We have relaunched our new blog
In preparation for the 2011 London International Wine Fair we have relaunched our blog. It can now be found here:
Thierry's Makes Time For Wine
The month of May is National Wine Month and we are proud to play our part in this initiative to 'Make Time for Wine'. The campaign aims not only to increase consumer awareness of the wide variety of wines available on the UK market but also to encourage people to try different things. The Wine & Spirit Eduction Trust (WSET) is playing a major part in helping consumers discover the many facets of our wine market through various road shows and events around the country as well as an on-line 'Make Time for Wine' course.
One of our producers, Gérard Bertrand, a pioneer winemaker in the Languedoc (and ex-rugby international player), is giving three lucky couples the chance to enjoy the convivial 'art de vivre' in the South of France. He is offering a unique weekend, to include luxury accommodation at Château l'Hospitalet, a gourmet dinner at his chic 'H' restaurant, a VIP tour of the winery and vineyards and tutored tasting. The competition is run by Waitrose so keep an eye out in-store and in Waitrose Kitchen magazine for more information. Throughout the month there will be in-store tastings of Gérard's Château L'Hospitalet La Clape (£10.99) and Minervois (£7.49). On May 20th the WSET will also be hosting a wine lunch in London featuring the wines of Gérard Bertrand at Delfina in London. For more information, visit http://www.maketimeforwine.org/diary.htm
Château L'Hospitalet and some of its gorgeous views.
Matthew Dickinson, our commercial director explains why Thierry's are keen supporters of the WSET's National Wine Month initiative:
"National Wine Month will give the wine category more focus and exposure and is a great opportunity to demonstrate the potential of proper quality and value and fair pricing over the next few years. Yes, the current economic climate is challenging but the UK wine market is still quite buoyant, with around 35 million people drinking wine on a regular basis and around 10 million on a more frequent basis. People's general knowledge of wine in the UK is quite high, as there is such an incredible choice of wines from all over the world compared with the more traditional wine-producing countries which tend to have a huge bias towards selling their own wines. The potential is there to grow the category but we need to break the cycle of constant promotions and give the customer a good reason to spend a bit more on wine."
"Wine has a high value and is a relatively inexpensive product but whilst many people don't think twice about spending £10 on a ready-meal for two, they baulk at spending more than £5 on a bottle of wine. It's true that some consumers are walking away from the category but this is mainly at the bottom end of the market, where the price/quality ratio is at its lowest. What we, as an industry, need to do, is to persuade consumers to change their habits, to try something a bit different - a new varietal or region/country, maybe spend a pound or two more and appreciate that it's in the £5-10 category that wine offers the best value for money."
Familia Zuccardi - Tasting the Santa Julia Malbecs
You would think we shouldn't really need an excuse, but it being Malbec World Day last Sunday gave us a very good one anyway. Thierry's represents the Santa Julia range of Argentine wines, a line produced by the iconic Familia Zuccardi. Although these wines are incredibly popular, Lindsay Talas, our wine buyer, (unfortunately for her she was suffering from a severe cold on the day) and Claire Sheppard, head of trading, realised that many of our people hadn't had the opportunity to taste through the range. Cue Malbec World Day for an opportunity!
So last Thursday everyone gathered in the dining room where to the rhythm of the Tango we tasted through an impressive range of wines, all made from the Malbec grape variety. We started with the Santa Julia Malbec 2010, a very fresh, juicy and fruity style of Malbec, perfect for the barbecue. Look out for this wine hitting the shelves later this year.
The Santa Julia Malbec Organica 2010 is made from organically grown grapes and is more intense with rich dark fruit, ripe blackberry and plum. No oak is used in the maturation, preserving the lovely fresh fruit expression and ripe tannins.
With the Santa Julia [+] Malbec 2010 the style gets more serious. Much of the fruit comes from the Uco Valley and the wine is matured for approximately four months in second fill French oak barrels. This gives it a distinct spicy character to add to the luscious ripe black fruit.
Going up a notch yet again we're tasting the Santa Julia Reserva Malbec 2009. The Reserva gets 10 months in barrel, making the oak influence more obvious. Spices and coffee are mentioned as well as vanilla with lots of black plum flavours and velvetty tannins.
The final Zuccardi Malbec is the Santa Julia Magna Malbec 2009. Now the brakes have really come off. This is complex and beautiful with a typical herbal and floral character reminiscent of rosemary, violets, as well as the spicy element, tobacco and chocolate overlaying the deep dark fruit. Concentrated, big and powerful, but without being heavy. The grapes come from the vineyards of La Consulta and Maipú and the wine is given 12 months in oak and another six in bottle before being released. It is still young, but we think it has great promise, and so does the Malbec grape variety as a whole.
