James Bercovici - The Big Red Wine Company

Domaine des Sept Chemins Crozes-Hermitage 2003 Rouge. Having Chinese food tonight (a few starters plus the obligatory CDP - crispy duck pancakes, as opposed to Ch â teauneuf-du-Pape!) and for some reason I had a yearning for a red Crozes. Not the most obvious partner and when it came to it I let my head overrule this and I had a bottle of Budwar instead with the starters. With the duck I took charge and sipped at the Syrah. Not the perfect match but certainly not wrong. Those Asian spices you often find in Northern Rhône Syrah must have done their job. Duck aside, really quite a good wine which got better as the bottle was drained - it's all too rare to find good Syrah under £15-£20 let alone under a tenner.

Domaine Brusset , Gigondas 2003 "Le Grand Montmirail". Very young for Gigondas but Laurent Brusset always makes quite forward wines which can go the distance. And, of course, 2003 was very hot so acidity levels are naturally lower and the fruit that bit riper so, potential over-ripeness or dumb-ness aside, I was expecting something I could drink (I haven't tasted this wine for several months so anything could have happened although Brusset's wines don't generally shut down; the 1999 did though). A good, very tasty modern-style Gigondas: lots of fruit, big and heady, unmistakeably Gigondas but tannins not too forceful so ready to drink at only three years old. made me want to dig out some of the older vintages I have lurking around here somewhere. More please.

Published: August 2006 in Wine & Spirit Magazine Type ASDW into Google , and when you've filtered out the pagesof the All Seasons Door & Window Company, you'll find yourself on the site ofthe Association of Small Direct Wine-Merchants - www.asdw.org.uk . The ASDW is an umbrella organisation for around 20 companies who sell wine either through mail order or the internet and in quantities that can loosely be classed as "small" - so no, the Wine Society and Laithwaites are not members. The group recently held its first press and trade tasting with a dozen or so companies showing off their wares. Though variable, the qualitywas generally high, and four companies stood out from the crowd. The first was Nick Dobson Wines, a specialist in wines from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France. Two lovely reds are Bernard Santé's Moulin-à-Vent 2005, a vibrant young red with notes of raspberries, blackcurrants and violets, and Erich Sattler's 2003 Reserve Zweigelt...

Published: 15th July 2006 in The Week The Big Red Wine Company was recently featured in The Week magazine. Our wines were described as having "high quality and profound originality". Wines recommended were JP et JF Becker, Alsace Grand Cru "Froehn" Riesling (now out of stock), Domaine des Anges Cotes du Ventoux 2005 "L'Archange" Blanc , Domaine Brusset , CDR Villages 2003 "Vendange Chabrille" (now 2004) and Château Lacroix , Bordeaux Rosé 2004 (out of stock - now renamed as Pezat Rosé ).

Absolutely Cracking Wines from France is the Critics' Choice wine tasting. Of the thousands of wines from France available in the UK, 65 were nominated by 23 of the UK's leading wine critics as their "Absolutely Cracking" choices within three price categories. In the Rhone section, Xavier Vignon's "Lili" (renamed "Xavier Blanc") was selected: "A spicy, aromatic and luscious blend of Roussanne, Marsanne and Viognier" (Susie Barrie)

Published: 25 June 2006 in The Independent on Sunday Who would choose to go into the wine business? By and large, it remains people who love wine. I've talked recently to two people working in very different areas of the wine industry, and both fit that description to a T. One is a Dutch wine enthusiast named David Bolomey, whose website ( http://www.bordoverview.com/ ) I first learnt about from the excellent wine blog at http://www.spittoon.biz/ . David hasn't yet made a penny from his arduous labours. But they have certainly paid off for us wine drinkers - or for those who like to buy the wines of Bordeaux en primeur. The 2005 vintage has attracted loads of enthusiastic comment from all the people who cover this area. How do you find out what they're saying, without buying every single publication where they're published? By going to David's website. He has assembled a list of the major estates with rankings from most leading commentators. Using a sy...

Published: Sunday June 25, 2006 in The Observer When the email arrived, I wasn't sure what to make of an invitation from the Association of Small Direct Wine Merchants. Had a group of vertically challenged importers banded together to stand on each other's shoulders like some vinous circus act? Or were they just referring to the diminutive size of their businesses when set alongside mail-order giants like Laithwaites and The Wine Society? I was intrigued enough to go along to their first ever tasting. The ASDW was set up last year to protest against some of the anomalies in the 2003 Licensing Act and their effect on small businesses. The organisation has since grown from seven founders to 20 members and has expanded its remit to become a trade association with its own website (http://www.asdw.org.uk/) and an appealingly amateurish newsletter, Grapestalk Most of the members are enthusiasts. By this, I don't mean the sort of people who bore you witless at parties about the Ch...