James Bercovici - The Big Red Wine Company

Asked recently about the development of Marco Maci 's IGT Salento "Luce Barocca" from the 2007 vintage, I realised I hadn't tasted this wine recently although I have had both the "Fra Diavolo" 2004 (Primitivo) and the Copertino "Duca d'Antene" 2001 (Negroamaro) from this estate in recent weeks and was impressed by both. The Fra is getting more interesting every time I taste it with its sweet, brambly fruit and underlying tar. The Duca is one of the best straight Negroamaros I have had at this price point, very stylish, sweet and sour and no hard edges at all. So, what about the Barocca? The issue raised concerned a slight spritz in the glass when it was first released. Maybe, but (a) that is a sign of low sulphur use (unless, of course, the wine is refermenting which certainly is not the case here) and (b) that was two years ago so, surely, it has gone by now? The only way to answer the question is to crack open a bottle, of course. Well, ...

Four in this year! Oz clearly has good taste (especially bearing in mind the majority of the 250 is reserved for wines available from supermarkets and multiples). Two in the top 100 and two in the specialist sections. At Number 9 in Oz's Top 100 is Miguel Angel Muro's 2004 Rioja 'Amenital' . He writes "2004 is a classic vintage for Rioja: dark, ripe, rather closed in, promising long life. Well, this is dark but it isn't brooding and introspective. The fruit's darkness is the darkness of real ripeness, so ripe that a heady plum blossom scent shimmers on the surface of the wine. It does have some tannic toughness but not nearly enough to interfere with the pleasure and it's the fruit acidity that provides the backbone to the wine. You don't usually get that tingling acidity in modern Rioja but here they've used 20% of the Graciano grape in the blend (along with the traditional Tempranillo) to prov...

The day of the 25th Fete des Vins at Puy l'Eveque in the heart of Cahors, a wine fair which has never impressed me as much as it should so I am off to Chateau du Cedre, one of the region's greatest estates and one which I am very proud to work with. This morning saw my second visit to Chateau du Cedre for a meeting with Pascal Verhaeghe, winemaker extraordinaire. Pascal is extremely charming and clearly loves his work; it was a joy to be in his company, even more so because we had some truly great wines to taste. I came away wondering why anyone would want to spend £180 on a dozen bottles of, say, Chateau Le Crock, when the same money will buy "Le Cedre", let alone over £700 on, for example, Rauzan-Segla when "GC" costs under £400. No accounting for taste it seems, unless depth of pocket has anything to do with it, of course. It was a fascinating tasting: the regular cuvee is superb with the 5% each of Merlot and Tannat contributing well without detr...

"For something very unusual with your dessert, a Rasteau Rancio, a Madeira-like, fortified Vin du Naturel made from 100% Grenache, deliberately oxidised to give it a nutty character, fabulous stuff, available at The Big Red Wine Company at £14.95. Would pour nicely over a vanilla ice cream. Happy summer drinking!" From The Whistler blog

Wine Behind The Label has decided to make us Wine Merchant of the Month again! That's two months in a row. Wine Behind The Label is one of the most complete guides to wines and winemakers produced in the UK. Regions are introduced and estates are rated along with their wines with a brief overview. You can be fairly sure that any wine in the publication is worth checking out and, conversely, that any winery not included has been omitted for a reason. Needless to say, almost all the people we work with are in the book. If you want to join and get 10% off, click here.

With some in the press talking the vintage down, what is 2008 really like? Sandwiched between the glorious 2007 and possibly even better 2009 vintages, 2008 was always the ugly duckling but are comparisons with 2002 justified? Not at all if this trio is anything to go by. All three were tasted separately at the domaines around Easter but I wanted to compare them and only a mini-horizontal tasting would achieve this. One thing about all these wines: in top vintages, all these estates make prestige cuvees; in 2008 they started to make these wines but decided the economy and the reputation of the vintage rendered this self-defeating so blended them back into the "Tradition" cuvees. This gives the wine the potential to be much better than it would otherwise be. With no other criteria to go by, the wines were tasted according to alcohol strength so at 14%, Raymond Usseglio was first up. This wine has changed the blend over the last few years from a straightforward GSM blend (...

Saturday started as a baking hot day in the high twenties - not ideal for the morning after the night before, especially when the party hasn't even started yet! A very leisurely walk around the Barton Mills Scarecrow Festival for the benefit of the children who had spied opportunities for us to part with some cash in the ice-cream vans and bouncy castleswas followed by an ever more relaxed afternoon with the fire being lit around 1.30pm. The lamb was stuffed with different marinades and put on the spit around 2pm being turned diligently by college friends Saki and Adam under my insistent but only occasional supervision whilst others turned up from time to time and needed help erecting tents. Beer was the drink of choice at this point. We did eventually - inevitably - move onto wine as the evening approached with the first glasses being filled with Domaine de Cristia 's VDP Grenache from 2009 but tasting so advanced for a wine only seven months old. This wine astounds me - it ...