Our nine merchant partners – Armit Wines, Corney & Barrow, FromVineyardsDirect, Honest Grapes, Mr Wheeler, Private Cellar, Swig, Tanners and Yapp Bros – represent the cream of the UK’s independents and boast centuries of experience between them. They all have particular areas of expertise and stock wines that you would never be able to find on the supermarket shelves or local off-licence.
How should wines be sealed? This issue continues to fret the trade. Those who believe in screwcaps correctly argue that they make it far less likely that wine will go off. Up to 5 per cent of all bottles are ‘corked’, as oxidation and sourness result from air penetrating an inadequate cork. Sometimes the effect
The French are finally coming to terms with generic wines. The bottles, instead of being labelled with the name of the grower and location, have names that are either trendy (Fat Bastard or Le Freak) or else amiably meaningless, such as Chamarré, a kind of butterfly. The labels also show the grape variety. This information
This offer is, I think, exceptional value. Merchants occasionally overstock on first-rate wines which don’t sell off the page. Order the wines online This offer is, I think, exceptional value. Merchants occasionally overstock on first-rate wines which don’t sell off the page. For example, if you saw, on the list published by the old and
Organic wine is increasingly popular, in spite of the fact that few people know what the term actually means. The rules seem to be strict but variable, work differently from country to country, and are monitored by a bewildering number of autonomous organisations. Some of these allow a handful of additions, such as preservatives. But
Yapp Brothers is one of the country’s more distinguished wine merchants. Yapp Brothers is one of the country’s more distinguished wine merchants. It has a short but choice list, almost all coming from the Loire or southern France. Robin Yapp, who is now retired, used to select all the wines by touring vineyards, some in
Our mini-bar offers from Waddesdon Manor, that magnificently ornate, opulent and over-the-top Rothschild gaff in Buckinghamshire, have always been highly successful. There could be some snobbery here: if you have a bottle that declares ‘Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite)’ along the top, you wouldn’t want to decant it. You would want your friends to admire
Australian wines now firmly lead French in British off-sales; but apparently we still prefer French wines in restaurants. My guess is that there is a race on, as some superlative wines made in the more obscure French regions compete with the best from the New World. Sommeliers, or whoever they have in the kind of