Category Archives: Uncategorized

A vine, a bud, rain, grey skies – this is Leventhorpe Vineyard, just outside Leeds, in mid-May. Yes, that Leeds. The one in Yorkshire.

I spent last weekend engaged in one of my more unlikely wine tours while researching an article for next weekend’s Guardian travel section, and a very interesting time was had by all. Well, by me, mainly. There are seven vineyards in Yorkshire and most of them are pretty new, having been established in the last five years. Because they’re so northerly, and hence cold and wet and stuff, they have to grow varieties you haven’t really heard of before, bred specifically to succeed in those conditions: ortega, siegerrebe, rondo and solaris are the most common names. And these funny-sounding grapes make funny-tasting wine, stuff that swishes around your mouth behaving quite unlike any wine that you’re used to.

I tried my best to keep the most open of minds. They might not taste like what your brain tells you wine should taste like, but they sometimes still make for a perfectly enjoyable alcoholic beverage. The advent of solaris, a terribly modern German-bred grape that ripens early and with loads of sugar, has allowed Holmfirth Vineyard to produce a 100% solaris wine that naturally reaches 13% alcohol and is water white, steely dry and admirably clean and bright. Ryedale make a couple of very decent rosés. Leventhorpe make a seyval blanc of some repute.

But it’s not just about the booze. Nobody plants a vineyard in Yorkshire without have a pretty good story to tell, and I’ll remember the people I met on my trip long after I’ve forgotten their wines – and I don’t mean that as a criticism of their product. There’s one winemaker, for example, who has dedicated much of his life to vines, is absolutely obsessed by them and everything about them, but refuses to drink for fear of getting a deathly headache. Sometimes the conversation is more sparkling than anything that comes in bottles (though having said that there wasn’t any fizz to be seen, though there will be soon: at least two of the vineyards will release their first sparklers in 2012).

I’d encourage you to drop in on one, if you get the chance. But all I can add for now is that if you want any more detail you’ll have to click here, or buy next Saturday’s Guardian.

This weekend the Natural Wine Fair will be held at London’s Borough Market, marking perhaps the moment when the wine industry’s hot topic of the last couple of years crossed into the very mainest stream. But even if an increasing number of people are aware of its existence, they’re still unlikely to be loading their trolley with Tesco’s Finest Natural Fitou any time soon, and here’s why:

1) Nobody knows what “Natural Wine” means, even the ones making the stuff

2) Most people think that all wine is pretty natural, so what’s the big deal?

3) Making wine naturally is more expensive than making wine unnaturally, and more expensive wine is definitely not as good as more cheap wine

4) Some of it tastes pretty wild and funky, looks pretty weird and seems a bit unstable. If people want something that seems wild, funky, weird-looking and a bit unstable, they’ll go to see Bootsy Collins.

5) People with beards get very passionate about it

Of those, the first is the key issue. It is very hard to take seriously such an apparently disorganised organisation, but the truth is there is no organisation, just a hotch-potch assemblage of vaguely like-minded winefolks. Things might start to look up once this is resolved, firstly because it seems bizarre that grapes can be certified organic but that no system exists for noting the wineries whose approach continues along similarly chemical-free lines once they are plucked from their vines, and secondly because they’ll have a logo to stick on bottles. And everybody loves a logo, especially when it’s on a sticker.

First there’s some arguments to be had about precisely how hardline a winemaker has to be to qualify. Can they use sulphur dioxide, a common stabiliser throughout the winemaking process and especially at bottling, and if so how much? Can they start the fermentation process with a commercial yeast? Can they add acid, or sugar, or use oak chips?

As for the wines, they’re impossible to generalise. I’ve heard some people say that they “don’t like natural wine”, a concept as bizarre as saying they “don’t like socks”, because some of them are dirty. But I’m no less bemused by those who say that they don’t drink anything else, and those people do exist, because there are plenty of intense, provocative, interesting wines made outside the natural wine umbrella. The truth is that there are some brilliant natural wine, some dodgy natural wine, and some downright baffling natural wine, but the very best are really inspiringly delicious.

