Youngest grand vin from Latour

Château Latour 2015 has become the youngest grand vin on the market from this prestigious Bordeaux first growth estate.

Released for the first time on March 14, Latour 2015 was priced at £6,300 per 12-bottle case in bond at Farr Vintners. The château also released Les Forts de Latour 2017 and Pauillac de Latour 2018. Decanter, March 15

Digby joins the mile high club

British Airways is offering English sparkling wine as well as Champagne on business class flights for the first time.

As part of a one-year trial, BA has selected four English wines for its drinks roster, with the wine on offer changing every three months. The first to fly will be Digby Fine English Brut NV. From July the airline will serve the Balfour Rosé de Noirs, followed by Simpsons Chalklands Cuvée Brut NV. For the last three months of the trial, Wiston Estate Brut NV will be on the menu.

The Drinks Business, March 28

This month’s token celeb wine story

NBA superstar James Harden has added a Prosecco to his signature wine collection J-Harden.

The label, which launched in August 2022 as a collaboration with Accolade Wines, also includes California Cabernet Sauvignon and California Red Blend.

PR Newswire, March 15

Do you ever taste any of the most popular wines from supermarkets?

�I am often told that a customer likes Jam Shed or 19 Crimes and asked if I have anything similar. Understanding that these wines are high in sugar pushes me towards a juicy Aussie Shiraz or even an Appassimento. Although these styles are seen by indies like me as less desirable, they do open the gate into the wine world to a lot of mass-market drinkers and should be appreciated for what they are. But it’s important to promote the smaller growers, rather than a mass-produced product with very little complexity.”

Ian Howard H Champagne winner H That Wine Cellar, Delph, Oldham

�I tend to steer well clear of these branded wines – but Blossom Hill and Echo Falls were very popular with me when I first started drinking. On the odd occasion I have had some of the Casillero del Diablo range, which is just about drinkable with friends. I am currently five months pregnant so I have been on the hunt for good quality non-alcoholic wines, which are very few and far between, but the McGuigan noalcohol range isn’t too bad compared to others.”

Emily Wilson

La Dulce Vendimia, Macclesfield

�I have so many other wines to try: samples from new suppliers or new vintages of existing wines. However, we tried a few during the WSET Diploma, not only to understand mass-market wines, but to be able to distinguish quality in a blind tasting. While many of these wines are drinkable, they also highlight the difference between wine conglomerates and artisan wines and how spending a few pounds more gives you substantially more exciting wine.”

Duncan Gammie

The Wee Vinoteca, Hitchin & Cambridge

�No I don’t but, thinking about it, we really should. It’s so easy for independents to dismiss those wines as irrelevant, but with eight out of 10 bottles sold still going via the supermarkets we really should know what style the majority of wine drinkers are favouring. One of my best customers brought out a 10-year vertical of Casillero del Diablo at his 50th birthday and I must say they were actually very, very good.”

Tom Jones

The Whalley Wine Shop, Clitheroe

Champagne Gosset

The oldest wine house in Champagne: Äy 1584

43: Artisan Markets

Michael Boniface

No 2 Pound Street, Wendover, Bucks

In a nutshell …

From being a stallholder at regular markets to creating whole new events, Mike and his team reap the rewards from stepping out beyond their shop.

Tell us more.

We’re a wine merchant and a cheesemonger. For the last 10 years we’ve been stallholders at normal town markets at weekends and during the week. They call them Charter markets. We’ve always done food festivals, things like Blenheim Palace and Waddesdon Manor as well as our own food and drink festivals. We do one in Wendover called Summer on the Manor and we do a Christmas artisan market as well, but we’ve started to create more of our own events in addition to the summer and winter ones.

What prompted that decision?

Over the last year, we’ve seen consumer behaviour really change. There’s more of a desire for people to go somewhere for a day out where they know everything’s going to be good rather than just the town market on Wednesday. We have our network of traders we’ve built up over the last 13 years. That includes local wineries, local distilleries, crafts … all sorts of things.

Where do you start?

We have to talk to the local council. We find that some are more progressive than others. Really it’s good for everyone involved. These are events that bring people to the town. They are an experience for people; they can come and spend a day. For food lovers there are lots of stalls and street food vendors, and there are companies selling toiletries and candles … we have artists coming along to sell their paintings. It’s a good diverse mix and we try not to cross over as we want to keep all the traders happy. We want to make it easy for them so we have introductory pitch rates and we can lend out some equipment if it’s their first time.

Do you sell much wine?

It’s difficult to get people to buy wines at markets and it tends to work better if you have a focus or a theme. We’ve gone to food festivals and taken a selection of organic wines, which we can talk about very precisely and push as a theme, but generally we invite other traders or suppliers to sell their wines. We have a good friend who specialises in small organic Italian vineyards, so he will talk passionately about those particular wines. Another friend of ours is a local sparkling wine producer, Harrow & Hope. They do a stand and that’s really popular.

Tell us about staffing and resources. We have event staff and I try and keep the shop staff separate but we all muck in. We’ve got all sorts of different types of gazebos and things, including a big double gazebo but we don’t always use it – that depends on how big the site is. We’ve got quite a bit of equipment and three Bedfordsized vans. One is electric and we’re looking to change the other two, but the radius with the electric vans is a tricky one.

Can events get you long-term custom?

It’s great PR. If we can attract 1,000 people who are interested in food and wine to an event, they might not already know about us, they might be just coming to the market. So then we get a chance to talk to them about how passionate we are about cheeses and wines and they might just come along to our shop and visit our website. It’s a great way of getting new customers. People who visit the markets often come to the store and say, “finally, I made it to your shop”. It’s amazing.

Michael wins a WBC gift box containing some premium drinks and a box of chocolates.

Tell us about a bright idea that’s worked for you and you too could win a prize.

Email claire@winemerchantmag.com