Grand Vin Wine Merchants UK | Blog

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...

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...