Wineman Blog

Many people ask me about being able to taste wines in advance of purchase, now this is possible if you live in Milton Keynes or surrounding areas but quite difficult if you live elsewhere in the country. So whats my solution to this issue. I decided to set up a taster case for people to try the wines at a discount price. Essentially customers will e-mail me with their various preferences as to their favourite style of wine, grape varieties, countries or any other preferences they may have as well as their own unique budget for the case of 12 wines. I will then recommend a selection that I believe will exceed their expectations and delight their taste-buds. Hopefully the budget will also be great as everyone has a budget for their wine consumption.

So far this has been a great success with people from all walks of life asking me to recommend wines that are “Not too dry and not to sweet”, “Like that lovely wine I had in Italy?????”, “Reds but not too tannic or dry”, “nice and without that smack you get in the mouth after you first taste them”. Now all of these requests are subjective to the individual person and often very hard to match wines to their expectations and taste without actually being there but this has been a gift of mine in the past so why not extend it to a series of questions to determine peoples tastes and match my lovely wines to those preferences. More details at my website wineman so get e-mailing and let me know what YOU want to taste and get a 10% discount automatically!

 Wine can be a complex subject, but does it have to be?  Picture the scenario if you will, it is Saturday morning and you are in the laborious process of buying the food for the Saturday night dinner.  However this is no ordinary dinner – the returned favour to a friend who treated you to a glorious meal accompanied by some wonderful wines.  The food you can cope with thanks to the naked chef but the wine is a different matter!   What will go with the food you are preparing?  How much do you spend?  Will it be nice?  What is a Pouilly Fume anyway?  Suddenly you are confronted by shelves and shelves of wines of all types.  Each label describes the “stunning” wine contained within them.  You are drawn to other wines simply because the label looks nice or the bottle is pretty colour.  Bamboozled by the choice, price becomes the next determining factor.  If you buy a cheap wine, you will look cheap, buying an expensive wine will guarantee better quality but will you like it?  So you look at the wines others are buying or the wines mentioned in the myriad of books available on the subject but swiftly you draw the conclusion that it is all someone else’s opinion and yet more hype! So what is the solution? Try before you buy.  Tasting wine is the only way to ascertain if it suits your taste and your pocket.  Most wine retailers will not allow you to taste their product – they rely on people not knowing about wine!How can you do this if you are in France buying your wines? This is actually my favourite question because I personally do this and make a lunch of it. We go to a hypermarket and get a great selection of lunch and then visit the wine shop and purchase a dozen wines which either catch my eye or I have a vague recollecction of. We then proceed to taste them all over lunch making notes of which are good and which are poor. Then we return to the shop in a jovial mood and purchase the winners. This has worked for me every time and is a great way to find out which wines you like when abroad.  How about if you don’t go to France then……well I recommend asking me for a taster case. This is a selection of wines which I will select for you to try at home on the condition that you give them a fair an honest appraisal and obviously return to buy them at a later date. The reason for this is that taster cases are at the lowest price they can be but I dont just want to sell taster cases, therefore I am relying on the integrity of the customer to buy the wines and then to return to pay the usual price for them later. That way everyone wins! so go to wineman and ask me now for a taster case of your choice.

Well after the last 2 days of being confined to a conference centre somewhere in deepest, darkest Chesham I had yet another outrageous experience with the truly awful wine we as the public are often subjected to. Yes I am a member of the public too and although I also supply many restaurants and hotels with wine there are hundreds if not thousands of establishments which continue to serve the finest feet washing wine available. 

My experience this week was as follows. We ordered the best of what we thought was a bad selection from a well known rival based in London. The white was extremely over chilled almost frozen. We later found out that this was deliberate as the wine itself was so bloody awful that you had to literally freeze it to get and enjoyment at all out of it. The wine was a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc, normally a pretty safe bet, but not this one. Oh no, this was the wine from hell. Over acidic, terrible aroma and an awful taste in the mouth. We followed that with a Rioja Crianza which was so hot it was like having wine soup, this was a new experience for me!

You may think ok, these were just a few examples but there was 10 of us at this center, all wine people and bottle after bottle amazed us at how incredibly awful it was. This is from a place charging over £220 per night and £25.00 for the rotten sauvignon!

I come across this day in day out, week after week, restaurants, bars and hotels that think they can get away with serving the worst wine in the world and charging extortionate amounts for it too.

