James Bercovici - The Big Red Wine Company

The Wine Tasting Society that meets each month in Christchurch University will be celebrating its 30th anniversary later this year so congratulations to Keith and everyone for that. I have been going along every year for the last ten or so, so they must think I am doing something right. They are a great crowd: they always want Rhone wines which, of course, I am happy to give them and they are very knowledgeable about both wine and what they want from it. That all makes my job extremely easy. Highlights included the mature 2002 white Chateauneuf from Domaine Grand Veneur: "La Fontaine" is 100% old-vine, barrel-aged Roussanne and it is quite stunning. The secondary characters have taken over now and the wine is very much enjoying its (relative) old-age. The most popular reds were probably the 2009s: Bressy-Masson's Cotes du Rhone (more like a Rasteau Village wine), Cristia's Cotes du Rhone "Garrigues" (100% old-vine Grenache aged in small barrels) and Doma...

The excuse was a couple of weeks to sort out my year end but, inevitably, I have done no paperwork whatsoever although the tax man cannot say I have not been working. Arrived here on Sunday and on Monday went off to Gigondas where they are working on the Caveau with the walls being held up by big metal things (my technological vocabulary could be better!). Went off to Clos des Cazaux, an excellent estate which has holdings in both Gigondas and Vacqueyras. Unfortunately, they set the pattern for what seems to be the norm down here: tell everyone how great 2008 is and get shot of it quickly. The wines were not all bad though but it was the superb Grenat Noble (a later harvested, botrytised Grenache) and Prestige (largely Syrah), both from 2006 which impressed. At the temporary Caveau, there were walls and walls of 2008s and a handful of other vintages. For old times' sake, I tasted the 2007 Notre Dame des Pallieres (nothing to do with the VT-owned vineyard) which had a delightful...

With inflation at 4.4% but a stated desire to reduce the £150 billion deficit as quickly as possible, will duty on wine be increased today?

Rather late in the day, we decided to join in with the wine trade's efforts to do its bit for Comic Relief. An impromptu tasting was arranged for Friday evening and any local who looked like he or she had at least a fiver to spare was press-ganged into coming along. In the end, around 40 people turned up (it was a two hour tasting in our living room at home so there was a very friendly atmosphere) and tasted from 18 bottles I had opened. I also put together a quiz which I thought was fairly easy and a blind tasting competition which was less so. In the end, no-one scored more than 11/20 in total so I guess my questions were trickier than I had thought (it was all multiple choice and wine-related although that did include a question about the wine the character Miles in Sideways drinks out of a paper bag - answer, Cheval Blanc). The highlights, wine-wise, for me at least were the Baglio del Campo di Cristobello "CDC" from Sicily, a white based on Chardonnay and the ind...

Someone just emailed me to tell me I have been quoted by The Drinks Business, a very glossy UK trade publication which has been sent to me from time to time.  The full page on Live: Budget Watch can be seen here but since these are apparently my words, I can't see a problem with quoting them here. At precisely 12.20pm, a full forty minutes before George Osborne stood up, this was posted: A rise in VAT is widely expected in today's budget as is yet another increase in duty. What will this actually mean? James Bercovici, of Big Red Wine, writes : "Given that VAT is a percentage and duty a flat rate, this is actually quite simple to work out. VAT is expected to rise to 20% so it is only duty that is uncertain at the moment. But it is reasonable to assume that any [duty] rise will be a percentage increase on the current £20.25 per dozen (still wines). A 5% increase will mean a 2.593% increase in the price of any bottle; a 7% increase will amount to 2.7792%. In mon...

I am involved in another business with a couple of colleagues. Imaginatively, we have called it Fusion Wines (well, it doesn't really matter what it's called and I couldn't be bothered to consider any number of suggestions, most of which would have been far worse) and its raison d'etre is to sell into the restaurant trade (so come and see me in the poor house soon!). We had our first tasting on Monday 28th February 2011 and, apart from the low turnout (considering we had invited just about every restaurant in London), it was a great success. Probably the highlight of the tasting was the newly arrived, BRW-sourced, Tenuta Serradenari Barolo 2007 , a deliciously oppulent and forward Barolo from ungrafted vines in La Morra, the highest planted anywhere in the denomination. I decided against showing its older sibling, the 2006, as far too reserved (ie. a tannic brute) to be of interest at a trade tasting. Both are astonishingly cheap, though, for Barolo (don't you j...

The Society's chairman, Colin Wagstaff, asked me to present a selection of Southern Rhone wines last night which, of course, I was pleased to do. The venue is the upstairs room of a pub in Dulwich Village with around 35 or so members present. They like to take a break half-way through for cheese etc and, having recently returned from the Rhone, I decided this provided a good opportunity to slip in a few "en primeur" wines. Starting with a couple of whites, Domaine des Anges' regular bottling from 2009 was well received because of its tasty fruit but, perhaps even more, behind the fruit lay a good structure which, now Ciaran is moving towards organics, is more apparent. This was followed by Xavier Vignon's white "Debut" (or, simply, "Xavier") which is atypical, having a Chardonnay base (actually, it's not really a Rhone wine; rather a vin de table, originating from both the Rhone and the Languedoc. Impressive though but some of us felt it...