Category — Spain

Small independent merchant HC Wines will be holding their seasonal tasting on Sat 8 December 2007 at 7.45pm in York. John Hattam and Andy Clarke ’s motto is “Life is too short to drink bad wine”!. Their selection of interesting wines come from France, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, Australia and Italy.

“….an informal evening with eight wines to try, with an opportunity to buy should you wish.
Cost remains at £6 per head including bread and cheese.
A great opportunity to sort out all your Christmas wines and have them delivered free of charge to your door.”

HC Wines

Taste Spain (12 - 19 October 2007) - it’s a celebration of Spanish wine, food and culture in London, held with the help of some top Spanish restaurants such as Brindisa, Moro and Barrafina - as well as being hosted by The Spanish Tourist Board and Phaidon Press.

The event will take place at various venues around London and the highlight will be 2 days at Borough Market (Wednesday 17 &Thursday 18 October) where there will be food and wine tastings, live music and flamenco break-dancing, so bring your castanets and a sharpened appetite to The Borough!

For more details see www.tastespain.co.uk

H and H Bancroft have updated their website.

A nice clean feel, stylishly laid out. A good search facility and basic wine information that leads on to fuller details. Purchases have to be by the unmixed case though. Registered users get a wish list facility which may be useful for some, or just wishful thinking for others.

“Our wine portfolio at H&H Bancroft changes each year but the ethos behind it remains constant. From the classic regions of France to the furthest stretches of the New World our Buying Director, David Round MW has succeeded in bringing in the well-established names and also the hottest new wineries to ensure that our customers can explore the world of wine with the greatest of ease. If re-assurance were needed that we are working closely with the best growers in the world, we need only look at the awards and critical acclaim that roll in every month as their latest vintages are reviewed.”

The range is strong on France, Italy and Spain. Argentina puts in a good range too but South Africa, New Zealand, Portugal and Chile are rather poorly represented.

Zelas is the on-line arm of North London merchant Wine of Course.

The range is not huge - just one wine form the Languedoc for example, 7 from Australia, 4 from South Africa etc. But the quality is top notch. Prices generally are in the £12+ bracket and include such delights as Sequillo Eben Sadie (South Africa) £17.99, Daniel Schuster Pinot Noir “Twin Vineyards” (New Zealand) £16.99 and Bolgheri Tenuta Guado al Tasso Il Bruciato (Italy) £17.99. Prices for unmixed cases are generally £1 or so cheaper.

The site is nice to use, each wine having a picture and brief tasting notes. You can add your own notes too on the site if you feel inclined; although I didn’t spot any during my forage. Delivery is free for purchases of 6 or more bottles and £8.50 for anything less.

Wine courses are held on the last Thursday of the month. These cost £25/£35 each, cheaper for 2 or more people, and are held in the store. Their Wines for Christmas tasting session is described as

If you have ever wondered which wines to serve with your Christmas meal, consume over your Boxing Day leftovers, or have just wanted to learn more about wine in general, then this is the tasting event for you. We will taste our way through a range of ten fantastic wines, featuring examples both traditional and modern, for pairing with the rich and varied foods of the season. The tasting will include a champagne, a sweet wine, and a port as well as a spread of festive nibbles.

Wine of Course / Zelas
216 Archway Road,
London N6 5AX

Sympathies to the guys at Le Bon Vin; this Sheffield based web and premises wine merchant has suffered badly during the recent floods. The warehouse and shop suffered an estimated £250,000 of damage.

Web-sales though have been unaffected.

We have just launched our all new website with new features and even more wines than before. Please take the time to have a look at www.lebonvin.co.uk We have some excellent prices for branded champagne as always and a massive selection of wines that are top quality. As our main business is to the trade we pass on big saving to retail customers who want to buy the wines without the restaurant mark-up. We specialise in French wines but we also have decent offerings from around the world.

They have created a great little website. Fully search-able they have plenty of special offers, pre-mixed cases and a wine range that encompasses the world. Champagne is a big feature with 40 wines listed but Australia, France, Spain and Italy are all well covered.

There is a reliance on stocking the full range from a single estate (New Zealand for example) and a tendency to the lower end of the price scale but you are sure to find plenty of interest. A few spirits - around 110 different products - pop up in the search results to complete the offering.

Le Bon Vin
340 Brightside Lane
Sheffield
S9 2SB

A member of the Association of Small Direct Wine Merchants Decanter Wines specialises in Spainish Wines.

The list is not huge but the quality of the wines, all hand picked and tasted by the husband and wife team, is excellent. About as much information as you could possibly require is available on the website - tasitng notes, food suggestions, producer background details, even tapas recipes.

“We have long had an avid interest in Spanish wine and love trying new, unheard of wines from small bodegas. This experimental approach has uncovered some exceptional wines - as well as some which should have been left in the cellar! Typically however, the excellent wines we enjoyed were not usually available commercially in the UK, so since the mid-1980’s, we have imported wine for our own private collection.