So what can we do about it, well personally i am on a mission to get every Milton Keynes Bar, restaurant and hotel to stock decent wine. Even if it is not my wine! I will help them to choose the correct wine from their current supplier if I have to.

So what can you do about it?

Well if you come across one of those establishments which you think could do with our help please leave a comment and we will get round to helping them and it will all be down to you! Your future pleasure rests in your hands, after all if it is your local and they are still serving feet washing wine and charging a fortune they need a little education.

So why do they do this, these restaurants and bars etc. Well it is actually down to a number of things. Cost to them, lack of knowledge about wine and an unfounded belief in their wine rep who probably knows lots about wine but nothing about the hospitality trade, or else nothing about wine too! If only they realised that if you sell good wine people will come back and drink more of it! You will get more profit and happier customers. Less returns because of corkage and the wine will actually work with the food you sell. Often the price is less than they are paying currently too!

So do your local a favour tell them about me and tell me about them. Lets have a name and shame campaign against crap wine and sort out our future wine pleasure and that way we will all have better heads the next day too.

Well after all the merriment of Chateau Batailley we went off to Chateau Pichon-Longueville . The wines were quite different and we tasted many vintages. As they got older they began to show what they are really capable of in terms of wine pleasure. I have to say the recent vintages were still far too tannic and dry for my palate but as they got older they became wonderful.

This is one of those Chateau’s favoured by people who love to buy their wines En Primeur (buying them before they are released from the Chateau). They can then look forward to drinking them in future years. In actual fact we tasted the 1996′ and were reliably informed that it should be ready to drink in about 2020 and for at least another 30 years after that!

Now I know patience is a virtue but this is like Philippe Patek watches, you never actually own one you are investing in your children and Grandchildren as they will really gain the pleasure.

So what can you do if you own one of these wines and it is young. Like the one I sell currently. Well you can buy and keep, or drink it anyway. If you are going to drink I recommend, no in fact I insist you decant the wine. Not just for an hour but for most of the day. open it in the morning and it should be a little more drinkable in the evening! Seriouly though if you drink this too early you will miss out on the beautiful tastes and textures that a wine of this magnificence can deliver.

We also tasted the 2006′. This is a hotly tipped vintage for greatness. It is very difficult to taste from tank samples and to determine the future greatness for a wine but that is what makes Robert Parker great I suppose.

The Chateau was beautiful and the tasting room one of the finest I have seen. Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

A little info on the Chateau……In the middle agesthe young Jacues de Pichon who was influenced by his Father in Law, Pierre de Rauzan, the ‘Magician of Vineyards’ began to put together the vineyards of Pichon-Longueville. In only a few years the reputation was established. The existing property was divided in 1850 and in 1851 the existing Chateau was designed by Charles Burguet.

The Chateau was purchased in 1987 by Axa Millesimes who entirely restored it to its former glory.

Today under the direction of Christian Seely, the men of Pichon-Longuevillecreate wines of great quality. The vineyards cover some fine gravel soil in the south of the Pauillac commune.

Chateau Pichon-Longueville is made from older vines siuated mainly on the historical terroir of the property. The harvest is hand gathered and transported with great  care to the circulare winery where they are sorted manually before and after de-stemming on vibrating tables. This enables selection of only the highest quality grapes.

The wines produced are powerful, rich in tannins and characterised for being both elegant and muscular. They have an exceptional length in the mouth and as mentioned previouly possess remarkable ageing potential.

I have just returned from a fantastic trip to Bordeaux. This included trips to some of the best Chateaux drinking some of their wonderful wines and also having lunch with the owners. What a tough life I lead sometimes! Actually it is tough….. people think that all us winemen do is drink wine every day and bore people about this Chateaux and that grape and soil and price etc etc but the reality is very different.

One of the best experiences was at  Chateau Batailley . We met the owner and were shown around the Chateau accompanied by a lovely glass of Pol Roger 

After the extensive tour we gathered for lunch with Jean Marie the delightful owner who luckily for us spoke perfect English. This helped because my French is mostly conversational based around my experineces playing Petanque, working in kitchens and restaurants (This involved mostly swear words and how to order food!)

