Wine Club 5 September

Good grief I miss our Spectator Winemaker Lunches! As you know, these extremely convivial and really rather bibulous events are held — or were held until the dread plague and pestilence fell upon us — in the boardroom at 22 Old Queen Street roughly every fortnight.

A maximum of 14 readers join me and a winemaker of note for a fine cold lunch and the chance to sample some pretty dandy bottles and to hear all about how and where they were made. Your humble correspondent serves as wine waiter and as the vino flows — we rarely dip below a creditable one bottle per head — the conversation increases in volume and ranges far beyond the topic of fermented grape juice.

Our most recent lunch was held in early March — before the grip of lockdown made such things impossible — and, hosted by Philip Addis of Domaine du Grand Mayne, it turned out to be one of the jolliest yet.

Indeed, so enjoyable and so well-priced were the wines that I felt obliged to persuade Philip to offer them here to the wider readership. He kindly agreed and insisted we took advantage of a hearty 25 per cent discount to boot.

Domaine du Grand Mayne is an artisan winery in the Côtes de Duras near Bordeaux, half way between Saint Émilion and Bergerac. What was once an abandoned estate was transformed in the 1980s and the revival has continued with the help of consultant winemaker Martin Meinert (of South African fame) and Philip Addis himself (founder of Great Western Wines). Today, thanks to two rounds of crowd-funding, D du GM is owned by a group of some 900 wine-lovers and has put the wines of south-western France firmly on the map.