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4 days ago | 
medium.com | Tom Lewis
A Loire fizz and RhôneredCrisp White and Big Red is the starting point for any meal with wine. If the white also happens to be a fizz, it makes the event just that little more indulgent. The freshness of the Loire and substance of Côtes du Rhône are the thinking person’s alternative to more obvious pairings.
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1 week ago | 
medium.com | Tom Lewis
Villa Maria’s signature kiwi Sauvignon Blanc in a canCanned wines are nothing new — The Copper Crew launched their range almost five years ago. Now Villa Maria have brought out a canned version of their signature Private Bin Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. It is the same high standard as the bottled version, more convenient for picnics and outdoor gatherings, and ecologically sounder, as the wine is shipped to the UK before being canned locally for a lower carbon footprint.
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1 week ago | 
medium.com | Tom Lewis
Three ChardonnaysThere’s an apocryphal story that the wine trade likes to tell about a punter who, at a tasting, insists that s/he does not like Chardonnay but loves Chablis. The joke, for those in the know, is that Chablis is made from Chardonnay, it’s just named after the place and not the grape.
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2 weeks ago | 
medium.com | Tom Lewis
Master of Wine and Private Cellar buyer Nicola Arcedeckne-Butler gives her view on Bordeaux 2024:Bordeaux 2024 Vintage reportSort, sort, sort!Much has been written about the 2024 Bordeaux primeur campaign, and plenty of it before many tasters had visited the region, focusing on the far from perfect weather during the early growing season, rather than the vintage as a whole, with entire sunny weeks all but ignored in favour of the more negative picture.
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2 weeks ago | 
medium.com | Tom Lewis
Three wines from southern France’s Terrasses Du LarzacTerrasses du Larzac in southern France’s Languedoc is a sunny, high altitude region producing fresh-yet-concentrated reds from classic Rhone grapes Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre (plus Cinsaut and Carignan). Dating from just 2014, the southerly location gives a Mediterranean climate with the mountains of the southern Massif Central leading to cooler nights after hot days.
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3 weeks ago | 
medium.com | Tom Lewis
A Beaujolais cru from Justerini & Brooks, with some ageWhisper it, but I find I much prefer Beaujolais to red Burgundy. After years of trying to acquire the expensive habit of liking red Burgundy, I seem to have acquired the expensive habit of not liking red Burgundy. I opened this alongside a more-expensive and older Volnay. And found I preferred this wine.
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3 weeks ago | 
medium.com | Tom Lewis
Two mature fire-sale Burgundies from Cambridge Wine MerchantsDuring lockdown, I bought various fire-sale bottles from Cambridge Wine Merchants who had in turn picked them up from a restaurant chain suffering from cashflow problems and needing to shift stock at pretty much any price in order to remain solvent. So, with no tastings to attend or samples being sent through, my daily permitted exercise quickly became a trip to the Bridge Street branch to check out their latest haul.
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4 weeks ago | 
medium.com | Tom Lewis
A boxed South African Sauvignon Blanc from M&SI had fallen into something of a wine funk — a slowdown in samples to review meant I was drinking up lots of the same wines from the cellar and enjoying them a bit less each time due to overfamiliarity. In search of something different in order to mix things up and shake myself out of the torpor, I trawled the local supermarkets for some inexpensive bottles that I already knew and liked and that were on special offer.
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1 month ago | 
medium.com | Tom Lewis
Tom Lewis·Follow2 min read·--A range of inexpensive wines for a general audienceYou don’t have to be a student to enjoy these wines, but it helps. The brief was to buy a range of red and white wines suitable for a (civilised, final-year) student party for a group of people who won’t especially be paying attention but do, generally, have a palate. Plus there had to be an orange wine in there too.
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1 month ago | 
medium.com | Tom Lewis
Tom Lewis·Follow2 min read·--Two Riojas from The Co-opAnother week, another brace of Iberian wines from The Co-op. These two Riojas are reasonably similar in price and age, but packaged very differently; the Baron de Ley is attractively conservative, if a little bland on the shelf. By contrast, the El Gran Jefe is much more striking with its squat shape and colourful, modernist-style label, suggesting iconoclastic exuberance.
