Wines in the Press

In collaboration with Luke Edward Hall, a rising star of British design, we present our second limited-edition label for Good Ordinary Claret. Just 4,000 bottles featuring Hall’s Bacchanalian-inspired artwork have been produced.

Our best-selling wine for many decades, GOC, as it is known, brilliantly highlights the sheer drinkability of modern red Bordeaux. Bright, medium ruby in colour, with a siren-like nose of black cherries, bramble fruit and wood smoke, it is instantly appealing. The palate follows through with delicious, juicy, black fruit and a long, velvety finish. Equally at home with a weekday supper or a grand Sunday roast, it is the perfect wine for all occasions.

Family-owned Antech is the most prestigious producer in Limoux and we are delighted to have worked exclusively with Françoise Antech, from the sixth generation of the family, to craft this wonderfully expressive Crémant de Limoux.

A blend of 70 percent Chardonnay and 15 percent each of Chenin Blanc and Mauzac, aged traditionally and generously on its lees, this is a beautiful, balanced wine, with elegant aromas of orchard fruit and honeyed spice. The palate marries more exotic fruits with a clean, pebbly backdrop and an impressive depth of flavour.

Sourced from the prestigious Grand Cru village of Mailly, located at the heart of the Montagne de Reims, and benefiting from over three years’ ageing, our non-vintage United Kingdom Cuvée is a classic blend of 75 percent Pinot Noir and 25 percent Chardonnay.

All the hallmarks of Grand Cru are here, with brioche and flowers on the nose and an elegant palate which marries notes of lemon grass, gingerbread and honeysuckle. The wine effortlessly combines structure and finesse, and reverberates with a really authoritative Grand Cru crescendo on the finish.

The enthusiastically engaging Benoît Marguet-Bonnerave, the fifth generation in the family, is at the helm of Marguet. Benoît has coverted the vineyards (in two villages, Ambonnay and Bouzy, both Grand Cru) to biodynamic farming since 2009 and uses extremely low quantities of sulphites in the winemaking. He has been particularly successful with his rosé, made from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir by the saignée method.

Who better than Benoît Marguet, doyen of Ambonnay, to complete our UKC Grand Cru trilogy? Sourced from the finest Grand Cru villages, this is perfectly balanced and richly structured. It is an exuberant and beautifully fragrant wine, with red berries and other summer fruits dancing harmoniously on the palate.

Pol Roger is perhaps best known as Winston Churchill's favourite Champagne. The House remains family-owned and has a reputation for producing Champagnes of finesse and elegance which age very well. Pol Roger Brut Réserve, made from equal parts of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, is consistently one of the very best non-vintage cuvées on the market, largely due to the high proportion of aged reserve wines in the blend.

This has a truly wide appeal and is perfect for lovers of exuberantly styled Champagnes. Feminine and fruity in its youth, it takes on a fuller flavour with age. The added reserve wines are specially selected to achieve the requisite elegance, balance and harmony. It’s perfect for the cellar as well as current drinking, which is an excellent excuse to buy more than one case.

Hambledon Vineyard has a long and fascinating history. Not only does the village have the reputation as the cradle of cricket, long before Lord’s it seems, but it is also the location of the first English commercial vineyard, courtesy of the Francophile Sir Guy Salisbury Jones, who developed the vineyards in the early 1950s. After an uneventful hiatus the vineyard was purchased by Ian Kellett in 1999 and his investments of both patience and capital are now yielding fruit, quite literally, in the form of some of the best located Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes in the country.

A standard-bearer for the quality that England can achieve, this is a very assured wine, with a firm acidic spine, but also complexity and detail. Great focus and precision.

