This week I'ave been mostly drinking...

Russell Wallace, General Manager

This Week I ‘ave been mostly drinking… Running Duck Pinotage.  

This is one of those low price, Organic no added Sulphur wines that despite my colleagues assurance I have been rather sceptical about and thus have avoided.  Most of my reluctance I would imagine comes from insider knowledge, just in the same way as having ran many restaurants and seen the reality behind the curtain, I now really struggle to enjoy a meal out like I used to!  Being part of the wine trade I am all to familiar with how much of a bottle of wine goes into the Government pockets and other things that I cannot actually pour in my glass.  So with that in mind I always struggle to grasp just how any budget wines can really deliver a level of quality for the incredibly low return a vineyard owner will get, never mind when they go for Organic certification and more difficult low-sulphur type techniques.  So this week I got my act together and gave this one a bash to see just what a South African Vineyard can actually do with a couple of Rand and I was really quite pleasantly surprised.  The producer Stellar Organics produces this great Q& A on http://stellarorganics.com/media/general/No-sulphur-added_wines_QandA.pdf.  The wine itself is great, nice and rich for these darker colder nights but not heavily tannic so it gets my thumbs up.  This is more refined than your average Pinotage with rounder edges and generally a less harsh feel to it.  It also has just a tiny touch of the same quality that made me fall in love with the Welgegund Pinotage, an unusual lemongrass type feel.  All in all for under a tenner you do get well more than £10 worth of wine in my humble opinion.  Grab a bottle today and give it a bash!

Susan Ross, Logistics manager

Get into the Christmas way of thinking with Rocland Estates The Chocolate Box SparklingMoscato

Moscato is normally sweet but delicate and a great tipple for day-time drinking or pre-dinner.  Not too high in alcohol, so it won’t spoil the rest of the evening, or put too many inches round the waistline (always my concern)!  The wine is very pale in colour, but the aromas are anything but understated, zooming out in full floral, orangey Muscat character.  It is soft and sweet, balanced a bit by citrusy acids on the finish.  A great drink for Christmas morning while you’re opening all these pressies, or if that’s too much to think about at the moment, a very pleasant early evening tipple just before dinner on Saturday while you’re tapping your toes to Strictly Come Dancing.

Dianne Barrie, Company Administrator

I can’t say that I know a great deal about one of my wine choices this week…in fact I have to admit that, to my knowledge, I have never tried this grape variety before! Well, there’s a first time for everything, and so it was with some intrigue that I decided to give Crossroads Winery Milestone Series Gewurztraminer from New Zealand a try. It’s fair to say that this style of wine is not my usual choice, however I found myself really enjoying this wine. While it does have a soft lemony fruitiness to it with slight hints of ginger, it was the beautiful floral rose notes that really grabbed my attention in the glass. Wonderfully balanced, it’s not a heavy wine, though I would say that this is one of those wines you would want to enjoy with food. As it happens, we were having plaice for supper that evening and this wine complemented the subtle sweetness of the fish perfectly. If, like me, you haven’t explored this grape variety before either, then I urge you to give this one a try…you won’t be disappointed.

This week I'ave been mostly drinking...

Dianne Barrie, Company Administrator

This week I decided to take a trip to the South of France…okay, this was only in a metaphorical sense through my wine choice for the week, but it worked in as much as this wine made me hark back to the wonderful sunny days of summer. Indeed, there was a beautiful lightness to this wine – it wasn’t over-powered with heavy tannins in any way, in fact it had an almost Pinot Noir quality to it. Having said that, this red also made me think ahead to the festive season, in part due to the lovely berry flavours present, and in part due to the slightly warming spiciness of Shiraz which was perfectly balanced with the Viognier in this blend. What is this wine I am referring to I heard you ask?! Well, it was the rather splendid Les Templiers Shiraz Viognier 2009. And, what an extremely versatile wine this is! Great to enjoy with food, such as Spaghetti Bolognese, or simply to enjoy on its own, and at only £8.21 inc VAT per bottle I’d say this wine is a hard one to beat.

