NSPCC City Fine Wine Challenge 2022
By Charles Lea on 04/03/2022
The 2022 City Fine Wine Challenge in aid of NSPCC Childline was held on the 3rd March, and we were delighted to be back in One Great George Street after the virtual event last year.
Author Archives: Charles Lea
2020 Burgundy | Part 1 – Chablis
By Charles Lea on 30/12/2021
Chablis - arriving in Fleys on the road from Tonnerre Towards the end of October I planned to set off from Kent to start a trip to Chablis and Champagne, and was told, when I began to make appointments for the Monday, that the Sunday was by chance the rather local event, the 'Fête des vins de Chablis' - a chance for the local vignerons to show their wares in a street closed for the day, and a good opportunity to try the wines of quite a number of different domaines - so I set off rather earlier than I'd originally intended to get there in time.
2021 Burgundy harvest reports | Côte de Beaune
By Charles Lea on 19/11/2021
[caption id="attachment_33650" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Harvest at Domaine Hubert Lamy[/caption] Domaine Rémi Jobard - Meursault Remi Jobard told us:- ‘It was the shortest harvest ever – even my father had never seen anything like it. 1/3 of the normal harvest, and short in red as well as white. I picked late – starting as most people finished.
2021 Burgundy harvest reports | Côte de Nuits
By Charles Lea on 20/10/2021
An interesting report given that there seems to be a 'blanket' view that 2021 is a disaster in France. In Burgundy the quantity of white is certainly disastrously low, but there will as usual be some nicer surprises.
2021 Harvest Reports – Bordeaux Gleanings
By Charles Lea on 20/10/2021
Asked how the harvest has gone, one négociant replied that he felt that Bordeaux has got away with frost losses much better than some other parts of France, with frosts that were -3C to -4C, the kind that the great Châteaux are able to deal with by using very expensive things like helicopters or candles in the vineyard.
Matt Walls in Decanter – Côte-Rôtie alternatives
By Charles Lea on 19/05/2021
From Matt Walls, writing in Decanter, comes an article on top-quality and great-value Côte-Rôtie alternatives. As Matt puts it, “When a grape variety is given time to ripen slowly and gradually, it develops its aromas one by one. The grape has time to listen to those aromas, to remember them all, layering them like tints in a watercolour.
Steven Spurrier – a wine legend | 1941-2021
By Charles Lea on 09/03/2021
[caption id="attachment_32961" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Steven Spurrier at our Barnes shop for a book signing[/caption] We are very sad to hear the death today of the wine legend Steven Spurrier. Steven’s Paris shop ‘Les Caves de la Madeleine’ was a magnet for wine enthusiasts and has proved an enduring influence on those who worked there – which sometimes feels like a whole generation of the UK wine trade.
The NSPCC Needs You! – City Fine Wine Challenge at Home with Matthew Jukes
By Charles Lea on 16/02/2021
Last year the City Fine Wine Challenge raised over £200,000 for the NSPCC. In the last year charities have had little opportunity to raise funds through events, but the NSPCC has seen demand rise, particularly through Childline, and it needs your help more than ever.
Getting in Deep – Yves Confuron: Domaine Confuron Cotetidot & Domaine de Courcel
By Charles Lea on 29/01/2021
Organic, late-picked, whole-bunch fermented, classic old-school red Burgundies from one of the great domaines of the Cote de Nuits, based in Vosne Romanée, with vineyards from Pommard to Gevrey Chambertin – and reasonably-priced too!
2019 Bordeaux EP | Pontet Canet kicks off
By Charles Lea on 29/05/2020
Vintage good to outstanding. Timing poor to appalling. Pricing might be interesting We have already expressed our sympathy with the view that the interruption of the primeur tastings in Bordeaux should really have resulted in a radical rethink of the whole en primeur circus, which, in the last ten years, has become a selling opportunity for the Chateaux rather than a buying opportunity for the consumer.
Chateau Latour 2012 & Forts de Latour 2014 – First Release
By Charles Lea on 27/05/2020
Château Latour 2012 is released today – for the first time, as this was the first vintage in which Latour was not offered en primeur.
2019 Bordeaux EP | Negative Comment, But Bordeaux Presses On
By Charles Lea on 26/05/2020
We’ve already said that the UK trade is not terribly enthusiastic about the prospect of a primeur campaign over this summer, and we are not the only ones. “This horrible virus could have been the excuse that the region needed to kick this outdated and increasingly irrelevant ‘buying opportunity’ into the long grass, once and for all.” (Matthew Jukes)