Wine Club

Tricky time of year this, with the festivities hoving into view. Never easy for anyone, least of all those of us who suffer from Christmas Affected Doom, Depression and Despondency (CADDAD), a ghastly affliction about which I’ve written at length elsewhere so won’t bore you with now. Suffice to say that it is a dreadful

We’ve a really strong selection this week from Tanners of Shrewsbury. In fact, I was so impressed that it took a heck of a lot of swilling, swirling and spitting (well, not so much of the latter to be honest) to whittle the wines down to six. Tanners’ Robert Boutflower even put up a deliciously

One of FromVineyardsDirect’s finest ruses has been to obtain, quietly and discreetly, small amounts of surplus production from the most celebrated châteaux in all Bordeaux (and I mean the most celebrated) and to sell the wine on under their own labels at extremely reasonable prices. These ‘declassified’ wines (as they like to call them) are

We’re with my alma mater Berry Bros & Rudd this week featuring some of their excellent own selection wines. I was quite bowled over by their quality, as indeed I was by the generosity of wine director Mark Pardoe’s discounts. In fact I strongly recommend you start your festive stockpiling right here, right now. Why

We’re not due a Wine Club offering in the magazine until next week, but so good were the wines that I tasted recently with-FromVineyardsDirect .com that we just had to include them so that readers might join in the fun. It’s an entirely French line-up, ideal for autumn. And despite the plunging pound and the

We have six real treats this week: three from Italy and three from Spain. I would have been happy with almost any of the wines that Private Cellar’s Laura Taylor put up and those that didn’t make my final six only just missed out by inches. And, in the face of a plunging pound, Laura

Although many wine merchants are tightening their post-Brexit belts and rationalising their cellars, Yapp Bros have thrown their net ever wider. They might be the 2016 International Wine Challenge Loire Specialist of the Year and ditto for the Rhône, but Yapps have recently been fishing outside their traditional waters, making first-time forays deeper into France

We’ve something a bit different this week: six wines not only from the same region (Burgundy) but also the same producer (Maison Louis Latour). The Wine Company’s Mark Cronshaw presented such a fine selection of Latour’s wines that they were impossible to resist, especially after we’d cornered him to demand some pretty punchy discounts. Maison

After three and a quarter centuries in the business, Berry Bros. & Rudd is certainly trad, but it’s also reassuringly innovative. So it is that we have here a classic claret but also a Chardonnay from a part of France that doesn’t grow it, a blended single varietal from Chile (don’t worry, all is explained

Summer’s taking its leave and we have a fine Gallic half-dozen from Corney & Barrow with which to enjoy the last of the sun. And to cheer us up, we have a double discount on offer, the initial price-lopping enhanced by the fabled Brett-Smith Indulgence, in which a further £6 is knocked off a case

A tasty selection this week courtesy of FromVineyardsDirect.com, the masters at snuffling out tucked-away treasures for bargain prices. FVD’s founders, Esme Johnstone and David Campbell, have impeccable contacts and seem to know everyone who matters in the regions that matter. As a result, they nab tiny parcels of this and that from both well-established and

We’ve some wonderful summery wines this week, each one from France. Not deliberately so: it’s just that these six wines — from Alsace, Loire, Bordeaux and beyond — were easily the best in our tasting. And I reckon they show that France on song is pretty much unbeatable and (thanks here, I admit, to some

We at The Spectator drink a lot of Pol Roger Champagne. It’s more or less the house pour. Not every day you understand, just on high days and holidays such as the Spectator summer party, from which more than a few of us are still recovering. And I must say that when standing like a

Much has been written about the tip-top quality of the 2015 clarets, the en primeur campaign of which is in full swing, and there are indeed some absolute belters to be had, but at a price. And while a fine vintage in one region rarely guarantees a fine vintage in another, 2015 was a glorious

The Languedoc is home to some cracking wines at the moment. And really great value ones too, especially compared to the all-too-often-overpriced wines of Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhône. Domaine de la Jasse is one of the region’s leading estates and when we offered some 2012 Domaine de la Jasse ‘Black Label’ Tête de Cuvée

I never drink before noon or 7 p.m., but find myself ever more often glancing at the sundial and licking my lips as the appointed hours approach. Thereafter at least a bottle of wine a day goes down the pipeline, which distresses government health advisers but gives boundless pleasure to me. It is hard to

The following wines from Private Cellar are all about summer, chosen with long lunches on the lawn, picnics by the river and crafty evening drinks in mind. I reckon they hit just the right note. And because I’m so wretchedly indecisive I’ve snuck a seventh wine in too. First, the 2015 Finca Salazar Sauvignon Blanc

I reckon Robert Boutflower of Tanners has the measure of The Spectator. He knows exactly what tickles our fancy. He put up a dozen wines for our tasting, any one of which I’d be delighted to recommend to readers. Price was ultimately the deciding factor, though, and — hooray! — we nailed the mixed case

There is rosé and there is rosé. By which I mean there is the ghastly, teeth-rattling, vinous bubblegum that is Blossom Hill White (actually pink) Zinfandel from California, which you can pick up in Tesco for a fiver a bottle (plus £3.69 for the subsequent essential Alka-Seltzer), and there is the subtle, herbal, spicy, salmon