France Under One Roof
Wednesday 22 March
The Nursery End Pavilion,
Lord's Cricket Ground, Wellington Road,
London NW8 (North Gate Entrance)
10am-5pm
For more details contact Jane Hunt MW on 01451 831682; janehuntmw@aol.com
Fetzer Vineyards is launching its contribution to the Mendocino Coro project at the generic California tasting on 23 March. The project is a collaboration between nine Mendocino wineries to create a series of ultra-premium wines distinctive to the area.
The 2002 Fetzer Coro Mendocino is a Zinfandel/Syrah/Petit Sirah/Grenache blend, and is expected to retail for 20 per bottle in the UK.
The Coro Alliance has stipulated that Coro wines must use fruit solely from Mendocino and that Zinfandel must be the largest part of the blend, among other rules.
The Wine Institute of California has once again selected the
14 wines that represent the best of California in the 5 to 10 price category.
UK director John McLaren commented: This is our third year of Benchmark Wines and some trends begin to emerge, particularly in the impressive consistency of some wineries' entries. There is a pleasing spread of wines from large and small wineries and we look forward to unveiling the range at our annual tasting in London on 23 March.'
This year's list includes wines from Beringer, Fetzer, Gallo, Ravenswood and Hahn.
Simon Farr, one of the founders of London-based distributor Bibendum, is returning to work for the company full time after five years as non-executive deputy chairman.
Farr, who co-founded the company with Chris Collins in 1982, will take up the role of head of wine strategy, as well as taking responsibility for the host of joint ventures Bibendum has set up in recent years - such as the Argento Wine Company, Boisset and Lion Nathan. He was buying director at Bibendum until he stepped down in 2000.
His decision to return to a full-time role at Bibendum comes just weeks after high-profile joint managing director Dan Jago unexpectedly left the company. Bibendum also recently hired a new chief operating officer, Jeremy Young, recruited from DHL.
Last week Bibendum featured in the Sunday Times' 'Top 100 Best Small Companies to Work For' list for the third time.
Once again, the California annual tasting will take place at the Royal Horticultural Halls (London SW1), although for 2006 it has moved to the slightly smaller Lindley Hall. Doors are open from 10.30am to 5.30pm on Thursday 23 March.
Delegat's has finally secured control of fellow New Zealand winery Oyster Bay Marlborough vineyards after a protracted takeover battle.
Delegat's had to almost double its original takeover offer of NZ$3.10 to NZ$6 a share, with the takeover taking around nine months from offer to completion. Delegat's owned 33% of Oyster Bay prior to its takeover offer and became embroiled in a bidding war with fellow shareholder Peter Yeatlands for control of the company.
Delegat's is New Zealand's third-largest producer and is fully owned by the Delegat family. The company is now expected to list on the New Zealand Stock Exchange, with an estimated value of around NZ$220m-375m.
The Delegat family is expected to sell down its holding to 65%.
A new Burgundy brand, Adamas (Greek for diamond'), has been launched in the UK by recently established Beaune-based ngociant La Nouvelle Alliance (LNA).
Speaking to Harpers at the launch in London on 23 February, LNA's Franco-Scottish co-founders Manol Bouchet and Dan Connolly said that they had already secured several distribution agreements around the world and were looking for regional wholesalers with whom to work on an exclusive basis in the UK.
They have linked up with Wine Services to cover the London market and Inverarity Vaults for Fife in Scotland. Abroad, they have gained listings with Discovery Wines in Bermuda, Duty Free in Singapore and, most recently, the Swedish state monopoly.
A few weeks ago, Sophie Waggett of Wines of South Africa (WOSA) was more than a little worried. She was in Cape
Town and awaiting the arrival of a group of 20 on-trade buyers from the UK, most of whom she'd never met. The origins of this scenario began last year, when WOSA was forced to recognise that South African wines, while generally in growth, were seriously underperforming in the UK on-trade: only 5% market share, compared to 10% in the off-trade.
Arthur Rackham Emporia (table 40)
Arthur Rackham Emporia is a second-generation wine merchant based in Guildford, with a wine-and-spirit-agency business complementing the traditional wine merchant. Over the past 10 years, it has been awarded The International Wine & Spirit Competition Trophy twice: first for the outstanding quality' of its wine and spirit list, the only time this trophy has been awarded, and in 2004 as European Spirit Buyer of the Year.
Generally speaking, you should be wary of anyone who begins a sentence with In the old days'. Usually, they'll be talking about bygone eras when the bobby on the beat would give unruly youngsters a swift clip around the ear, or when footballers were real men, kicking a laced leather ball around a mudbath, cheered on by flat-cap-wearing hordes of working-class folk.
