Jonathan Ray is The Spectator’s drinks editor.
English Wine Week, that annual celebration of our native wines and winemakers which runs from 20 to 28 June, is almost upon us. And with some 2,500 hectares under vine in England and Wales, spread across more than 700 vineyards, and with 160 or so commercial wineries producing some remarkable wines, our winemaking industry would
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
The Spectator Wine Club is a club without sub. In fact it isn’t really a club at all, since no membership is required; no proposing, no seconding and no minimum order. Our nine merchant partners – Armit Wines, Corney & Barrow, FromVineyardsDirect, Honest Grapes, Mr Wheeler, Private Cellar, Swig, Tanners and Yapp Bros – represent
Dear wine lover, These are strange times indeed and never has that first glass of wine in the evening been more welcome. I would be failing in my duty, therefore, if I didn’t write to remind you that all our partners in the Spectator Wine Club – namely Corney & Barrow, FromVineyardsDirect, Honest Grapes, Mr Wheeler,
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,
This offer is now out of stock but please do call Private Cellar (01353 721 999) for other available items and recommendations. Our Spectator Winemaker Lunches are famously entertaining. Held roughly every fortnight in the boardroom at 22 Old Queen Street, they are catered by our old friends Forman & Field and are hosted by
So that’s January done and dusted. Phew! I don’t know about you, but the wretched water wagon — to which I clung by my fingernails as always – is but a grim memory and I’m raring to go.jonath Happily, my abstinence proved to Mrs Ray that I’m not a complete dipso; my liver had a
Driving home through Kent the other day, I was struck by how much the topography has changed. When I was growing up there in the 1970s, first in Rolvenden and then in Hawkhurst, there were hop gardens. Today there are vineyards. I’m not sure Alfred Jingle would recognise the county about which he stated in
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