New Season, New Wines

A few nights ago we hosted our latest wine tasting with Sylvain and it was, in every sense, a lovely way to spend an evening!

A room full of enthusiastic regulars, six bottles open, plenty of swirling, sniffing and thoughtful nodding…followed by the occasional wonderfully vague tasting note that somehow still made perfect sense. There’s something very enjoyable about watching people give themselves permission to slow down and really pay attention to what they’re drinking…

Of course, the pleasure of evenings like that goes beyond what’s in the glass.

It’s a chance to talk about all the work that happens behind the scenes. Whether that’s Sylvain explaining how he finds small producers and begins working with them, often through conversations, recommendations and asking the right people in the right village at the right time. As with many things in life, it turns out that analogue still has a few advantages!

Or us talking through how we think about building a wine list.

One of the more interesting conversations of the night was around a Sauvignon Blanc we tasted together. It was absolutely delicious…bright, expressive and full of charm. And yet, despite liking it a lot, it’s highly unlikely to ever appear on our list…

Why? Because liking a wine and listing a wine are not quite the same thing!

A wine list needs balance. It needs variety. It needs to make sense as a whole. It needs to work with food, with seasons, with price points, with the style of the room and the tastes of the people coming through the door. Sometimes a lovely wine simply doesn’t fit the bigger picture

Which brings us neatly to this time of year…

Spring is one of our favourite moments for wine. New vintages start arriving, the days stretch out a little longer and suddenly people begin ordering differently. Heavier reds ease off, seafood looks more appealing and lunches start to feel like they should involve a cold bottle and no urgent plans afterwards

So next week we’ll be giving the list a gentle seasonal tune-up…

We’re adding a Picpoul de Pinet, which feels made for this time of year. Brilliant with seafood, moules frites and lighter lunches. We tasted it with the team on Wednesday and someone described it as “a perfect lunch wine”… which feels about right!

Rosé season has very much arrived too. There’ll be a classic Provençal option for the traditionalists, alongside a bigger, more characterful Spanish pink which is more my sort of thing!

And of course, it’s chilled red season…

We’re still backing one of our all-time favourites, a Gamay that is undeniably natty in spirit but also properly made and helped enormously by a bit of age. In fact it’s on the pairings for the current menu...