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| Bordeaux’s merits are worth
keeping |
Old-fashioned wines from France are worth buying
up in bulk in time for the festive season
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Grape crushing display at show
Laure de Tilquel from Château du Raux
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IF supermarket wines seem less attractive, where should we look
for our wines? One answer to this question was given at the first
Wine Show London, held last weekend in Islington’s Building
Design Centre where close to a third of the 120 exhibitors offered
‘vin direct’.
These are small producers, mostly from Bordeaux, family owned vineyards
or young growers starting out on their own, trying to sell their
wines without the intervention of negotiants or middlemen.
Two companies represented Burgundy. One of these, Jadot, whose wines
you can see in almost all our supermarkets, thought talk of a crisis
in French wines exaggerated – cold comfort for those in Bordeaux.
What are their views?
The Grand Crus, according to Lucian Moritz of Château Guíllotín
“have never sold so well but like a TGV they have broken away
from the rest of us”.
Lucian, with his father, Jean Michel and English mother, Susan,
own five-and-a-half hectares in Pusseguin St-Emilion, first planted
in 1730.
“In the old days, there was a wine to match every dish,”
he says. “If you look at the New World, they are moving towards
this – but we are going in the opposite direction.”
The Moritz family are offering their 2004 Château Guíllotín
at £7 and the 2002 vintage for £7.50, each with a life
of around six years. Email them at info@chateauguillotin.com
or ring 07792 251 545.
Contrast this with Patrick Bernard and Laure de Tilquel from Château
du Raux on the opposite bank of the Garonne.
As might be expected with a larger vineyard – in this instance
20 hectares – worked by father, son and two staff, Patrick
(the son) does not accept there is or should be a clear-cut division
between traditional and modern methods of winemaking.
They see the smaller French producers “being crushed by the
big machines”, with the problem compounded by complacent negotiants,
and have come up with an interesting solution.
You can buy 12 bottles of their 2001 vintage for £101.40 (£8.49
a bottle) including cost of delivery, a good price for a claret
from the Haut Medoc.
But, if you’re willing to collect it from their agent in Calais,
you can have the same case for £78.47 or £5.29 a bottle.
This includes a £15 charge covering British duty and VAT –
yes, it’s legal.
Email them at chateau.du.raux@wanadoo.fr.
Larger properties in Bordeaux also like direct sales. Château
Peyrabon, another Haut Medoc property with 50 hectares, are selling
12 bottles of 2004 Cru Bourgeois Haut Medoc at £72 in bond
(ie you pay duty and VAT whenever you take delivery) as well as
a 2004 Pauillac for £108.
Another dozen wines are free if you purchase two cases. Email them
at contact@chateau-peyrabon.com
These are, of course, only five out of several hundred wines on
offer. None has been tasted ‘blind’ but we hope to do
this and print the results.
We are aware we need more information about small independent wine
sellers from France and elsewhere. But with Christmas coming up
you could do worse than sample one of these. If you do, please let
us know what you find.
Wine accounts for about a fifth of France’s agricultural produce,
and it’s good to see younger, small-scale growers coming to
London. Bordeaux is conservative but let’s acknowledge that
theirs is the sort of conservatism that Tony Blair’s successor
would do well to copy.
Turning to the New World, 96 per cent of Australian wine (according
to Australian Vineyards Direct) comes from four corporations who
buy most of their grapes in small quantities from family vineyards.
These hold back between half and 10 per cent of their grapes, but
keep the best fruit, “pouring their heart and soul into the
wine they make”.
Australian Direct market small quantities of these wines, one (a
riesling from Eden Springs) as few as 300 cases.
Be warned; they don’t come cheap, and you have to like very
strong wines. If it’s within your pocket, Australia Direct
recommend the 2003 Gemtree Uncut Shiraz (£15), 2005 Gemtree
Citrine Chardonnay (£10) and 2002 Rosevale Cabernet Sauvignon
(£15).
Contact 020 7259 8520 or email david@austvine.com.
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Bordeaux's merits are worth keeping
IF supermarket wines seem less attractive, where should we look for
our wines?
FULL STORY
We should get on our bikes and ride
CROSS country athletes will tramp across Hampstead Heath in the London
Championships later this month.
FULL STORY
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