Yes, you can buy a decent bottle of wine for less than a fiver. Just follow these tips
Cheap supermarket wines might not sound too appealing, but there are some genuinely good bottles out there for less than a fiver, if you know how to scour the shelves – and more importantly, stay away from over-zealous advertising.
Published in the Guardian Read the rest of the article
Published in The Daily Telegraph- Winter 2007
Peter Grogan journeys to the Herts of darkness to find the wisest buyers of wine
The first bottle of wine that really did it for me was a Sancerre from the Wine Society. A girlfriend and I pinched it from her father and I’ll always be grateful to him for that eureka moment of discovering that wine could provide a lot more pleasure than just the effects of the alcohol. I cursed him, though, the other day, as I trudged around Stevenage in the wind and rain trying to find the headquarters of this cooperatively owned wine merchant, founded 133 years ago.
The Society, in which each member owns a single share, fits somewhere between Waitrose – which in itself is unusual in being an arm of the John Lewis Partnership, owned by its 64,000 staff – and grand old wine merchants such as Berry Bros & Rudd and Corney and Barrow. At the station, I was told that “the wine place” was “across the footbridge and round the back of Tesco”.
Standing in front of Majestic Wine Warehouse, I damply reflect that it and, for that matter, Tesco wouldn’t be the forces they are today if the Society hadn’t blazed a trail in cutting out the middlemen. “I don’t think many people in Stevenage know we’re here, really, but that’s OK,” says Pierre Mansour, the Australasia and America buyer, after coming to rescue me in his car.
When it comes to wine warehouses, you have to hand it to the Society. Standing in the middle of its 175,000 sq ft facility – that’s two and a half football pitches – Ewan Murray, who’s in charge of tastings, enumerates: four million bottles, 90,000 active members who together spend more than £1 million a week, and a list made up of 1,000 wines from 20 countries.
But no one will be showing off, because the Wine Society has that very British mix of competence and reticence that makes it seem like a sort of Bletchley Park of the wine trade. “No one here earns a bonus, including me,” says chief executive Oliver Johnson. “So everyone’s focused on quality rather than margin.” It also means that the Society is seldom beaten on price.
Those 1,000 wines include some I’ve never heard of and I’m feeling a little nervous as I prepare to meet the six buyers. They are some of the best “noses” in the business but I soon discover they’re also an easy-going lot who wear their learning lightly.
Everyone makes mistakes, however, and Master of Wine Sebastian Payne, the Society’s long-serving chief buyer, tells of a mix-up on his predecessor’s watch. After a long day’s tasting, the cellar master calamitously ran wines from casks of three different classed-growth Bordeaux châteaux into the same vat for bottling. Rather than a disaster, the resulting blend was an immediate success. “It was baptised ‘The Society’s Centenary Claret’ and it went down very well with the members,” says Payne.
Talking to members a few days later at a Society tasting in London, it seems less surprising that we British – already the most sophisticated wine consumers in the world – look set to overtake France as the biggest spenders. Members, who come from all walks of life, spend on average £6.75 a bottle.
It isn’t a fortune, but it’s two-thirds as much again as the UK average. Joining is easy. That share costs £40 for lifetime membership (bequeathable to a promising Godchild) and you don’t need connections to join. The Secretary “proposes” those who don’t know an obliging member.
The big numbers, which are small compared with the supermarkets, give the Society the clout to buy what it likes and focus on many smaller, family-run wineries. The list is particularly strong on France with, for example, a lavish 16 wines from the stunning 2005 Beaujolais vintage.
But Chile and New Zealand shine, too. Some members prefer the Society’s Choice, a pre-mixed case of wines costing £6-£8. Others pick and choose from the more expensive “Exhibition” range, made up of perennial favourites such as New Zealand Pinot Noirs and Chilean Merlots.
As it is essentially a mail-order business, browsers will miss out unless they’re within reach of the showroom. The good news is that there’s no minimum purchase and mixed cases start at under £5 a bottle.
For subscription customers, wines are chosen to suit a budget and sent out each month. It’s called “Wine Without Fuss”, a phrase that neatly sums up this old-fashioned yet forward-looking wine merchant.
# The Wine Society: 01438 740222; www.thewinesociety.com.
WINES OF THE WEEK
2005 Dourthe Barrel Select St Emilion, 13% vol (£10.49; Waitrose).
Richly fruit-cakey, with the subtle hints of violets and tobacco that usually cost more than this.
The much-hyped 2005 Bordeaux vintage seems to be walking the walk. A fillet steak would be the perfect accompaniment.