Our aim with this website is to introduce you to some great, but less well known Spanish wines. Over the years, our interest in and knowledge about Spanish wine - and food - has developed, but our goal remains what is has always been - to source good quality, value for money wine from small producers whose focus is on quality rather than quantity. It is therefore unlikely that you will find any of our wines in the larger UK supermarkets or warehouses, as the bodegas we deal with usually don’t produce enough wine to meet the needs of mass distribution channels.”

A decent Cava, a true Spanish Brandy and a range of wines you won’t find elsewhere that easily should entice you if you have even a passing interest in wines from Spain.

Decanter Wines Limited
Little Porch
Yarm Way
Leatherhead
Surrey KT22 8RQ

Operational since 1988 Surf4Wine was one of the pioneers of the internet-based mail order wine merchant scene in the UK.

It’s a dynamic little operation and while they admit that the website has lacked in the update department recently a chat with Andrew Chapman indicates that things are about to improve. Not only is an expansion of the Oxfordshire warehouse and offices about to begin a new ‘backend’ of the website is soon to be launched. Coupled with a new staff and a range of new wines things are going from strength to strength for Surf4Wine.

The wine range is world encompassing with a slight slant of favouritism to the new world. There are many gems on the list ranging from Brokenwood, Bremerton and Qupe through to Kim Crawford and Vergelegen. Plenty of gift packs - such as a seasonal six pack rosé case (£36) and gift packs for Father’s Day, a smattering of spirits and some unusual beers completes the range.

Delivery is £7.50 per order regardless of size (up to a case) which is pretty much standard (and at cost). Personal service is vital to the success of the company shown through Chapman’s professional staff and attention to detail. Buy with confidence.

Surf4Wine/Andrew Chapman Fine Wines
Unit T2-27 & 28,
Milton Park,
Near Abingdon,
Oxfordshire OX14 4TA
United Kingdom

Since participating in the Zarcillo Awards in Spain at the beginning of the month I’ve been trying to track down UK stockists of the award winners. Simon Fance kindly left a comment on the Grand Golds from the Zarcillo Awards post mentioning that he imported several of the wines.

Although his company, Masterpiece Wines, only sells to wine merchants and restaurants he has established another ‘front’ for selling direct to the consumer. Sadly no website for Dulcinea Wines but I thought the range, in all its excellence, was worth highlighting here on UKWOL.

The small wine list Simon supplied as a PDF File. You can order by post in addition to emailing your order.

Simon mentions that stockists, if you would like to buy direct, include Vinoteca (although an excellent restaurant they also have a wine shop and stock the Rejadorada Roble), Le Pont de la Tour (have Rejadorada Sango, Rodero Crianza and Oro de Castilla Verdejo, again they have a wine merchants alongside the restaurant) and John Armit (Agnusdei). The Theatre of Wine who are specialists in fortified wines, amongst other things, stock the old Málagas.

The store just opposite the railway station has a wine bar above. This is Five Reasons Wine, a mighty fine looking shop offering 400 or so wines. All are listed on the website but sadly there is no online ordering.

Owner/manager Irene writes

Our approach is to operate a one in one out policy at our optimum number of 400 wines This means that we aim to ensure that our range is continuously improving over time rather than expanding willy nilly, and our customers aren’t met by a bewildering wall of wine, creating the illusion of choice, but actually risking alienating all except the most dogged wine enthusiasts.

This discipline ensures we can keep in touch with how our wines are tasting, and give knowledgeable advice - following a high quality service rather than largely product-driven/cult-wine-chasing model of an independent wine merchant.

Tastings are at the heart of what we do. We’d like to think we are getting a pretty good local reputation for our fortnightly tasting events.

This rolling wine range has resulted in some choice pickings from New Zealand, Alsace (Zind Humbrecht, Clos Wintzenheim, Gewurztraminer for example), Australia (Coriole Shiraz amongst many choice bottles), the Americas, Spain, Italy and across the regions of France. On the bubbly front the Billecart Salmon and Jacquesson bottles would be my recommendations.

Prices are generally in the £10plus range with many in the super-fine league of £30+ a bottle. Delivery is free locally in Tunbridge Wells while overnight delivery elsewhere in the UK is £10.80.

FIVE REASONS WINE
7 Vale Road
Tunbridge Wells
TN1 1BS

Easy Wine/Wine Of Course probably have the largest range of Bulgarian wine in the UK. A total of 18 different wines at the last count, ranging in price from £4.99 up to one at £14.99!

But there is a lot more available from the company than just Bulgarian wines. The nicely designed website holds vinous treasures from across the globe.

Strengths are in Australia (look out for Vasse Felix, Innocent Bystander and a Sangiovese from Uleybury), California (expensive but Ceago, Hirsch and Shafer are listed), Italy, New Zealand (Dog Point, Akarua and Isobel), The Rhone and Spain. Chile is a little light at just four and there are no listings for Austria or Germany.

