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| Iberian organic wins day |
We put some of the most interesting wines from
a supplier to a panel to see if they can spot the odd one out
Sean Sweeney and Gillian McLaughlin at Highbury Vintners |
WHERE do managers of Oddbins go when they want an interesting
and reasonably priced wine?
There are a couple who head for Highbury Vintners, an independent
wine outlet at Highbury Park in Islington, the owner Sean Sweeney
told us when we spoke to him last week.
Oddbins, taken over by Castels, a multinational drinks company,
has deleted many of the boutique and hand-crafted wines that used
to adorn their shelves, replacing them with mass-produced ones,
often made by wineries owned by their parent company.
Sean took over Highbury Vintners two years ago and has done the
opposite. His shelves groan under the weight of fascinating wines
made by small enthusiastic producers.
“We have more than 600 different wines,” he says. “That’s
more than many supermarkets,” adds his partner (business and
personal) Gillian McLaughlin.
Talking to Sean you realise he knows the drinks business inside
out and his knowledge comes from several years’ sales experience
with Diageo, the biggest drinks company in the world and the four
years he spent managing off-licences in Dublin. But the business
is in his blood. His father ran the Highbury Vintners shop for 25
years before Sean took over. As a child he regularly visited the
store and grew up fascinated.
We are surprised to see several big, branded, mass produced wines
on the shelves. Gillian explains: “People are sometimes nervous
about buying wine, when they look in and see a familiar brand, they
often come in – and we mention a similar hand-crafted wine.”
Sean has our heads spinning as he enthusiastically relates stories
of his many wine tasting trips, pointing to wines on the shelves
as he talks. The range of wines is impressive, heralding from the
four corners of the wine producing world and including many lesser
known wine areas.
Each wine has a tag to relieve customers from the chore of turning
the bottles around to read the back label.
The wines range in price from a £3.99 Cuvee Jean Paul, Vin
de Pays de Vaucluse, a well balanced, medium bodied modern-style
French wine with soft but not overpowering fruit, to a wallet flattening
Brunello – an upmarket Italian red wine priced £38.99.
There are also 30 organic wines.
• Highbury Vintners 71 Highbury Park, N5, 020 7226 1347
or Sweeney_sa@hotmail.com
WINE PRESS CHALLENGE
We asked Sean and Gillian to pick the three wines, priced between
£3 and £8, they believe best reflect the quality and
individuality of their wines. The wines were to be tasted by a panel
at a blind tasting and planted among them would be a cheap bottle
brought from a convenience store. The question was, had they got
the bottle?
They had and here they are:
• Albet I Noya Lignum Negre 2003 (Organic) Penedes, Spain.
13.5 per cent £6.71.
It’s 22 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon, 39 per cent Carignan,
39 per cent Grenache grapes.
Vanilla edge to red berry fruits. Quite oaky and the grapes are
from old vines.
The makers claim the wine can be drunk now but will evolve with
age.
• Juan Gil Monastrell- Monastrell 2004.
Jummila, Spain. 14.5 per cent, £5.10.
Monastrell grapes.
It has twice the power of other Monastrell wines, according to wine
writer Simon Woods. The 2002 and 2003 vintages received 91 per cent
from wine guru Robert Parker.
Ruby/purple colour, aromas of black cherries and flowers. It tastes
of blueberries, blackberries and wood is medium bodied.
• Domaine Des Vielles Caves. AC Chenas 2004, Beaujolais, France,
13 per cent, £7.65.
Gamay grape.
Chenas wines are rarely seen in the UK and this is fermented in
a combination of traditional, resin-lined beton tanks and modern
stainless steel. The wine is aged in oak for six months.
There is depth and structure of raspberry and red cherry fruits.
• Supplied by Costcutter was Villa Girasole, Cabernet Sauvignon,
2004, Delle Venezie, Italy, 12 per cent £2.99.
At previous tastings this wine has caused havoc but this time it
fooled nobody. It is a well made mass-produced wine.
The verdict from our panel of tasters was that only one of the seven
tasters had trouble identifying the convenience store wine, confusing
it with the Chenas from Beaujolais.
All agreed these were three fine wines but the run away favourite,
to everyone’s surprise, was the Albet I Noya. Six of the tasters
picked this and the seventh could not choose between the three Highbury
Vintners wines considering them to taste similar. A possible explanation
for its success is its maturity at a year older than the others.
All three wines are drinkable now but have acidity and will mature
with time.
The tasters included: Ernest James, former chairman of the Camden
Licensing Committee. Dr Rhiannon Lloyd, Ian Ryan, Corci Campos and
members of the Wine Press team.
Email any wine views to Don and John at wine@camdennewjournal.co.uk |
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Iberian organic wins day
WHERE do managers of Oddbins go when they want an interesting and
reasonably priced wine?
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