Jonathan Ray

If it’s Thursday, it must be Budapest. Vienna of the other week is but a memory – and a rather sketchy one at that thanks to all those Corn ’n’ Oils – now superseded in the hippocampus by our wine-soaked Spectator tour of Budapest and the vineyards of Eger and Tokaj. We had a hoot, as always, and drank our fill of Bull’s Blood and Tokaji and although, sadly, on this occasion I failed to persuade our accompanying gang of Spectator readers as to the delights of Hotsy Totsy (Pest’s finest bar), I did manage a quick solo exploratory flit to Boutiq’Bar and the Black Swan. They both make darn fine Corn ’n’ Oils too.

I’ve been in Vienna, drinking Grüner Veltliner, Zweigelt and Blaufränkisch like a fish. It’s thirsty work being a lush and I also patronised the fabled Loos American Bar rather more often than I should have. It’s such a seductive spot, LAB, and their Corn ’n’ Oils are very fine, and I can never resist a very fine Corn ’n’ Oil. Heck, I can’t even resist a bad one. I should grow up. It’s been a rich diet and, much as I love Austria and its increasingly tasty wines, it was a relief to sample such a wide-ranging non-Austrian selection for this offer from Tanners of Shrewsbury, with the successful seven wines chosen with summer in mind.

I know I keep saying it, but Alsace is my favourite of all French wine regions. Heck, it might even be my favourite in all the world. It has everything: a remarkable history, glorious scenery, chocolate box-pretty towns and villages, fabulous food, extraordinarily fine eaux-de-vie and stunning, smile-inducing wines. Oh, my goodness, the wines. Produced largely by family-owned estates, some of which go back as far as the 16th century (rather than insurance companies or banks), they’re famously food-friendly and varied. They’re also absurdly undervalued, and whenever I see an Alsace wine on a restaurant list, I grab it, confident it’ll be far better priced than the equivalent quality from elsewhere and knowing it’ll make me smile.

It has been a punishing couple of weeks, with two Spectator Wine School Masterclasses, a brace of Winemaker Lunches and a cracking Winemaker Dinner with Ch. Pichon Baron in the library of our new venue above Old Queen Street Café, hosted by mighty Christian Seely himself. My old pa, faced with such an onslaught, would crack on through, refusing to give into the temptation of taking a day off the vino. Such folly only risked confusing the liver, he insisted, leading to toxic shock or worse. I’m not so sure but, heck – what better way to regroup and realign one’s palate after such a boozy blitzkrieg than with a gentle morning tasting with Siobhan Astbury, buying director of Haynes Hanson & Clark?

I love champagne and I love English fizz – and long gone are the days when you wouldn’t dare mention both in the same sentence. We Brits can hold our heads up: much of what we make is world-class. I’m delighted, then, that thanks to Honest Grapes, we can feature here one of my all-time favourite English sparkling wine producers – Ambriel in West Sussex, founded and run by Charles and Wendy Outhwaite, huge fans of the Speccie. Sometimes, though, only champagne will do, and in this Battle of the Bubbles we’ve three first-rate grower champagnes that are more than a match for Grandes Marques. The Ambriel Huzzah Rosé MV (1), a multi-vintage blend of Pinot Noir (mainly), Chardonnay (some) and Pinot Meunier (a splash), is a favourite of Mrs Ray.

The wretched flashbacks plague me every time. I love Yapp Bros and I love their wines but line up a dozen or so of their bottles, uncork them and pour, and I’m immediately covered in a cold sweat recalling whatever shameful adventure it was that ensued last time I got stuck in, egged on by Tom Ashworth and Jason Yapp, the wicked step bros behind Yapp Bros. I’ve been on many trips with these naughty boys and I’ve bored you with some of the tales. But it’s the stories I daren’t tell you that haunt me. Unlike those who drink and forget, I drink and remember – and then shudder in shame. But, as always, I drink well, because whatever their moral failings, the canny Yapps source some tiptop wines and you’ll love this selection as much as I do.