2006 Co-op Fairtrade Cape Chenin Colombard, 12.5% vol (£3.99; Co-op).
Co-op leads the way in Fairtrade wines and this is from the biggest project in the world. An attractively perfumed nose and perky melon and apricot fruit.
The price will comfort those who’ve opened their post-Christmas credit card statements.
2004 Ravenswood Old Vine Zinfandel, 14% vol (£7.50; Wine Society).
A century of experience with Californian Zinfandels means the Wine Society knows a thing or two.
This is intense stuff, meaty and spicy with a big slice of blackberry-pie fruit and a hint of liquorice. Terrific value.
2005 Bonterra Chardonnay-Sauvignon Blanc, 13.5% vol (Majestic; £5.59 for two or more to February 5).
Feeling out of touch? Try this – it’s from California, it’s organic, it’s got a unique new screw-top and it’s a blend of grapes to make French blood run cold.
It’s also very crisp, fragrant and very more-ish.
Published in The Daily Telegraph 12/ 18/2006
Vinho verde, the characteristic young wine of northern Portugal, is under-appreciated outside its home. But that’s changing, says Peter Grogan
The “green” in the title refers to youth rather than colour. But there is no doubt that vinho verde is big in Portugal.
Massive, in fact. In the average wine aisle of a British supermarket you will find 500-odd different wines. Imagine, if you will, 3000 bottles in a Portuguese supermarket, every single one of them a different vinho verde.
And then there are uncounted millions of bottles filled with cloudy, still-fizzing wine from the taps of all those gleaming vats that don’t come into the reckoning and, in any case, seldom travel further than the end of the lane.
A few minutes’ drive out of Oporto and the vines that stripe the countryside of the Minho region start to appear. “In late summer the sight of the grape-bearing garlands along every road gives almost pagan pleasure,” wrote Hugh Johnson in the 1970s.
Aside from the stainless steel vats, the basic production methods, at least at the domestic level, would be recognisable to the pre-Christian inhabitants of the region.
The grape varieties grown for vinho verde (which sounds like “been-yo-beard” pronounced with a light Scots burr) are not much travelled themselves. The main varieties are the laurel-scented loureiro, the charismatic trajadura and the crisp arinto.
Alvarinho is the only vine to have upped sticks, but only across the Spanish border into Galicia, where it is known as Albariño. Back in the Minho, it is the principal grape variety in the district of Monção, where it makes arguably the finest, if not the most characteristic, vinho verde.
The squeamish export market, frowning on the cloudiness and the fizz, has required that the “better” wines have their rough edges smoothed off but, refreshingly, some of the less improved varieties have spirited themselves on to those supermarket shelves.
Very little wine of poor quality gets past my wife. Presented with a glass of non-vintage Morrisons vinho verde, poured from its irredeemably naff bottle, she was sceptical.
But the scintillating little bubble and fresh acidity which Hugh Johnson found “so marvellously refreshing” worked their magic, and Mrs G deemed it an excellent spritzer. I, for my part, agreed with Johnson that “it’s all too easy to gulp it like beer on a hot day.”
The cordial relations between England and Portugal, enshrined in the 1386 Treaty of Windsor -still active and unaffected by recent sporting events – remains the longest-lived such agreement in the world.
It will not, I hope, be put in jeopardy by my opinion of the red wines of the region.
Any robust survey cannot possibly ignore them, not least because they have only recently been overtaken in terms of volume of production by the white wines.
The fact that they seem to be effectively unobtainable here is, hopefully, because by some mechanism or other – possibly a clause in the treaty – they have been declared illegal on the grounds of tasting so horrible.
The excellent Monção Co-Operative produces some delightful whites, but even their flagship reds remain very disappointing.
But the last couple of years have seen sales of vinho verde rising at a rate to make even a rosé salesman blush and the good news is that this renaissance does appear to be quality-led.
The basic production methods would be recognisable to the pre-Christian inhabitants of the region
In the vanguard is Portugal’s largest wine company, the family-run Sogrape.
It produces everything from an annual 20 million bottles of Mateus Rosé to a rather smaller number of bottles of Barca Velha, the iconic red wine of which Jose Mourinho famously sent a conciliatory case to Alex Ferguson after an early touchline spat.
Don Hewitson, the proprietor of the Cork and Bottle wine bar off Leicester Square, central London, stocks Sogrape’s Quinta de Azevedo, and enthuses about vinho verde.
“There’s nothing quite like it,” he says. “It has lower alcohol content, usually around 10 or 11 per cent, which is just what you want in the summer. Plus it’s beautifully crisp and has a nice little spritz.”
