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.
Robert Boutflower of Tanners is a good, kind, generous man. All he and we want is your happiness and so, mindful of the wretched economic situation the twits in charge have landed us in and the ghastly spectre of dread Christmas on the horizon (my words, not his), he put up a deliciously varied selection
I shocked an old friend the other day when I confessed how much I drank per week. He shocked me by confessing how often he had sex. We sat in speechless astonishment before clearing our throats in a very English way and moving on to the weather. I’m not in the least bit proud of
Order today. It’s a tough job tasting wines for the Spectator Wine Club but one that I selflessly shoulder on your behalf. Occasionally, though, as on this occasion, I ask my nearest and dearest to help me. Mrs Ray is a unifying presence and approached the dozen or so bottles from Honest Grapes with her
Order today. So, here we are again in the Last Chance Saloon. After a couple of tricky, uncertain years, prices have rocketed, chaos reigns and we find ourselves scrabbling for scraps we can ill afford. The future looks decidedly bleak. Sorry, what? Liz Truss and the trashed economy? No, silly, I’m talking about Burgundy, where
Order today. Our fabled Spectator Winemaker Lunches are heavily oversubscribed and little wonder. We have the finest producers and merchants clamouring to visit and we’ve never yet managed to knock back less than a bottle a head. Our readers take their studies seriously. One of the most popular of recent lunches was hosted by Sebastian
Order today. Hang on, stop pushing at the back! Our annual ‘defrocked’ claret offer from FromVineyardsDirect might well be one of our most popular, but please quit jostling and get back in line. There’s plenty for everyone, I promise. As you know, these wines come from some of the finest châteaux in all Bordeaux –
Order today. Well we had a cracking day out, thanks, and while I admit to a cranial fogginess, I’m feeling pretty chipper overall and can declare our third annual Spectator Clays, Claret and Cognac Cruise (SCC&CC) a thundering success. Forty readers joined us as we pootled along the Thames in the 100-year-old Thames Sailing Barge
Order today. We live in sad, uncertain times and without for a minute suggesting that we should take solace in alcohol, I’ve, erm, taken solace in alcohol. I simply couldn’t help it thanks to the tastiest of bottles from Honest Grapes. I drained each and every one as I narrowed them down to a super
Order today. So, with Mrs Ray packed off to the airport for her sun-soaked sojourn in Italy, training for The Spectator’s Clays, Claret and Cognac Cruise begins in earnest. The clays could still do with work but I’m close to nailing the liquid element of the jaunt. I’ve been helped immensely by Armit Wines and
Order today. There are some typically quirky gems from Swig on offer this week and it’s great to have Robin Davis and the gang back in these pages. Their offer in January was a rip-roarer and, as before, there is plenty here to satisfy even the most demanding of thirsts. The 2020 Bourgogne Chardonnay Les
Order today. Klaxon alert! Would all claret lovers please form an orderly queue? Esme Johnstone and the FromVineyardsDirect gang are clearing their cobwebbed cellars to make room for newer vintages and are offering us a brilliant baker’s dozen of Bordeaux bin-ends at a special, Spectator-only knockdown price. Hurrah! The wines from 2014 and 2015 (cracking
Order today. Poor Mrs Ray finally cracked. Ever the stoic, she paid no heed to the life-challenging heatwaves and associated power cuts. She disregarded the Covid that raged through her loved ones and took hours-long delays in and out of Gatwick with her usual eudaimonic tranquillity of mind. The baggage chaos at Heathrow, the melting
Order today and use the discount code SPECJULY at the checkout. So, I finally got the plague. No, not monkeypox, the other one – Covid. I blame that Tuscan wedding. Not the hot’n’sweaty event itself, nor the jam-packed flights there and back; no, I blame the three subsequent days on the wagon, strictly enforced by
Order today. We’re just back from a quick flit to Italy and a wild and wonderful wedding. It was all huge fun, although as I look back with throbbing, bloodshot eyes, I see, of course, that we could have done things differently, not to say better, such as by pacing ourselves more sensibly and staying
Order today. The first red wine I ever drank was a scrumptiously succulent Beaujolais, and I’ve had a fondness for the region and its wines ever since. At 52, my father was getting on a bit when I was born and he was desperate to educate me in the delights of the grape as quickly
Order today. We got away with it! I wasn’t actually there, of course (and if I was, I didn’t realise) but I can report that our inaugural Spectator Wine Club BYOB/Wine Time Friday lunch passed off without a hitch. There was no excessive boozing, no fighting, no vomiting, no karaoke and definitely no poor treatment
Order today. I’ve been banished upstairs. Mrs Ray has turned our ground floor into an art gallery in which to show her and her friends’ paintings, prints and pottery during Brighton’s annual Artists Open Houses, and I’ve been told not to come down and talk to visitors ‘or otherwise spoil things’. What can she mean?
Order today. I had my regular May meeting with the accounts department (Mrs Ray) the other night and it did not go well. The general gist was that I’m a profligate fool and that I need to drink less, not to mention less expensively. And no, she did not appreciate me quoting the late, great
Order today. As you know, when it comes to champagne, Pol Roger is pretty much The Spectator’s house pour. Indeed, a dog-eared sign on the door of the office fridge demands that staff always ensure there are two bottles chilling within it for emergency celebrations and commiserations or simply for whenever the moment strikes. It’s
Order today. I don’t know how well you know Amsterdam, but there’s a frightfully swanky hotel there called The Dylan in which I was lucky enough to blag myself and Mrs Ray a jolly weekend a year or so ago. There are many fine things about The Dylan but that which tickles me the most