We’re an independent wine specialists with shops in leafy north London and beautiful Ongar, Essex. Our goal is to source top quality wines from around the world from producers who are individualistic, small (but perfectly formed), and who represent the best that their respective regions have to offer. We deliver across the mainland UK at no additional delivery charge* and offer monthly wine courses and additional events to suit the casual enthusiast to the hardened connoisseur.

Free delivery across the UK.

Wine of Course (London)
216 Archway Rd
London N6 5AX
T: + 44 (0) 20 8347 9006

Wine of Course (Essex)
135 High Street
Ongar, Essex CM5 9JD
T: + 44 (0) 1277 365116

Based in Manchester are Smithfield Wines; and generously offer free delivery within 25 miles of the centre of the city. Us poor things further afield have to pay £7.50 per case.

Plenty to chose from - the list spans the globe with particular emphasis on Vegetarian wines. Who would have realised there were so many vegan/vegetarian wines available! Kosher and Organic wines are also highlighted in the main list. While the whole world is represented Spain seems to be a particular passion with good representation from across the country.

Prices are, with just a couple of exceptions, firmly in the sub £15 range with a vast majority in the £6-£8 range.

Slightly confusingly the site is spilt into three ’shops’. There is the ‘normal’ general wine shop, a sub-shop dedicated to the large number of vegetarian wines and a third covering gift packs and hampers.

Smithfield Wine
3 Longacre Street
Manchester
M1 2WN

A beautifully designed website - just a touch of animation/flash to keep things interesting. Did I see somewhere that there are 800 wines on their list? All the boxes are ticked with good representation from Chile, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Australia etc etc. Impossible to pull out just a few recommendations, especially when you take into account the 45 strong range of spirits, various special offers, mixed cases and 40 odd ports!

Prices begin at £5.99. You can down load the price list in a PDF file for printing and off-line perusing. There is also a very entertaining PDF magazine that combines staff recommendations, producer profiles and loads more. All very professionally produced.

Next working day delivery is fixed at a rate of £8.50 per delivery address for all quantities from 1 bottle upwards for those who cant make it to the store. Oh, and don’t neglect the series of wine tastings over the coming months.

Overall a great looking company and worth investigating.

The Secret Cellar
43-45 Church Road,
Tunbridge Wells,
Kent TN1 1JT.
ENGLAND.

Discovered via a recommendation on fellow UK wine blog Grapefan.

What marks out The Winery is the individual wines listed. Each is personally sourced and imported with almost all being exclusive to the company. The wine list is packed with ‘unknowns’ - Mittnacht-Klack from Alsace, Tarlant Champagne, Wild Hog from California and Cheveau from Burgundy.

Strengths are in France - each region well represented by wines worthy of exploration, plus Spain, California and Italy. There is a superb list of dessert wines, mostly from Germany. New Zealand and South America are absent and Australia is poorly represented by just one producer though.

Unlike many London independents the wines are more than affordable with most coming in at under £20 a bottle. Delivery, if you can’t make it to either of the stores, costs £10 per case of 12, or free with 3 or more cases. Sadly no online ordering.

(pull)The Winery At Liberty 2nd Floor Liberty
Regent Street
London(/pull)

From the moment the site pops up in your browser you can feel the class and quality of WineDirect. The site is the on-line arm of Hailsham Cellars, an UK Wine Merchant based in Hailsham, East Sussex.

We’re passionate about wine and believe that knowing more about where the wines come from, the grape varieties and wine styles, can enhance your wine drinking experience and embolden you to experiment with the wide selection of wine styles and grape varieties on our list. That’s why we’ve added a lot of information about wine on the site in the Wine & Food and Wine Companion sections and why we are selling great wine books in our Books section.

The wine range is wide reaching - they list 35 wines from often overlooked Argentina, 100 wines from ever-popular Australia and 69 from New Zealand. But it is not just the New World at WineDirect - Spain with a list of 54 wines, Italy (187) and the regions of France (258) hold many interesting wines.

Prices are generally in the £7-£14 range although more expensive wines are of course listed. Minimum purchase is 6 bottles.

Pre-mixed cases, with prices ranging from £65 and upwards, and various regular wine club offerings complete the picture.

One thing I noticed is the embracing of customer feed-back they ask that their customers send in wine reviews and recipes for great dishes to accompany wine for publication on the site. Very Web 2.0!

Here is my selection of the top independent merchants that specialise in Spanish Wines.

1) Decanter Wines - small importer based in Surrey with a great little website packed with info including a selection of Spanish recipes with suggested wines to match.

2) Laymont & Shaw - perhaps the premier independent specialising in Spainish wines (their list also includes wines from Portugal, Argentina and Uruguay).

3) No list of Spanish specialists could miss out Witham Wines and their great range of Sherry. Also the place to buy the Big Book Of Sherry.

4) Moreno Wine Direct has been specialising in Spanish wine for over 30 years and regulairly wine the coverted Spanish Wine Merchant of the Year Award in the International Wine Challenge.

5) El Celler Catala the chance to purchase a superb range of wines direct from Catalonia from an Englishman resident in the area.