Wines of the week
2005 Alvarinho Soalheiro, 12.5% vol (£10.75; Butlers Wine Cellar, 01273 698724. £11.99; Handford Wines, 020 7221 9614; Philglas & Swiggot, 020 7924 4494). This is a big, lush wine, with a perfect balance of ripeness and acidity and that je ne sais quoi – honeysuckle, perhaps – that Albariño always reveals.
2005 Quinta de Azevedo, 10.5% vol (£5.25; Wine Society 01438 740222. £4.99 for two or more at Majestic until August 28, then £5.49). Ghostly-pale, “new style” vinho verde with just a prickle of fizz, a sherbetty nose and tingling green-apple acidity. A Granny Smith in a glass and great with oysters.
2005 Quinta do Ameal, 11.5% vol (£8.48; Corney & Barrow, 020 7265 2400). 2005 has produced some unusually rich, full-bodied wines. Barely a hint of spritz, but a lovely, laurel-scented nose and a lip-smacking savoury tang. Not a typical vinho verde, but very classy none the less.
NV Gazela, 9.5% vol (£4.49; Morrisons). Yes, it’s non-vintage, and the labelling is rather startling, but after an hour in the freezer – yes, really – this is as refreshing as a wine can be. Drinking it within an hour or so, to keep the fizz going, isn’t going to be a problem.
Daily Telegraph
Published in Scoff! July/ August 2006
My problem with Kiwi winemakers is that they’re just too darned on-the-case and focused for befuddled British wine hacks to be able to keep up with them. I had happily pigeon-holed them as purveyors of perfectly pleasant (if somewhat “green”) Pinot Noirs which would never hold a candle to Burgundy, and along come Isabel and Southbank and Seresin (to name but a few) to put poor Johnny Frenchman to flight.
I was happy when I could think of them primarily as a source of those Sauvignon Blancs that jump out of the glass, spray gooseberry essence up your nose, slap you round the face a few times and run screeching out of the door with your wallet. And then they start making wines of such poise and balance that the good folk of the Loire must be hanging their heads. This conversion was on show at the New Zealand Wine trade tasting at Lord’s Cricket Ground earlier this year where a large proportion of the NZ industry was plying its wares. How can they change so much, so fast?
“People have realised that it’s a global market and that to compete, you’ve got to keep raising your game,” says Steve Smith, New Zealand’s first Master of Wine and chief winemaker at the humblingly excellent Craggy Range. Craggy’s offerings across the varietal board are terrific – my favourite was their smoky, richly complex 2004 Beaux Cailloux Chardonnay. Another Chardonnay worth writing home about is the silkily elegant Kumeu River – both around the £16 mark.
Isabel Estate Sauvignon Blanc (£12-13) is a textbook example of how ‘new-wave’ New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs have left their delinquent ways behind them and traded in their ASBOs for a
place at finishing school. The product of high-density planting, this has complexity, minerality and even a little lick of honey at the end. That Pinot Noir of theirs (£15-£16) gives anything from Burgundy at the price a run for its money, with coffee and chocolate notes to embellish the lush strawberry fruit.
Montana is the biggest wine producer in New Zealand – almost twice as big as its nearest rival – and the tasting had officially closed when I started in on their 30 wines. I was nearly done when their International Operations Manager Jim Robertson came up.
“What did you think of the Reserve Chardonnay?” he asked. I fumbled through my notes: “Tropical, v. typical, rich,” was all I had come up with. “But I think ‘typical’ probably means a bit old-fashioned, compared to a lot of what I’ve tasted here today,” I continued. “Yeah, there’s 30% of it been in new oak,” said Jim. “And it’s, like, we’ve been there before, done that. There’s just no need for it. I think we’ll take it down to 10% or 15% at most next year. What do you think?”
Yep, these guys are seriously on the case.
Published in Dockwalk – May 2006
Rosé is making waves all over the place these days and with sales going through the roof last year and still rising, I thought it would be a good idea to have a look at what all the fuss is about.
Probably the most important two words to remember when sourcing pink wine are these: ‘banish blush’. OK, you may know of one or two exceptions but, as a rule of thumb, avoid them unless you know them. After all, they’re probably a bigger cause of rosé’s erstwhile – what shall we call it? – `image problem’ than anything else.