Mimi, where have you been? It’s been too long! You never ring, you never write, you never text… But what a treat to bump into you at Vintners’ Hall the other week and what a treat, finally, to welcome Averys of Bristol to the Spectator Wine Club. I last worked with Mimi Avery – the fifth generation of her family to work at the company that bears her name – during my distant Telegraph days, and we did many offers together. This is the first time, though, that Averys have graced The Spectator’s pages. Mimi, daughter of the great John Avery, former chairman of the Institute of Masters of Wine, is the company’s brand ambassador and is rightly proud of its heritage. It was, after all, the first British wine merchant to list mighty Ch.

We at Spectator Towers love Château Léoube, the Provençal estate founded by Lord and Lady Bamford (of JCB and Daylesford Organic fame) in 1997, the wines of which we serve at Spectator Writers’ Dinners in the boardroom. So popular are these wines at 22 Old Queen Street that I apologise for taking so long to offer them to our wider readership. Put it down to covetousness or idleness on my part. Anyway, thanks to the good offices of Mark Cronshaw of Mr Wheeler, I’m delighted to showcase much of Ch. Léoube’s range, at prices MC assures me cannot be beaten anywhere else. You can save up to £60 a case. Lying on Cap Bénat, a rocky peninsula jutting into the Med, barely an hour’s drive from swanky St Tropez, Ch.

Private Cellar, supplier to the Spectator Wine Club and partner in many of our jaunts and jollities – not least the notorious Clay, Claret and Cognac Cruise (CCCC) – turns 20 this year and corks are popping. Director Laura Taylor works so closely with us (she’s head teacher at our masterclasses, quality control at our BYOB lunches and senior corkscrew specialist on the CCCC), it surprises many to find she doesn’t have an office at Spectator Towers. No, her day job is at Private Cellar, the company she co-founded with fellow Corney & Barrow alumni Andrew Gordon and Nicola Arcedeckne-Butler MW, and I can think of no better way of celebrating their anniversary than by picking my top drinkers’ dozen from their list.

Iwasn’t so much a kid in a sweet shop as a lush in a winery. I was at the Armit Wines annual portfolio tasting and, with 50 different winemakers presenting some 300 different wines, I was in vinous heaven. I had a clean glass in my hand, a free afternoon ahead of me and the faintest stirrings of an inquiring thirst. I couldn’t have been happier. I would hate you to think I was there just to enjoy myself though. I was there to work, ferreting out the finest possible wines for you, dear reader, at the kindest possible prices. If I had fun on the way, got gently squiffy, found some jolly folk to chat to, so be it. You know how it is. There were some fabulous wines on show and these are my absolute favourites, complete with very generous discounts.

Oh dear, it all got a bit out of hand. The wines for this all-Tuscan offer from Mr Wheeler looked so deliciously appealing that rather than taste and write them up on my own, I thought it would be a brilliant wheeze to sample them with guests over Sunday lunch. ‘You twit,’ said Mrs Ray. ‘They’re a bunch of lushes. They’ll drain the lot and never leave.’ ‘But they’ll be such a help,’ I said. ‘They know and love their wines and it’ll be fun.’ Well, we were both right. They did indeed drain the lot and didn’t leave until supper, but they were a huge help, knowledgeable and focused. Well, focused until they moved from sweet wine to single malt and then tore into my magnum of kummel.

The boiler has been on the blink for days and I’m tired, cold and grumpy. Mrs Ray, too, is being unnaturally scratchy. Don’t worry, she never reads this.  To cheer ourselves up and to keep out the chill, I suggested that she join me in tasting a dozen or so Burgundies from Honest Grapes, not at 6 p.m. as planned, but at a much more sensible and invigorating 11 a.m. She took little persuading, bless her. Carpe diem and carpe decanter are her mottos. And what a hearteningly wise decision it was. We both love fine Burgundy – who doesn’t? – and Tom Harrow – co-founder of Honest Grapes and Head Wine Guru – really knows his stuff. His cannily curated selection from his favourite rising stars and unsung heroes in the region all hit the spot.