So, a few tips: I’ve been impressed in the past by the cheaper wines made by Cos in Sicily (Frappato and Cerasuolo), delicious and bright and in no way scary (but don’t think that I’ve been unimpressed by the more expensive ones – I just haven’t tried them), the very good value wines of Domaine Fondreche in the Rhone, and the outstanding but pretty expensive Brunello from Paradiso di Manfredi. At a recent tasting of natural wines held to drum up support for this weekend’s event I really liked a 100% carignan from the Languedoc called Terre Inconnue Leonie, an almost entirely useless tip because it’s made in tiny quantities and you can’t buy it, and a soft, full, lovely and not at all scary Marsanne/Rousanne blend calles Les Muriers, from Mas Bruguieres.

But there are also the wines that are a bit out there, guilty perhaps of having an excess of personality. They’re fun to try, but probably a bit miserable to be stuck with for a whole evening. If anything the pot-luck nature of “natural” wines means it can only be a good thing to be somewhere with little bits of lots of them and no chance at all of getting stuck with one you don’t like. In other words, go to the fair this Sunday and see what all the fuss is about.

I’ll just put this out there: I like the Wine Society a lot. I liked them even before they invited me over, let me try some wine and then fed me roast beef and really very good gratin dauphinois. They provided the wines for my wedding, and their mountainous delivery man, who is capable of carrying a full case of wine under each arm apparently without serious exertion, has been a fairly regular visitor chez CF ever since. Their prices are good, their range is excellent and the quality pretty reliable. And I like that they are a mutual, that they don’t seek to make profit for some faceless white-cat-stroking imaginary Dr Evil.

But they have an ageing customer base, steadfastly refuse to advertise and have only one shop in Britain, and that’s in Stevenage, and you can’t buy anything unless you’re a member (though anyone can join, for a one-off fee of £40). They are worried enough about their future to have invited a handful of bloggers to their Hertfordshire home, where they tried to impress us with their wines and to see if we had any clever ideas about how they can get bigger. So let’s run through the wines, quickly: they showed only a handful of their two own ranges, the basic Wine Society label, and the top-end Exhibition brand. All were pretty good representations of what they were (though the Chilean sauvignon blanc was a bit of a charicature), and the Exhibition range contains some absolute gems. They normally say who produced the wines (Craggy Range, say, makes two of their three Kiwi pinot noirs), but emboldened by this positive tasting I would buy anything bearing an Exhibition label with confidence. As we were told, “members count on us to never give them the chance to step in something nasty”.

So on to the future. I walked around, puzzled as to why they’re so keen to expand. The thing is, they’re already enormous. I kind of knew this already, but didn’t really appreciate it before getting the chance to look round their Stevenage warehouses. The quantities of wine they hold, and the amount that leaves them daily, are pretty awesome. Here’s some evidence:

Cases of wine, ready for packing

Full cases, ready for the vans

The Wine Society: A few cases of Chateau Lafite

Britains second tallest warehouse, and a big fork lift truck

The warehouse above is just one of four, albeit the biggest of them. The forklift trucks are so enormous that the only way of getting them inside was to bring them in in bits and build them right there. The scale of this place is basically incredible. They could be bigger, and there are probably quite a few wine lovers who’ve never heard of them, but this lack of ubiquity is also part of their appeal. They should be wary of becoming overly pushy, because they may find it counter-productive. The gentle, mannered Britishness of the whole enterprise might not be very 21st century, but it’s also, somehow, right. And the contentment of their existing members has to be the very greatest priority, given that their recommendation is the Society’s only form of advertising.

But, since they’re asking, this is what I’d like them to do: Open a Wine Society House in central London. A wine shop and relaxed eaterie (no tablecloths) on the ground floor,; a big, comfortable sitting area upstairs, where people can sit in small groups, chat, drink wine, play cards, whatever; some kind of large-ish area for public tastings in the basement and a couple of private meeting/drinking rooms somewhere. Members only, though they can bring a few guests. Ideally a late license. Orders can also be made for collection from the House, or be made there for home delivery. And if it works, smaller versions in other cities. That’s all. I’d come, often.