Rosé may be just about the hottest thing on the block right now but remember it should always, and I mean always, be well chilled. Perhaps not as much as we used to chill it in the bad old days of Mateus Rosé and Rosé d’Anjou, when half the point was to deaden the frequently less than fabulous flavours, but still a good hour in the refrigerator. (Bear in mind that while it’s easy to snigger at poor old Mateus, their sales went up by 42% between 2002 and 2004 and yet more last year. In fact, they went from very big to very, very big.)
There’s been a serious upturn in the quality of rosé across the board in the last few years and the fact that it is winemakers of the calibre of Jean-Luc Colombo who are turning their hands to producing them tells us that this looks like being more than a passing fad. His Pioche et Cabanon 2003 ($10) from Provence has a roundness and a complexity of red fruits and something more Rhône-like – black olives, perhaps – that would have been unthinkable in a rosé even a few years ago. Try it with something herby and tomatoey and garlicky and sort of … Provençal.
Of the big brand names, Jacob’s Creek Shiraz Rosé 2004 from Australia (around $12) is a perennially good bet when a deep draught of something cold enough to send trickles of condensation down the outside of the glass is what you want. It has good body and length and candied-fruit flavours with a nice tarry edge – there’s a splash of rose water thrown in for good measure.
Scotsmen excelling at making rosé wines in Bordeaux? In kilts? OK, I made the last bit up but if Château de Sours 2004 ($15) is the result then I’m all for it. The late, great Auberon Waugh described Esme Johnstone’s effort as ‘probably the best rosé in the world’ and its jammy nose, fleshy summer fruit flavours and general all-round yumminess certainly make it a contender.
The good folk of the Southern Rhône might, however, have a thing or two to say on that subject. Their appellation of Tavel is the only one in France to specify rosé as its sole authorised wine – as useful a wine-trivia question as I have up my sleeve, but I pass it on to you freely. The best producer in the appellation is generally thought to be Domaine de la Mordorée ($15-20), who also produce first-class Châteauneuf du Pape. Owner Christophe Delorme thinks the 2005 vintage is the best he?s made in his 20 years at the domaine and given that Robert Parker gave the previous year’s effort 89 points, I’m looking forward to sampling it with a juicy lamb steak.
Domaine Tempier ($28-32) has certainly booked its place on the podium with its spicy, beguiling Bandol – again from Provence, the spiritual home of rosé – made chiefly from the mourvèdre grape. Its long-lived, slight tarry and smoky flavours are ideal for outdoor eating.
The fact that Domaine de Limbardie 2004 Vin de Pays des Côteaux de Murviel from France’s Languedoc is stocked (at a mere $10 or so) by several of the UK’s leading merchants including Tanners, Adnams and Berry Brothers tells us that it’s a wine that can pull its weight. The flavours are of strawberries and Turkish delight and it’s very adaptable, with the body and depth to work well with barbecues.
Very much worth seeking out is Specogna Pinot Grigio 2003 ($20) from the Venezia-Giulia region of Italy. Although a ‘white’ grape, Pinot Grigio is a somewhat genetically confused scion of Pinot Noir and it has a pinky-grey skin which gives this wine its burnished auburn hue. It’s laden with Autumnal flavours like chestnuts and bay, sappy pine needles and herbs and smells of swirly bonfire smoke and pancetta so I’m not going to let the fact that it’s not strictly speaking a rosé put me off.
All these new-wave roses – to coin a phrase – are remarkably versatile food wines and the fuller-bodied examples, the Tavel and Provence wines especially, can go right through from canapés to cheese. A nice thought is a ?pink dinner? ? if you put your mind to it, you can come up with a menu consisting of only pink food, and maybe use pink tableware and linens too.
For sundowners on the after-deck, there’s no prettier thing to put in a glass than a rosé wine. Except perhaps a rosé champagne. For a large crowd, Moët et Chandon Brut Impérial Rosé ($50-60) is always a good bet, with overt strawberry and raspberry fruit and a nice tight mousse. Going upscale, Laurent Perrier Grand Siècle Alexandra 1997 ($100) has all the right credentials – crisp fruit with a nice warm briôche nose and masses of tiny bubbles. For best friends, Roederer Cristal ($350-450) always cuts a dash – 1996 is the preferred recent vintage if you can’t find the legendary 1985.
Meanwhile, Sogrape, the Portuguese producers of Mateus Rosé, have just launched a new wine and it’s a … rosé from, er, Spain. Looking at the publicity blurb I was a little disconcerted to read the legend across the front of the bottle which proudly announces it to be ‘A Taste of Spam’. Well, it is pink, I suppose … but I was disappointed that a second look reveals it, in fact, to be a taste of ‘Spain.?
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