Hurrah, they’re back! After years away from our embrace, mighty Berry Bros & Rudd have finally returned to the Spectator Wine Club fold, and I couldn’t be happier. I spent many jolly years working for Berry Bros a few decades ago and it was wonderful to return to my alma mater to taste wines for this offer, in the company of BB&R’s Ned Donaldson and my old chum Tom Cave – a new boy when I started and now one of the senior prefects, in charge of customers’ private reserves. The old wood-panelled shop at 3 St James’s St, SW1, has barely changed and I reckon its famously sloping floor could still take a bit of left-arm spin, as it did years ago during our regular impromptu indoor cricket matches.

So that’s another Dry January finally knocked on the head. Phew! For dear Mrs Ray, it was more of a persistently damp January with a few scattered showers and – the weather forecast was spot on here – one heck of a downpour on Burns Night. For a girl who claims not to like whisky, she can sure pack it away. She pays for it afterwards, of course, and was a little piano during the final days of the month, just as I was cranking up the engines. I’m still slightly off my game, to be honest, but I was back in the vinous gym on 1 Feb, going through my paces with these all-French, all-red (apart from one fizz) treats from our confrères at FromVineyardsDirect, and I should be match fit soon.

Dry January is never easy. Not with Mrs Ray taunting me with her mid-morning Prosecco and early evening double G&T and not with the constant delivery of wines to be reviewed, tasted and – agonisingly – fully expectorated. This offer from mighty Corney & Barrow was a particular challenge. Not because I didn’t like the wines, but because I loved them. I wanted to neck the whole lot. Roll on 1 February! The 2023 Homage à Colette (1) from the Languedoc is engagingly quirky. A blend of fresh, vibrant, unoaked Grenache Blanc and smooth, supple, oaked Marsanne, it’s peachy, citrusy, apricotty and slips down a treat. The bright jolly label honours the octogenarian Colette, a much-loved figure in the village of Rieux-Minervois. The wine does her proud. £9.41 down from £10.45.

At 3.28 a.m. on 1 January, I made myself a promise: I would never touch alcohol again. Having over-egged it horribly during the carnage that passed for the neighbours’ NYE party, I had finally come to agree with Dean Wormer’s fabled observation in Animal House, that ‘fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life’. So proud was I of my new-found resolve that I woke Mrs Ray to tell her, although her reaction – ‘Oh go to sleep, you idiot!’ – wasn’t quite the one I’d hoped for. Juicy dark fruit, silky tannins, cedarwood, mocha, leather and heaven knows what else And having tasted a dozen or so wines from Mr Wheeler for this offer, I realise total abstinence is a fool’s dream. The 2016 Ch. Poitevin alone made me see what I’d be missing.

So there I was at some swanky party, so swanky that I knew absolutely nobody. I think I was invited by mistake. I mooched about, got bored and muscled in on a group of fun-looking folk – and soon found myself chatting to one Diogo Veiga, export manager for Brimoncourt Champagne. Never heard of it, I said. Try some, he said, and I did. Well, crikey, it fair blew my socks off, so fine a fizz was it. I can’t remember when I was last so taken aback by a wine completely new to me. Why the heck had nobody told me about Brimoncourt?

CVNE – Compañia Vinicola del Norte de España – owned by the same family since its foundation almost 150 years ago – is one of the great names of Rioja and it’s a real pleasure to offer a selection of their wonderful wines, courtesy of Mr Wheeler. They certainly made the convalescing Mrs Ray perk up. Rioja is her favourite wine region, and she wanly suggested that she might manage a drop or two if I was passing the sick room. For one so weak, she got through an impressive number of refills. ‘What on earth is this? I love it!’ said Mrs Ray, captivated enough to pause a repeat viewing of Rivals The 2023 CVNE ‘Orballo’ Albariño (1) is one of those rare things: an Albariño I like.