The 2001 Enoteca Gramona Brut Nature Gran Reserva was put in bottle in January 2002 and was disgorged in December 2014, a very long aging time for Cava standards. It's a blend of 75% Xarello and the rest is Macabeo and there is no liqueur d'expédition (Brut Nature). The long aging places the wine in the category of Gran Reserva and the process is kept as traditional as it gets, with the bottles sealed by cork instead of crown stoppers. 1,750 bottles produced. It's a great Cava, but the price seems a bit over the top. The aromas feel more reticent (perhaps the lack of dosage) and you get more balsamic hints and notes of aromatic herbs, mineral touches of camphor and petrol, nuts and bread dough. The palate is quite sharp, with very good acidity, lively with subtle complexity. I prefer this to the 2000. It would be very interesting to see how this wine evolves now that is disgorged, as the wine seems to grown in the glass and get better and better with time.
Luis Gutiérrez - The Wine Advocate #219, 29th June 2015

52% Coonawarra Cabernet, 27% Barossa Cabernet, 21% Barossa Shiraz.
Marvellous purity of Cabernet fruit, rich and ripe and slightly smoky from the oak, lifted spice on the palate with wonderfully polished depth of flavours, a cross between Ducru-Beaucaillou and Palmer with a touch of Hermitage, superb texture and tannins.
Drink 2018-40.
Steven Spurrier, Decanter. 1st September 2017.

Pol Roger is perhaps best known as Winston Churchill's favourite Champagne. The House remains family-owned and has a reputation for producing Champagnes of finesse and elegance which age very well.

This has all the hallmarks of a great blanc de blancs; white flowers, citrus, a touch of stone fruit and the merest hint of honey. A sure sign that Pol Roger has delivered yet again when nature presented ideal conditions for vintage Champagne. Citrus dominates the palate at the moment, with buttery brioche and almonds in the background. Very fresh and beautifully balanced, this will certainly provide immediate gratification but an extra couple of years will add a layer of honeyed complexity to this excellent wine. A real treat.

Dark is the watchword here when describing the fruit. Plums, cassis, black cherries and blackberries all vie for attention. There are hints of spice too and a pleasing sweetness emerges, especially on the finish. Well balanced, the soft, ripe tannins contribute to a silky result and the wine is long, charming and pure. This is another wine of some class from the Bartons in 2014 and, yet again, a great benchmark Claret.

83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc

With a real richness for a St Estèphe, this is a dense, complex but juicy wine which manages to be both serious but pretty at the same time. With well-managed, grainy tannins, a long, savoury length and fine, mineral complexity, this is very impressive indeed.

With masses of dense blackcurrants mingling with a violet perfume on the nose, this is a succulent, powerful wine yet with a perfectly counterbalancing freshness from its 65% Cabernet Sauvignon. The 28% Merlot adds the plush texture whilst 7% Petit Verdot gives a darker, brooding, spicy note. 30% of the superb Grand Vin (Léoville-Poyferré) fruit went into the Moulin Riche in 2009, and the influence on its quality is evident.

A blend from two communes; the alluvial Dionnières and the pebbly Méal, this wine has been treated to an extended maceration (over four weeks) then 14 months in barrel. Notes of blueberry and crème de cassis dominate this powerful and fleshy wine; profound in texture and profoundly satisfying.
Simon Field MW - Buyer

The re-emergence of Ferraton as a great producer has taken awhile, and for a year or so I felt that the quality of the wines actually merited greater plaudits than those hitherto garnered. That changed with the 2009s when a commentator who shall remain nameless, offered lavish praise, a praise which I suspect is equally merited with the excellent range of 2010s.Damien Brisset has some very well located vines and is now exploiting their potential with real skill.

This is the lightest of the three ice wines made at Changyu, with 140g/l residual sugar. The wine is made from the juice of the third crush and accounts for 75 percent of the estate’s total ice wine production.

Because the fruit for ice wine is frozen, but healthy and not botrytised, the attack is always very fresh and pure, with a very positive level of acidity. Here the profile is more of citrus and tropical fruits, blossom and honey. Creamy desserts work well, such as crème brûlée, or try simply with tropical fruits like pineapple or mango.

The famous neologism which marries the Greffieux and Meal sites also weds elegance and complexity, the wine-trade’s favourite descriptors. They are far from mis-placed here; the 2015 has 10% of Marsanne added to lend a certain feminine charm to an otherwise imperiously robust wine, a wine that will open up over the next decade or so. M Sorrel, for whatever reason, describes the appearance of this wine in terms of ‘Chinese ink’. I shall ask for elucidation on my next visit. 
Simon Field MW, Wine Buyer