By Charles Lea on 04/09/2013
Great excitement has greeted the release of the 2010 vintage of Antinori’s ultimate flagship wine, Solaia. Two critics have already hailed it as the best vintage yet of this intense, classical Cabernet-based SuperTuscan, and this certainly looks to be one not to miss.
By Charles Lea on 02/09/2013
Unlike some Champagne houses who rattle out the vintages one to the next – Pol have the strength of mind and the integrity to hang on to theirs until they are really sure that it is at the perfect point to release, allowing for early drinking for the impatient, but always with the class and depth needed for longer-term ageing.
By Charles Lea on 29/08/2013
Agostino Lenci of Fattoria di Magliano wrote to us excitedly this week, with the news that in the 2013 'Vinellando', a competition organised by the local trade bodies for Morellino di Scansano, his 2011 MORELLINO DI SCANSANO Heba Fattoria di Magliano came out top.
By Charles Lea on 26/07/2013
Hail has been much in the news recently, with Tamlyn Currin making Raimond de Villeneuve's La Grêle 2012 Rosé the wine of the week last week on www.
By Charles Lea on 24/07/2013
International Wine Challenge (IWC) Merchant Awards Strictly Come Wine Tasting? On the 18th of July, at the 30th anniversary of the IWC awards, Lea & Sandeman was awarded 'En Primeur Merchant of the Year', All the L&S team are absolutely delighted to have been given this award by such a high-calibre panel, (Tim Atkin MW, Oz Clarke, Sam Harrop MW, Peter McCombie MW, Charles Metcalfe and Derek Smedley MW) and judged against such formidable competition.
By Charles Lea on 02/07/2013
Tim Atkin MW on crackling form in this week's edition of the trade rag 'Off-Licence News' (bet quite a lot of you did not even know it existed). Following-up on a headline-grabbing article in the Observer at the weekend, he roundly rebuts the idea that tasters cannot tell one wine from another or judge quality.
By Charles Lea on 02/06/2013
The 2012 Bordeaux campaign will go down as one with a lot of sound and (especially) fury, signifying very little. The shame is that it obscures the real hard work being done all over this vast region which still makes a lot of the best value wines in the world.
By Charles Lea on 02/06/2013
You will have seen our earlier push on Denis Durantou's 'little wines', not to mention the little video about the 2012 vintage. Of course 'little wines' is a misnomer since they are far from little and offer some of the best value in Bordeaux - just at a more accessible price than his 'big wine' l'Église Clinet.
By Charles Lea on 02/06/2013
Up in the northern Médoc, around the village of Saint Christoly, it was normal, right up to the 1970s, for farmers to have some maize, some cows, a few pigs – and 4 hectares or so of vines. Part of what is now Clos Manou was a 4 hectare ‘Cru Bourgeois’ called Château Cantegrive.
By Charles Lea on 02/06/2013
Regular Primeur buyers from L&S will know that we have been banging the drum for Pierre Taïx's 'La Mauriane' since 2001, and this tiny property in Puisseguin Saint Emilion continues to produce wines of remarkable value, with Pierre continuing to tweak the way the vineyards and managed and the wine is made and aged.
By Charles Lea on 01/06/2013
The release of Sassicaia 2010 gives an opportunity to have a look at a few of the other wines from the west Tuscan coast, the ‘Maremma’.