Russell Wallace, General Manager

This week I ‘ave been mostly drinking… an old friend once again!  It has been several weeks now since our last stocks of the wonderful Traditional method Pink Sparkling Reserve de Sours ran out leaving me high and dry without my lifelong companion.  Realising that the jolly, festive season was now but a stones through away (my wife has all but finished her seasonal shopping!) I went straight into panic mode and got some fresh stocks in place for myself, as much as anything else.  We now have two delightful pink sparklers to enjoy from Chateau de Sours, we have the regular long time friend the pink capsule and labelled with minimal ageing on the lees this Cabernet/Merlot blend is in fact a single vintage but a younger wine fresh and vibrant with not much in the way of over-fussiness.  The new wine is the GoldLabelled 2009 single vintage wine.  Now at this point to those of you that know this wine very well here is where a little confusion sets in, you see the normal Reserve de Sours is and has always been a single vintage too.  The difference being that the old wine was never produced or marketed as such that it was a single vintage, instead the vintage specific terroir characteristics were allowed to speak through.  So you can imagine my hesitation when it came to trying the “new” single vintage.  On closer inspection this is a different wine, the same blend but from an older vintage where the finest 10,000 bottles where left to age for a little longer (36 months in total) on the lees leaving a fuller fruitier wine to evolve.  At first taste this wine just burst in my mouth so full of flavour and any anxieties I had were quashed.  This is a stunning pairing of wines.  The old faithful reserve de Sours to me has that crisp canapé style to it to get an evening off to a swing, whilst the new single vintage entry at just a couple of quid extra has a fuller flavour but one with a slightly fruitier/sweeter feel to it so I reckon this would make a great dessert/digestif drink.

If you have not enjoyed them before then honestly you must pick up a bottle.  Yes this is one of those wines you can pick up elsewhere like M&S but please do remember they will liberate you of £20 for a bottle of the standard Reserve de Sours, at Exel Wines this is just over £12 per bottle.  Even the single vintage wine, at Exel Wines, comes in well below M&S’s £20 with our price tag being just under £16.  The single vintage is however a strictly limited edition wine and one that you are not likely to find many places other than at your local Exel Wines website (or indeed in our shop)!

This week I 'ave been mostly drinking...

Dianne Barrie, Company Administrator

While out walking this weekend, I definitely noticed a more autumnal feel in the air as leaves on the trees are beginning to turn beautiful shades of red, orange and yellow and the evenings start to draw in once more. Summer salads and barbecues are now a thing of the past as we turn our attention to lovely stews and casseroles to see us through the cold days of winter that lie ahead. Even when grocery shopping I noticed that there’s been a move towards an increased selection of root vegetables. As a result, this also got me thinking about more hearty, warming food, and so I decided to prepare liver and onions for supper last night. While I was quite happily cooking away, I did however consider what wine might be the best choice to accompany offal. Like game, offal is quite distinct in flavour so the wine has to be able to complement this without over-powering it. Lamb’s liver is quite delicate in flavour however, so I decided that a full-bodied red would be just too heavy. I wanted a wine with tons of fruitiness, but without any predominant spicy heaviness to it – so as a result, I opted for a Pinot Noir, and Tinpot Hut Pinor Noir 2009 from Marlborough in New Zealand which was spot on! Full of wonderful fruity flavours of cherries, redcurrants and plums (you’ll note the continued autumnal theme going on!), this is a superb soft wine with delicate and subtle oak characteristics which complemented our meal, including the dessert of bread and butter pudding perfectly!

This week I ‘ave been mostly drinking...

Dianne Barrie, Company Administrator

This week I’ve been mostly drinking…both from the new world and from the old. Firstly, I really wanted to try a product that we only started to stock a short while back… Frostpocket Sauvignon Blanc 2012 from Marlborough, New Zealand. Wow, and was I blown away by this one?! It’s absolutely bursting  to the brim with passion fruit flavours, both on the nose and on the palate with underlying hints of gooseberry and lime. This isn’t a wine you need to have with food either, in fact I’d say that it’s one you should enjoy on its own in order to fully appreciate the extremely intense flavours going on in it. This is no wine for the faint-hearted…far from it, this is a wine that really packs a punch!

