more wars. Peace and more care for each other. And fuck Putin.

GINGER COLADA

Seventies favourite the Piña Colada has seen its popularity in the alcohol fashion cycle swing round again and it’s enjoying bit of a moment. Substituting the usual white rum for a punchy modern spiced version can make it more interesting, and a ginger-heavy take like Scotland’s Dark Matters helps light the fire. The same brand’s Rhubarb & Ginger Rum Liqueur introduces a touchy of sharpness if the pineapple-sweetness of the classic cocktail seems daunting, and cuts the overall abv for those with an eye on moderation.

5cl spiced rum

5cl coconut cream

10cl pineapple juice

Wedge of fresh pineapple

Put all the rum, coconut cream and juice in a blender with a little ice and pulse until smooth. Pour into a hurricane or piña colada glass and garnish with the pineapple wedge. Strain into the glass and garnish with another lemon wedge.