Jonathan Ray

Everyone loves Beaujolais. Now come on, don’t be like that! Of course they do! I’m not talking about ropey old Beaujolais Nouveau, that vin ordinaire — vin very ordinaire — of 1980s notoriety; I’m talking about the pukka, old-vine, low-yield, top-notch Beaujolais from one of the ten crus of the region. At their best, these wines from Brouilly, Chénas, Chiroubles, Côte de Brouilly, Fleurie, Juliénas, Morgon, Moulin-à-Vent, Régnié and Saint-Amour are an absolute joy and delight. Produced from 100 per cent Gamay, they’re fresh, ripe, vibrant, juicy, silky, racy, moreish and about as thirst-quenchingly drinkable as any wine you’ll find.

A bumper offer this week from our old chums Yapp Bros. Led by step-brothers Jason Yapp and Tom Ashworth, the much-lauded Wiltshire wine merchant is celebrating its 50th anniversary and corks have been popping for weeks. Indeed, having just returned — more than a little liverish — from a trip to Alsace in their company, I can vouch for the fact that Jason and Tom take their celebrations seriously and I was led badly astray in Colmar. The wicked step-brothers have form in this regard. I’m still haunted by that night in the transvestite nightclub in Avignon and I should have known better. What a naïve fool I am… Anyway, to the wines.

Our offer from Corney & Barrow is absolutely jam-packed this week so I trust you’ll forgive me if I get straight to the nitty-gritty. Regular readers will recall the fabled Brett-Smith Indulgence, whereby C&B’s MD, Adam Brett-Smith, knocks a few extra quid off a case for anyone buying two dozen bottles or more (on top of the existing Speccie discount). Well, we’ve decided to streamline things and apply said discount to just the one case. How’s that for good news? The following prices are therefore as tasty as the wines they apply to. 2018 La Muse de Cabestany Chardonnay/Viognier (1) is an undemanding light and fruity white from the excellent Celliers Jean d’Alibert co-operative in Languedoc.

Ah, how lovely! The sun’s out and the birds are tweeting. My boys’ wretched A-levels and GCSEs are finally over and, bless them, the chaps remembered Father’s Day unprompted for once. I’ve got my Ashes/World Cup cricket and Glyndebourne tickets and, well, everything seems to be coming up rosé. And, goodness me, don’t we Brits get through a lot of the pink stuff? Sales show no sign of doing anything other than rocketing. Indeed, I understand that pink wine is still the fastest growing wine category of all. Of course, here in my home town of Brighton, we’ve been out and proud about our fondness for anything pink for yonks and knock back more than our fair share.

We were quite the merry band. Forty or so Spectator readers — many of them veterans of our fabled Spectator Winemaker Lunches and graduates of our equally celebrated Spectator Wine School — joined me for a bespoke wine tasting at Majestic’s St. John’s Wood store last week. One impressively hardy soul polished his drinking boots especially well and joined us for the Seresin Estate Winemaker Lunch the following day too. Excellent work! We tasted almost 50 wines, all Spanish, and our six favourites are herewith offered to fellow readers at generously discounted prices. All wines were tasted blind.

We’ve four wines from Château Belles Eaux this week, one of the leading lights of the Languedoc and a long-standing favourite of mine. I remember a very jolly visit to the estate in the days when it was in the hands of AXA Millésimes, the vineyard-owning arm of AXA Insurance that’s led by the canniest of canny old foxes — Christian Seely. CS is celebrated for snapping up and turning around under-performing estates and making them great again. Given that the AXA portfolio currently includes such top-notch properties as Quinta do Noval, Ch. Pichon Baron, Ch. Suduiraut, Ch. Petit-Village, Domaine de l’Arlot and Disznókó, you will have some idea of the company Ch. Belles Eaux has been used to keeping.

We’ve not had an offer from Messrs Corney & Barrow in a while and it’s a treat to welcome them back to these pages, especially since they come wafting such scrumptious bottles under our beaks. There’s much to enjoy here as we head into supposed summer and I trust you’ll take advantage of the fabled Brett-Smith Indulgence whereby C&B’s MD, Adam Brett-Smith, knocks a few extra quid off a case for anyone buying two dozen bottles or more (on top of the existing Spectator discount that is). Get stuck in, I say. The 2017 Domaine Carette Saint-Véran ‘Les Chatenays’ (1) is from a small family-owned estate in the southernmost appellation in the Mâconnais.

