Grand Vin Wine Merchants UK | Blog

My least favourite question is one that I’m frequently asked: “So, what’s your favourite wine?” I once made a chap at a party quite cross by my inability to pin it down to a single answer. It’s like being asked to choose between your children. Burgundy for temple moments. Bordeaux for purring confidence. Champagne for uplift. Australian for exuberance. But if forced, under some terrible threat, to pick one wine to save in all the world, I would choose Barolo. It has been compared with the great reds of Bordeaux. But this intriguing, sometimes misunderstood Italian is only really like itself. (Or possibly Barbaresco. But that's another story.) Like Bordeaux, Barolo is substantial. This full-bodied, long-lived wine is serious but, unlike its hedonistic Tuscan cousins, not showy. Despite its firm tannins and full body, I think Barolo has more in common with Burgundy than Bordeaux. Like Burgundy, Barolo is the expression of a single grape variety: Nebbiolo. This Italian vine var...

Sauternes battles the fate of all truly fine sweet wines. Our age, unlike those that went before, does not prize sweetness in wine. We have full, cheap access to sugar. And then there is the association of sweet wines with unsophisticated palates. Yet ‘Sweet’ is an entirely inadequate term for the scintillating, lush tension of the best examples. Sugar, acidity, extract and the mysterious sour, perfumed freshness of botrytis create wines of captivating textures, aromas and longevity. Sweetness ceases to be the point. Yet these wines remain tethered to the dessert trolley. I adore sweet wines and drink them with anything. They are just so improbable. I love these expressions of human ingenuity intersecting with nature. This applies not just to botrytised wines, of which Sauternes is the most famous but far from only example. The Recioto wines of Italy and Ice Wines of Germany are similarly weird but brilliant. Rotten grapes. Shrivelled grapes. Frozen grapes. You couldn’t make t...

The International Wine Challenge is the world's largest wine competition. Over 9000 wines from across the world are entered. Four potential rewards are up for grabs: commended, bronze, silver and gold. Gold medals are particularly coveted: vaunted by marketing departments, they can significantly improve sales from the retail outlets via which the majority of these wines are distributed. Judging at the IWC is grueling, rewarding and fun. It is a ruthless test of your tasting skill, and consistency. It is also an unparalleled opportunity to taste across the world of wine, and there is a waiting list to join the ranks of even the most junior judges. Multiple panels of five judges taste flights of around 7 wines from endlessly varied origins. From Argentinean Mable, to Kiwi Sauvignon, to white Burgundy and red Bordeaux, we taste, note, score and  - inevitably - argue. I used to think it would be great to be a Panel Chair - to be in the position of final arbit...

The annual November Bordeaux tasting put on by the Institute of Masters of Wine   is on e I try not to miss. Held at the beautiful Vintners Hall , it is a fascinating opportunity to try most of the top wines of Bordeaux (including First Growths), four years on from the vintage.  The estimable Tim Atkin MW described this year's tasting as a 'scrum' in his write up of the wines. It certainly had the feel of a polite bun fight. But it is a reflection of the cool welcome for the beleaguered 2007 vintage that conditions were positively courtly compared to the mosh pit of 2009, when the 2005s were on show. 2007 was saved from complete ignominy by an Indian summer, after a grey summer and sodden August. Nonetheless, the vintage was rated very poorly by Robert Parker. The best it could ever offer, it seemed, was soft and charming accessibility. At its worst, which was all too easily achieved by those without the resources to invest in protection and selection against rot, 2007 w...