The second wine I decided to try this week was the Bordeaux Blend, Chateau De Curcier2006. Again, there was nothing subtle about this wine. However, due to the structured tannins going on in it, I’d definitely call this a ‘foodie’ wine. It is also a wine that really benefits from decanting for a hour or two (something that is regrettably often overlooked, but which many old world wines really do require) in order to release and bring to the fore the lovely forest fruit flavours and chewy tannins. We enjoyed this wine with our traditional Sunday roast lamb, which seemed to complement and stand up quite well to the wine – perhaps that was due to the richness of flavour of the lamb. In any case, this 2006 vintage Bordeaux Blend is one I would really recommend…and at £10.20 per bottle inc VAT it’s fantastic good value for such a well-rounded wine that is full of character.

Russell Wallace, General Manager 

This week I ‘ave been mostly drinking… in the land of the (allegedly) free!  That’s right back from the annual vacation which this year brought me to the land of Minnie & Mickey Mouse, and more pointless incomprehensible rules, regulations and state by-laws than you could shake even the shortest of sticks at, the USA!

When in a wine making country I always argue that why would you drink anything but the local plonk, always that is except that it can be really rather difficult in the USA.  The main problem we have always encountered as wine buyers is that wine in the US is just so difficult to source that it often leaves us with little but the most mass market bland wines possible for the export market.  Here is the issue, the US is a huge country with a huge domestic market.  The amount of the country that grows grapes and makes decent wine is relatively small in comparison, this means that most of the good, boutique and family made wines are snapped up by thirsty US tourists, visitors and friends of the vineyard.  This is fantastic for the vineyard as it allows them to sell all of their production at a premium price, it does however mean that the average British wine buyer can really struggle to find something that is not only good value but also good quality and made with a bit of passion.  After all if the average vineyard can sell most of their production direct to the consumer within the US why would they consider those outside the US looking for a discounted price to offset our high transportation costs?  Combine this with the impossibly difficult to fathom alcohol import and export legislation (even shipping within the US is difficult!) and you have a difficult situation.

This is mostly why I am generally very prone to making US wines one of my last recommendations, but having just been there I did get reacquainted with an old friend the Kendall Jackson Vintners Reserve Sauvignon Blanc.  It is really quite hard to place this wine.  It features the punch of a New Zealand S.B. but none of the intense minerality, the fruitiness of the Chilean and weirdly something of a Chablis type quality.  What else is hot in the USA?  Weirdly the go to house wine (or at least the couple of restaurants I went to where I paid attention) in the USA, Pinot Grigio seems to be the hot topic!  It is not something I have hugely gotten into previously, or ironically during my holiday!  I am not sure why but it has taken until right this moment for me to get my head around it, on my last visit to Napa some 3 or 4 years ago I did not encounter it knowingly even once, yet on this visit it was featured on every restaurant list.  My suggestion is get a bottle from our selection give it a whirl and let us know your feedback!  Failing that/too cheeky?! give us a couple of weeks and check back at this blog as I think I will just have to give one or two a try.

Clive Holroyd, Database Manager

Took my eldest son back to start his second year at university this weekend. Funnily enough as a parent this was harder than last year when he started; then he was unsure of himself and we could dispense advice based on our own (dimly remembered) experiences. This time however he's confident, self assured and knows more about what's going on than we do. It's finally sinking in that he's spreading his wings and starting to make his own way in life - we've spent 19 years nurturing him to this stage but now he's got there its surprisingly difficult to deal with. Anyway, that made me all nostalgic and I started thinking back to some of my memories of him growing up. About 10 years ago we spent two weeks travelling around France with a small car and a tent. Our final few days were spent in the Loire Valley and I still vividly recall a wonderful meal sitting at an outside table at a bistro - a warm lazy summer evening and a delicious red wine to drink. That was a Rasteau, now an appellation in its own right, but at the time part of the Côtes du Rhône Villages AOC. Ever since then a Côtes duRhône red has had the power to take me straight back to that holiday and remind me of a confident 9 year old requesting 'champagne si vous plait' when the waiter asked what he would like to drink. As he's now 19 (my son that is, not the waiter) and old enough to drink I thought a bottle of Domaine Coste ChaudeVisan Cuvee La Rocaille 2006 would remind us all of the occasion. It's a delicious full bodied red with lovely cherry and forest fruit flavours; there's a generous 30% discount on our website, so you can snap up a bottle for a mere £10.32. It's like a very slightly less fruity version of my personal favourite (which I may have mentioned once or twice before) the Welgegund Pinotage which is a very generous 40% off at the moment so you can buy a bottle of heaven for only £13.01. I'm certainly filling my wine rack at this price.