London Wine Fair Round Up

Just returned from a week long stint at both the London International Wine Fair and the smaller and more intimate Natural Wine Fair. With lots of wines tasted and new things on the horizon, we wanted to give you a quick round up.

First thing to note, was the impact that our beautiful Perthshire has on even the London Community.  Having indulged in the finest London Tap water for an evening while we settled in, we soon felt the need for something a little more Mineral, and to our delight the local bottled water was in fact...


Monday kicked off with The Real Wine Fair in Holburn, Central London.  It was my first visit to this rapidly expanding fair and indeed concept around wine.  The premise is a gathering of like-minded wine producers; some organic, some sulphite-free some biodynamic, and all produced by handmade methods in small batches by families who actually care for their land and what they are doing.  Tasting those wines from even a relatively small geographical area it is clear what a difference these methods make with some of the most characterful wines we have ever tasted, for example, the Domaine le Briseau Jasnieres "Kharakter."

The name says it all really, a wine so full of everything you could want from a White Wine.  Flinty yet warm and sumptuous with honeyed-almonds, it almost combines every character you could ever want from a glass.  Food matching.... please, this is a wine to simply contemplate on its own.

Moving swiftly on from one fair to an altogether different beast!  The London International Wine Fair covered this year some 15,000 visitors and over 44,000 wines.  Sadly, while we tried to cover them all we could not quite manage it.

However, we discovered a few new Rioja wines that will nicely add to our portfolio, including a new Crianza Wine from Bodegas Ortubia, that will come in over the next month at a really attractive price.  Also, a new vineyard was found in Bodegas Moraza.  Surprisingly 'on-topic', this is a rare fully organic certified wine from Rioja that we are hoping to start bringing into the UK exclusively from late June onwards. 

From our existing winemakers, the exclusive Maria Valduga wine went down especially well amongst the well-heeled of the wine fair visitors.  With a retail price of £69.99 and a seriously limited availability, we are tipping this to be the new Challenger to the throne of Champagne.  A traditional Champagne-method sparkler with an iconic look and a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, in our own in-house tasting against 2 great Champagnes this Brazilian Sparkler from Casa Valduga got a unanimous verdict as the preferred wine.

Another surprising highlight was a delightful discovery in the form of an Oz pink Moscato from Innocent Bystander.  Sold by the half-bottle and with a refreshingly light alcohol level of some 5% (truely welcome by the end of a very long 100 wine tasting spree!).  From the opening of this beer bottle closure you could smell that something special was afoot.  With a nose that carried some 2 metres from glass to nose bursting with summer berries and children's bubble gum sweets.

It was not all wine though, indeed we found some very like-minded innovators bringing some excellent technology to a wine industry struggling to keep in the 21st century.  One that we are certain to see featured on Exel Wines before the year ends is the 'Digital Sommelier' technology that will really help our customers in narrowing down their wine choice.  Using artificial intelligence and the latest food analysis technology to bring you the perfect wine for your next dinner party, or indeed the perfect meal to accompany a special bottle in your cellar.  To keep posted on this, and the new discoveries from the wine fair, please do sign up to our fortnightly newsletter.

And so ends just the very tip of the iceberg that we hope will more than double our current wine listings to somewhere in the region of 16,000 wines, making Exel Wines undoubtedly the finest and best source for wine in the UK.