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.
What did you do during the great lockdown, Daddy? Well, son, I grew a beard, watched all 264 episodes of Frasier and became a raging inebriate. Well, I didn’t so much grow a beard deliberately as do nothing to stop it sprouting. And while I fully intend to see the whole Frasier canon chronologically, I
I swear it’s only the vino that keeps me and Mrs Ray going. I mean, there’s precious little else to look forward to these days. I’ve given up on the impossible jigsaw, can only watch so much telly and if I never do another Zoom quiz it’ll be too soon. No, all I look forward
I admit it freely: I’m a lockdown lush. There, I’ve said it. I simply can’t help but be undone by the siren call of the corkscrew which — during these dark times — comes earlier each day. And, judging by the titanic quantities of vino I see knocked back during my early evening Zoom calls
I don’t know about you but lockdown is slightly losing its lustre Chez Ray. Joke over, thanks, let’s just get back to normality, whatever the new normality might be. In the meantime, though, as the drear days of social distancing and isolation turn to weeks and the weeks to months, it’s strange what delight one
So herewith the Speccie’s 10,000th issue. Hurrah! And what finer reason needed to crack open some tip-top vino? My old man, Cyril Ray, from whom I learned my love of the grape, was assistant editor here in the days of Brian Inglis, Bernard Levin and Katharine Whitehorn, having started his career in 1936 as a
Well, I never expected to spend my 60th birthday under lock and key, that’s for sure. I had a slightly troubled youth, it’s true, with several run-ins with the rozzers during my teens — culminating in a salutary scolding at Maidstone Magistrates’ Court in August 1976 — but after a (fairly) blameless middle age, I
These are strange days indeed and Mrs Ray and I are positively hoovering through the vino. Thanks heavens, then, that independent wine merchants are still delivering. They are nothing less than the fourth emergency service and I give them a hearty hip, hip, hurrah. And enormous thanks, too, to Esme Johnstone of FromVineyardsDirect. So tasty
I fear Jason Yapp is slowing up a bit. The co-proprietor (with step-brother Tom Ashworth) of Yapp Bros is notorious for his love of long lunches so I felt more than a little short-changed when, last week, he dashed for the early train before the digestif trolley had even slipped its moorings and steamed into
Spring wouldn’t be spring without our annual offer from Chateau Musar, that extraordinary Lebanese winery that is the epitome of triumph over adversity. As readers well know, Auberon Waugh and Simon Hoggart — my late, great predecessors as Custodian of the Corkscrew for The Spectator — were huge fans of Chateau Musar and I, too,
I write this from Camp Bah Humbug, whither I’ve been banished by my ever-loving. I had merely suggested that it might be time to dispense with a Christmas tree this year and that was it. Off I was sent to the gulag and told that if can’t say anything nice I’m not to say anything
We’ve Christmas firmly in our sights this week. I’ve written many times here and elsewhere about suffering from that debilitating festive condition known as CADDAD — Christmas Affected Doom, Depression and Despondency — and about how the only known cure is a regular supply of fine vino spaced generously throughout the holiday season. Well, I
At dinner the other night, our host spotted a well-priced magnum of fizz on the list and beckoned the sommelier. Alas, it turned out the magnums were no more, the last one having been sold two nights previously. ‘Oh dear,’ sighed my chum. ‘I guess we’d better have it by the half-magnum, then, and see
Reports of the demise of our old chums at FromVineyardsDirect are grossly exaggerated. Indeed, those many readers who expressed concern as to their health will be delighted to learn that Esme and David are alive and kicking as part of the Wine Company stable along with that other Speccie partner, Mr Wheeler. And here they
Those naughty Yapp Brothers (actually, proprietors Jason Yapp and Tom Ashworth are naughty stepbrothers) are well known for preying upon unwary drinks writers and leading them astray. One day I’ll tell you about that bull fight in Dax with the bottle-of-rosé-a-head breakfast, the beer and pigs’ trotter lunch and the subsequent salsa festival where —
Our second offer from Naked Wines, the iconoclastic online merchant that funds selected winemakers via so-called angels — wine lovers who pay a sub for distribution to said vignerons in return for fine vino. Since there’s no marketing, advertising, agents, wholesalers etc, RRPs are said to be as low as possible. I’m not entirely convinced
We head to Italy this week and the wines of Castello Banfi. The much-admired estate was founded in 1978 by brothers John and Harry Mariani, and remarkably boasts Europe’s biggest contiguous vineyard, stretching from Tuscany to Piedmont. The 2018 Banfi ‘San Angelo’ Pinot Grigio (1) shows just how tasty this grape can be. I love,
As you settle down to read this over your boiled egg and soldiers, three dozen or so hardy Spectator readers will be messing about in a boat during our annual ‘Clays, Claret and Cognac’ cruise up and down the Thames. They will be aboard Thames sailing barge Will, blasting at clays (which, fret not, are
One of the jolliest of our recent Spectator Winemaker Lunches was that hosted by Maria Urrutia, fifth–generation director of the family-owned Compañia Vinicola del Norte de España, better known as CVNE, producers of exemplary Rioja since 1879. Fine Rioja is, famously, one of the most accessible of all wines and the most fairly priced, especially
A very tasty offer this week from guest partner Honest Grapes, the multi-award-winning online merchant founded five years ago by Nathan Hill and Tom Harrow, aka ‘Winechap’, celebrated as the nattiest dresser in the wine trade. HG is the antithesis of the aloof, pin-striped wine merchant of yore and the boys are whatever the diametric
Everyone loves Beaujolais. Now come on, don’t be like that! Of course they do! I’m not talking about ropey old Beaujolais Nouveau, that vin ordinaire — vin very ordinaire — of 1980s notoriety; I’m talking about the pukka, old-vine, low-yield, top-notch Beaujolais from one of the ten crus of the region. At their best, these