We found out that Batailleys name comes from battle, one of the most memorable of the 100 year war. Their vineyards are of the highest quality and they definately produce one of the best Pauillac’s I have tasted. The Chateau was officially classified in 1855 and Jean Marie has wines in his cellars dating back to 1880. He actually keeps 5000 bottles of each vintage to try with friends and family and lucky, lucky winemen like me!

The wines we tasted with our meal were  Chateau Baret this was served with salmon steak, followed by 2 different vintages of Chateau Batailley the 1999 and the 1996. There was a wonderful difference between the 2 wines and as they were served with a succulent Fillet steak they were shown at their finest.

The dessert was fresh local strawberries and this was served with Castelnau de Suduiraut we then had coffee and continued to learn all about Jean Marie and his experiences in London. It has to be said the hospitality was fantastic and we were very lucky as there are very few people entertained at this Chateau, doesn’t that make you cringe when bloody winemen go on about what a fantastic time they had. Ok so here is some more information on the Chateau, which may help you to understand a little more about what a fabulous wine they produce there.

Chateau Batailley is one of the oldest buildings in Pauillac, it has always appeared on the regional maps. The name of this land comes from the battles that took place during the 14th century on the plateau which gives access to the nearby Chateau Latour. Chateau Latour is one of Bordeaux most expensive wines and Batailley is its neighbour. Imagine Latour quality at a much lower price, what a bargain put me down for a case!

The vineyard itself covers 55 hectares and is situated on a plateau (which is over a kilometer in length), in front of the buildings and the park. It is planted with 70% Cabernet Sauvignons, 25% Merlots, 3 % Cabernet Francs and 2% Petit Verdots. The production is a very small 300,000 bottles, depending on the year of course.

The soil is composed of a thin, deep gravel. The vines grow with great difficulty and therefore create wines of an exceptional quality.

These wines, after the harvest, are carefully placed in Limousin barrels and are left in the 1st cellar. They are then placed in the second-year cellars to improve the ageing and eventually bottled at the chateau.

The wines are always of a deep, ruby colour, which are well formed therefore assurimng the very long life of this product. The property is passed by succession down the family Casteja, one of the oldest French families. Their hospitality is famous and I was lucky enough to have experienced it so Thank you Jean Marie.

More on my exploits in Bordeaux in later blogs but my fingers are tired now and I can feel a bottle of red calling my name. 

Hi, Kevin the wineman here on my first blog ever!

So what do I think you lovely people want to read about for the blog. How about ways to remember wines that you like. One of the most annoying things I find my customers endure is not remembering wines they have had and after a particularly enjoyable evening they forget. You know the nights when you are at someone’s house or in a restaurant or even at home and you find that gem of a wine but as the evening progresses you get caught up and forget exactly which wine it was and where it was from etc, etc.

I get calls, e-mails with all sorts of questions such as,

‘do you stock a French wine, I cant remember its name or where it was from but it had a nice label!’
‘My friend had a lovely wine the other night his name is John do you know him? The wine was red from Chile’
‘I had a wine on holiday which was lovely it was from a small restaurant where they make their own wine and I would love to buy a case’
‘You sold me a wine last year, it was white and I really enjoyed it but I can’t remember which one it was’

These are all valid questions to the person asking them but a nightmare to a person trying to help. So what are the solutions to remembering and getting hold of that lovely wine.

1. Take a photo using your mobile phone of the label. Then save it to a folder or to your desktop. If you don’t have a mobile with this capability ask someone else to do that and send the photo to your e-mail address.
2. If in a restaurant and you have no phone and don’t know anyone ask the waiter to write the wine down on your bill, check all the details you will need to know the name of the wine, the grower, the vintage and if possible the importer, this is listed on the back label.
3. Keep the bottle until you can write the details down.
4. Ask your friend to keep the bottle or write the details down
5. Soak off the label and keep it safe.
6. Ask your wine merchant to keep a note of all the wines you have bought. I do this anyway and when people say to me I want some of that wine in the blue bottle or the one with the flashy label I know exactly which wine they mean.
7. Get a wine diary, you can find these in many shops, or else create your own one with tasting notes, what food and occasion you had it with, the price and where you bought it!
8. Ask me to find it for you. I wont always be successful but it will save you a lot of hassle trawling through the internet and trying to get a good price. Chances are if you had it in a restaurant or an independent wine merchant I will be able to get it for you.

More great tips to come. If you would like me to write a blog on a particular subject on wine please just e-mail me on sales@wineman.co.uk