What made you open this style bar?
It was something the next generation of the family wanted. When the Antouns first came to London, after 25 years of running restaurants in Paris, they chose Hobart Place for the classical style of Lebanese dining. Then the Mango Tree took over next door; there was an empty space between that and Noura, so they thought, Why not something new?' For us, Volt means electricity, energy!
This year's ViniSud will be the biggest yet. More than 1,500 producers are expected in the south of France, along with 32,000 visitors.
ViniSud is essentially a shop window for the entire Mediterranean. And while the majority of exhibitors are French-based, the event also showcases the following countries: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Greece, Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, Malta, Turkey, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Macedonia.
A number of Clare Valley producers have explained how their region's climate is varied enough to grow both Riesling and Shiraz.
At a tutored tasting held at London's Australia House last week, Jeffrey Grosset of Grosset Wines explained that decades of weather data on the region were next to useless and claimed that ex-Petaluma boss Brian Croser once said that this was because the weather station in Clare was on a concrete slab behind the post office'. More recent data, Grosset added, showed the weather to be cooler than previously recorded, but the new weather data say that it's not hot enough to ripen Cabernet, but it's too hot for Riesling, so both reports are flawed'.
Liberty Wines used its latest portfolio tasting at The Brit Oval - the first wine company to use Surrey County Cricket Club's facilities - to launch a number of new projects and agencies from Australia (despite the Oval being the venue for England's dramatic Ashes victory).
Bibendum Wine has created a new business, Bibendum Wine International, to manage distribution for a number of wine brands in Europe.
A key partner in the new set-up is Lion Nathan, which shares a joint venture with Bibendum in the UK. The new company will be run by Lars Venborg, who is a former commercial director of Michel Laroche.
Bibendum MD Dan Jago said: There are products, skills and processes that the UK industry can successfully offer to other distributors in Europe, and we intend Bibendum to be at the front of this integration.'
Lion Nathan MD Peter Cowan added that the new venture will create a very efficient and effective export management structure'. Lion Nathan brands include St Hallett, Petaluma and Knappstein from Australia, Wither Hills from New Zealand, and Oregon-based Argyle.
Guilty or not guilty. Happily, that is neither the question nor the answer for the Grand Jury Europen (GJE). As it sips, swirls and spits its way through the evidence presented by more than 150 anonymous vinous witnesses, it may well consider cases of assault, breach of contract, deception, extortion, fraud, negligence, price-rigging and treason, as well as mitigating circumstances such as crimes passionnels and diminished responsibility. But its decisions will not be rendered in a stark one- or two-word verdict. Rather, they will take the form of a summary, with charts and graphs and scores out of 100. As such, some will find them harder to accept than others.
The Argento Wine Company (AWC) has appointed Amelia Nolan as its general manager.
A graduate of the University of Adelaide and Roseworthy College, Nolan joins Argento from Constellation Europe, where she worked in marketing and sales for the Cellar Door division. She has also been brand manager for Hardy's.
AWC MD Dan Jago said: I am delighted that we have got someone of such a high calibre on board - this is just what the Argentine category needs. With Amelia's leading brand experience and international outlook, we are very positive about Argento's future.'
Despite, or perhaps rather because of, the plethora of 2004 Burgundy tastings in London last week, a consensus on the quality and style of the vintage was slow to emerge, raising questions among tasters as to whether the sampling of still-unfinished wines was even more treacherous than usual. All those who tasted the wines early last year agreed that the wines have benefited enormously from levage, including exceptionally long malolactic fermentations, but that they have often tightened up when bottled as samples.
The questions have often been asked, with growing urgency, over recent years: who can rival and who will succeed Robert Parker as the dominant influence in the world of fine wine? The answer, almost certainly, is nobody - at least no individual - to which many, though not all, will heave a sigh of relief.
One doesn't have to subscribe to a cometh the hour, cometh the man' theory of history to recognise that Parker was a dedicated, talented individual in the right place at the right time. In all likelihood, nobody else will be able or willing to devote himself or herself so single-mindedly to the task; nobody else will have the resources, financial or physical; nobody else will have the sheer stamina. Moreover, Parker announced in 2003 that he intended to carry on for another 10 years.
The picture emerging from Britain's high streets is of a mixed Christmas and New Year. While some companies are reporting better-than-expected like-for-like sales compared with 2004, others have issued profits warnings, and there are fears that business in the first few days of the New Year have been very slow. Majestic Wine, however, did better than most by increasing its like-for-like sales by 5.2% in the nine weeks from 1 November to 2 January.
