Il Palazzone Rosso del Palazzone, Tuscany, Italy NV (£13.99, Cambridge Wine) Whether it’s bookselling, hairdressing or arms selling, all trades have their big annual trade fair, events that tend to be more about aimless networking than buying or sampling the wares on show. The UK wine trade’s version – the London Wine Fair – took place at Olympia at the end of May. And after years during which it had taken a depressingly corporate turn with very few interesting wines to taste, I have surprised myself in the past couple of years by coming away with a notebook bulging with new discoveries. This superb Tuscan red is one: a blend of two vintages from a noted producer of Brunello di Montalcino, it has all the deep cherry, herbs and savoury power of the best sangiovese from the area at an unusually good price.
Weingut Claus Schneider Spätburgunder Weiler Schlipf CS, Baden, Germany 2012 (£19.95, Swig) The most notable change at the London Wine Fair is the way it has finally caught up with the wine trade itself. Though it is still filled with purveyors of big brands and bulk wine brokers, the organisers have made a concerted effort to woo the more interesting small-scale suppliers – the kind of people that do brisk business with the burgeoning scene of small independent wine merchants, wine bars and restaurants rather than the supermarkets. Swig, a supplier that doubles up as one of the UK’s most imaginative online retailers, is one example, and among its array of exciting emerging producers –Edoardo Miroglio in Bulgaria, Blank Bottle in South Africa, BK Wines in Australia – I was most taken with this delicate, silky and pure German pinot noir.
Domaine Jean-Maurice Raffault, Chinon Blanc, Loire, France 2014 (£13.50, Yapp Bros) Another small supplier-cum-retailer at the fair was Yapp Bros, the family-run Wiltshire merchant that has been going since the 1970s. An early champion of what used to be called, somewhat patronisingly, “regional France”, Yapp is still arguably the best places in the UK to buy wines from the Loire, the Rhône and across the south. It had several fine examples on show: from classics such as Le Vieux Donjon’s top-flight Châteauneuf-du-Pape or Domaine Filiatreau’s delectable Loire cabernet franc; to curiosities such as this delightful spring fresh but super-tangy Loire chenin, a rare but delicious example of a white wine from the red wine territory of Chinon.