It is not often that, as a business as a whole, we take the time to do such an in-depth tasting and it certainly proved very popular. Something tells me this may not be the last time we do this.
Malbec Mania for Malbec World Day
Excitement is clearly building in anticipation of Malbec World Day on April 17th. To get to the bottom of why we need it we sent our reporter to meet with Wines of Argentina's top man, Andrew Maidment.
OK, so I was going to have a quick meeting with Andrew Maidment from Wines of Argentina to talk about his new initiative, to celebrate Malbec World Day. Little did I know it would become a masterclass, not only in Malbec, but many other grape varieties, as well as the intricate minutiae of Argentine beef.
Meeting in Gaucho should have been a giveaway I suppose. And Malbec really is at its best served with a juicy steak, or even better the marinated beef known as Churrasco. I am now in a position to tell you what the percentage of fat in each individual cut of beef is, but I'll refrain for fear of losing you right away.
I started asking Andrew why bother with Malbec World Day? Is it just a gimmick? It seems a bit random to chose a Sunday in the middle of April, but the date, April 17th, is very significant for Argentine wine. On this date in 1853 a bill was passed in Argentina which allowed the planting of a whole host of grape varieties brought over from France by French soil expert Michel Aimé Pouget. And that's how Malbec made it across to Argentina. As I mentioned it wasn't just Malbec, but it somehow seemed to do well in Argentina's soils and climate and way down the line became internationally recognised as producing wines of excellent quality. Andrew mentions in particular the work done by Zuccardi and Catena in the nineties on researching the particular strains that worked best and propagating those to become even better. Consistent and long-term monitoring and lots of trial and error paid off.
With the quality and diversity Argentina has to offer and the fact that it has so many devoted fans among press and trade, why has its market share not really increased over the past years? Andrew's take on this is that Argentina is in a fairly enviable position in that it has a healthy market for its wines at home and a very profitable market in the US. That means that it doesn't really have the volume of wine available to do knock-down promo's that feature heavily in the UK market and perhaps explains why Argentina tends to do much better in the on-trade. The UK market is still important though and many winemakers feel that presence here is crucial, although not at any price.
For Malbec World Day, Wines of Argentina have decided to run a number of events, but in the off-trade they are focussing their efforts on Direct Wines and Majestic, both of whom have got market-beating ranges of Malbec in their stores and online and are able to communicate this to customers well. I get the feeling Andrew would love to get a supermarket involved as well in the future but their ranges would have to be extended to make this a reality.
The most unusual initiative goes to a collaboration of English winemaker Chapel Down with Wines of Argentina and Gaucho Restaurants. Chapel Down will for the first time create a unique and authentic Malbec from grapes grown in the Mendoza vineyards of the Gaucho Restaurants. The grapes were picked recently and just this week they were crushed in the Chapel Down winery. The release of this unique wine will be on Malbec World Day 2012 and will be sold mainly in Gaucho.
When the discussion turns to how we actually communicate with our customers Andrew feels Argentina needs to think more along the lines of lifestyle. Just to say your Malbec is great and comes from Mendoza and has had eight months of oak is not enough. He mentions the spirits industry where the focus is much more on the social aspect, 'joining the party', as he calls it.
Argentina is not on our doorstep so there is a need to communicate what the country stands for, other than football. It's an incredibly exciting country, rewarding and exhilarating. And in wine terms we should offer that sense of excitement, the Latin spirit, the Tango and the zest for life. One term never comes up though and that is 'boring'. Perhaps that is why Malbec and Argentine wines have so many devoted fans. It's always different and just that little bit unpredictable. And that's a great thing.
World Malbec Day is coming
The 17th of April marks the first Malbec World Day, a global celebration of Argentina’s ‘hero’ grape variety. This initiative will be launched by Wines of Argentina and encourages trade and retailers to become involved in a host of activities in order to introduce Malbec to a much wider audience.
At Thierry's we work with the Familia Zuccardi and their Santa Julia label so we're taking the opportunity to give the entire team a much more in-depth view of the range by doing a tutored tasting on Thursday before World Malbec Day. Needless to say, we will be taking notes and reporting on this in more detail later this week. We are also planning to have a chat with Andrew Maidment from Wines of Argentina about some of the initiatives taking place and to get his view on Malbec past, present and future.
More information on World Malbec Day itself can be found on the website: http://www.malbecworldday.com/