We had quite a coup the other day when Dr Bill Lumsden, Director of Distilling at Glenmorangie (and also, incidentally, Ardbeg), chose the Spectator boardroom in which to launch Glenmo’s majestic new release, the Grand Vintage 1991. Apart from a handful of drinks journalists the night before, those Speccie readers lucky enough and swift enough to have grabbed a ticket were the first in the world to sample this extraordinary whisky. Dr Bill, as he’s fondly known by one and all, is one of the leading figures of the Scotch whisky industry and was named Master Distiller/Master Blender of the Year by Whisky Magazine’s Icons of Whisky Awards in 2016 and as Master Distiller of the Year by the International Whisky Competition in both 2016 and 2017. In short, he knows his onions.

Something new this week, with our first-ever offer from Naked Wines, the online retailer that’s been much in the (wine) news thanks to the proposed rebranding of Majestic. Majestic — which, along with venerable, old-school merchant Lay & Wheeler, is part of the Rowan Gormley--led Naked Wines stable — will close some of its stores while renaming its remaining ones as Naked Wines. Watch this space. Anyhow, it was Naked Wines that famously shook up the trade a dozen years ago with its novel concept, whereby so-called ‘angels’ stump up £20 a month and lob it to selected winemakers in return for decent vino, available at what NW claims to be knock-down, wholesale prices.

Everyone loves the wines of Villa Maria. Its so-called Private Bin range is hugely reliable and, heaven knows, I’ve drunk enough of it in my time. But there’s much more to VM than its entry level vino. Head further up the scale and you will find some corkers in the Cellar Selection, Platinum Selection, Reserve and Single Vineyard ranges, exquisitely made in tiny quantities. Little wonder that Villa Maria is New Zealand’s most awarded winery and that founder/owner George Fistonich was knighted for his efforts. Thanks to Mark Cronshaw of Mr Wheeler, we’ve some top examples here which — so Mark assures me — are priced as keenly as you will find anywhere else.

I’m acutely aware that we rarely offer champagne in these pages, other than the occasional treat from our beloved Pol Roger (the Speccie house pour), largely because I’ve never found one that’s good enough or well-priced enough. Well, crikey, thanks to Esme Johnstone of fromvineyardsdirect I’ve finally now found one. The Arlaux Champagne Premier Cru, Brut Grande Cuvée NV (1) fair knocked my socks off. Produced by the Arlaux family from insecticide-free Premier Cru vineyards in the Montagne de Reims, it’s first-rate fizz and no mistake. And don’t just take my word for it.

My old chum Jason Yapp is never less than chipper. Indeed, his ebullience is boundless. In springtime, this innate effervescence fair bubbles over and his enthusiasm for his wines and his distaste for spittoons are dangerously infectious. It took an age to whittle this selection down to six and I trust you enjoy my choices as much as I did and do. The 2017 Saint-Pourçain ‘Cuvée Printan-ière’ (1) comes from the upper Loire Valley and, in typical regional French style, there’s bugger all information on the front label and no label on the back to speak of. It’s only because JY insisted on wafting it under my beak and wouldn’t take no for an answer that I took any interest at all.

Chateau Musar is beloved of Spectator readers, thanks largely to my sainted predecessors — Messrs Waugh and Hoggart — both of whom adored its wines. As a result, the Speccie has forged a bond with this Lebanese winery and, owing to the diplomatic exertions of our partners at Mr Wheeler, we are in the enviable position of being able to offer the latest Musar vintages exclusively to readers before anyone else has even had a sniff or a whiff of them. The 2010 Chateau Musar White (1) is nothing if not quirky, produced from ungrafted old vines grown in the Bekaa Valley that were first planted almost 5,000 years ago. A blend of Obaideh and Merwah (and when did you last bump into them?), it’s fermented and aged partly in oak and partly in stainless steel.