Grand Vin Wine Merchants UK | Blog

Zucca London was the venue for the first BWI Dining Club event held on Thursday 31st January. The idea behind this new initiative is to offer our clients the opportunity to enjoy some exquisite food, taste some interesting wines, and discuss everything BWI. The setting was simply superb.  Zucca London was set up by Sam Harris in 2010, following stints in The River Café, Harvey Nichols, Bibendum and Leith's Cookery School. This fine pedigree was evident in the style of culinary delights on offer, with every detail carefully considered. The restaurant is a firm favorite with Time Out Magazine , achieving a well deserved 5 star rating. We were fortunate enough to host our event in the Private Dining Room , ideally situated behind the kitchen and next to an impressive temperature controlled cellar. The room allowed our clients to dine in complete privacy in a stylish and relaxed atmosphere. We started the night off with Arla...

Saint Emilion 2012 – why classify? Saint Emilion, in spirit at least, is far removed from the flat expanses and grand Châteaux of the Médoc. This hilly, sacred town is stirringly picturesque, with an ancient tradition of vines and winemaking. Today, both the town and its vineyards are a UNESCO world heritage site. There is a sense of a back story as you walk around Saint Emilion, which you don't need to be a wine nerd to feel. Religious significance, concentrated architectural interest and the eyrie views of vineyards combine to make this bit of Bordeaux more romantic than its left bank cousins. Today, Saint Emilion is famed as a source of the Right Bank's greatest wines, as renowned as the best of the Left Bank Médoc. Not so long ago, however, it was a bit of a vinous back-water. It is further from the major ports than the Médoc, and also from the tempering influence of the sea. Summer is warmer, but more abrupt. Merlot and Cabernet Franc dominate. Soils are very significa...

Wine scores are now so invaluable to the consumer and merchant alike that they both underpin and are the focus of most offers and wine descriptions around the world. The digits given out of 5, 20 or 100 are used to describe and rate a wine in the most laconic of synopses, and a good score – occasionally stretching to three holy digits – has the power to double (or more) a wine’s value globally in a matter of minutes. Speaking on a personal note – not as an ambassador for the company or even the wine trade in general – I have never liked scoring. It has always seemed to me that to give a number to a wine makes as much sense as to give it an interpretive dance (something I do not recommend doing at tastings: the interrogation by psychiatrists is lengthy and the dry cleaning bills are prohibitive). In my mind, scoring seems logically and semantically unsound. Yet score away critics and colleagues do. I understand the appeal, we want to know quickly which wines were preferred, and tasti...

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...

Our man in Hong Kong, Martin Lea, enjoyed an evening – and a wine – this week that he won’t forget in a hurry: As nights go in Hong Kong, I knew this had the potential to be a bit special.  From the moment the invitation was offered to dine at Otto E Mezo Italian Restaurant (the only three star Michelin outside of Italy) from a very generous Japanese client, who also promised to bring a bottle of '95 Le Pin, I found it hard to contain my excitement.  I also found it daunting trying to select a wine that could hold its own in such lofty company!  I opted for a bottle of '86 Haut Brion, which I knew was hitting its prime having tasted it a few months ago.   The Haut Brion was impressive, although not quite in the same league as the previous bottle, highlighting the old adage that 'there are no great wines, only great bottles'.  A bottle of the delicious '90 Las Cases followed, whilst throughout we enjoyed...

Château Latour is to leave the En Primeur market. Instead, says director Frederic Engerer, they will sell finished wines when they are ready to drink. The provenance and authenticity of wines will also be protected. With this statement, Latour has asserted the real value of even the greatest wines: for drinking pleasure. This bold move has been a long time coming. For years, Latour has reduced the quantity of wines released En Primeur, and controlled allocations tightly. It has inspired plenty of comment and articles, of which two of the most comprehensive from a trade and consumer perspective respectively are by Jancis Robinson on her eponymous website, and Stephen Brook in The Telegraph. You might expect merchants, in Bordeaux and elsewhere, to be disconcerted. Many are.   En Primeur, when it works well, is a buzzy and effective sales campaign which generates excitement and a significant chunk of merchant turnover. Latour’s move could be seen as a threat to future o...

On Wednesday 22nd February 2012, BWI hosted a wine masterclass for clients (and some lucky staff) featuring the wines of Château Margaux. The tasting was lead by Mr Paul Pontallier, General Manager of Margaux. Paul Pontallier is famously urbane and suave. An arresting speaker, he is philosophical and engagingly poetic about wine and its place in our lives. Like his wines, beneath the genuine charm is a steely core. For more than thirty years, his conviction, drive and tenacity have steered Château Margaux from underperformer to star performer, renowned for elegantly high quality.   Despite Pontallier’s background (he trained as an agricultural engineer and has a doctorate in oenology), he didn’t weigh down our audience with technical detail. Our guests at this event were wine lovers. Most have Margaux in their cellars – even if a few complained they couldn’t afford the most recent vintages. All protested their intention to drink the wines, eventually.  Pontallier is c...

Kingsley Amis said that the three most depressing words in the English language were “Red or White?”. “Fine Wine” is surely a candidate for the two most inefficient. Their meaning is diversely interpreted, and their use frequent but little defined. My heart was captured and my career path changed, fifteen years ago, by a red Burgundy that I, and many others, would consider to be a Fine Wine. It was the first Fine Wine I’d had, and such was its call that I chucked in my job and joined the wine trade. I suppose it must have been expensive (I wasn’t paying), but one thing I have learned since then is that a high price does not a Fine Wine make. (Indeed, as Jamie Goode’s spirited post on Icon Wines explains , it is all too easy to obliterate subtle qualities of an interesting wine by throwing money at it.) Fine wines are never cheap, as such. Some may as well be cellared on the moon, for all the average wine lover can afford to drink them. But many wines in which I find fine qualities ca...

Behind the scenes I love putting on wine dinners, but of all wine experiences they take the most work. The search for the perfect and available venue is infinite. We were delighted to get in at Glaziers Hall, a relative youth of the London Livery Halls, which has lovely spaces, a central location and a super efficient events team. The wines may be the star attraction, but if the food disappoints, the evening will fail. So we blew the budget and chose award-winning caterers Inn or Out, whose director, Lena Bjorck - a knockout 6 foot Swedish blonde – inspires unfailingly high standards. Menu – by Inn or Out Selection of warm canapés: Lobster Bisque with a Parmesan and Fennel Straw ‘Old Spot’ Pork Belly with Apple and Honeyed Crackling Line Caught Halibut Wrapped in Pancetta with Gremolata Autumn Mushroom Beignet with a Béarnaise Dip Butternut Squash and Sage Risotto Served on a Spoon Jersey Royal with Melted Aged Cheddar and Sour Cream Ficelle and Crisp ...

I love tasting wine, almost as much as I love drinking it. I love arguing about it, or for it. I’m unfailingly thrilled by the opportunities I have to try some of the world’s greatest, rarest or oldest wines. I attempt to convey a wine’s character and qualities in a way that I hope is helpful to fellow wine lovers. But I score wine with a heavy heart. It goes against everything my mentors have taught me, and my own instincts. I concede the usefulness of wine scores. When I am judging hundreds of similar wines (same broad origin, same vintage) in concentrated succession, scores help with the necessarily rapid recalibration of relative quality, and when I get back home and have hundreds of notes to make sense of, they can also help to identify quickly the star-performing commune. I also empathise with the consumer’s liking for wine scores. That unequivocal number crosses language barriers and inspires confidence: a definitive and concise judgment in a wine landscape of bewildering ch...