I’m writing this at Domaine Gayda in the Languedoc, South of France near Limoux on a sunny day in March – its a tough life…

The Domaine is quite young having only started as a vineyard in 2001 and the winery only built in 2004.  It is owned by Englishmen Tim Ford and Anthony Record but the wine are made by Loire born Vincent Chansault; and he does an excellent job.  We tasted the full complement they shared a common thread of ripe fruit, roundness, freshness and balance.

The wines divide up into four categories plus the top wine;

• Flying Solo – entry level but local varieties, i.e. grenache blanc and viognier for white, grenche syrah for red
• T’Air D’Oc – entry level but international grapes and labelled as such, i.e. syrah and sauvignon
• Cepage – middle quality level, varietal wines and labelled as such
• Figure Libre – top quality and wonderful idiosyncratic local blends or grapes.  The name kind of means going “off piste” and doing your own thing regardless of convention – which I think is a pretty cool approach.
• Chemin de Moscou – the top cuvee, syrah based and rich concentrated, complex and long

I’ve stocked several of these wines for a year or two now and tasting the new vintages today re-confirmed how good they are.  what is more the chance to meet Vincent and hear his passion for the wines and to understand what he is trying to achieve brings the range to life.

Particular highlights for me were the 2011 Cepage Viognier, apricot fruit, nice richness and full body but still fresh and clean on the long minerally finish, really good.  Also the flying solo varietal Cab Franc – surely marks for rarity alone – but this was lovely and savoury with leafy franc nose, complex again with the trademark freshness.  I will certainly look to add some of the flying solo range when time permits.

Some photo’s below – cool wines made by nice people in a beautiful place.

The following day we had the chance to explore more of the Gayda Vineyards.  These are located in the Minervois La Laviniere AC.  This is something unusual in the Languedoc as it is a higher quality subsection of the Minervois AC.

The vineyards are about a 75 min drive from the winery.  On the way you pass through a large part of Minervois AC.  The terroir is flat and alluvial.  There are plenty of vines, but the quality is regarded as poor since the solid is basically too fertile for vines and consequently yields are high.

As we approached La Laviniere the ground began to rise.  The terroir of La Laviniere is completely different to Minervois as the photos below will show.  the solid is incredible rocky, the terrain is hilly and it is pretty dry.  Where there is no cultivation the vegetation is classic “garrigue” with wonderfully fragrant sage, lavender, thyme and rosemary all growing wild.

It is interesting to note that in the Gayda vineyards you find lots of pieces of Roman amphorae roof tiles and other pottery fragments.  Dotted around the landscape are many stone field shelters that date back to Roman times.  Farmers would have used these to shelter from the sun or to hide from marauding tribes!  It seems likely that in Roman times these areas were farmed and vines were grown.  By contrast no vines were grown on the plains.  The Romans clearly knew what they were looking for in terms of terroir.

The vineyards here are low yielding and of top quality and the grapes produced are used for only the top Gayda wines, i.e. for Chemin de Moscou and for the Figure Libre Series.

Where do you buy your wine?  Chances are that for most people the answer is a supermarket.  Well, I think that’s a mistake.  Before I start I feel I should admit a little self interest.  I’m not an unbiased observer.  After all I run a wine shop.  But that’s really not the point.

Cornwall is a small place.  We have few big employers, jobs are hard to come by.  Many of the people I know in Cornwall work for themselves in one way or another.  The biggest reason I can give you is to support these people and your community.  We are lucky in Cornwall that many towns do still have local butchers, bakers, candlestick makers and even wine shops run by local people.

You should be familiar with the argument by now.  You spend money in these shops, they make money, their owners have money to spend in other businesses.  All of this supports the local community.  Look at the alternative; you spend money in a big supermarket, the profits disappear off to faceless shareholders and the locals get jobs stacking shelves in return.

Just visit Helston if you want to see how it works.  Two huge supermarkets and a high street full of charity shops and places up for lease.  Thank heaven for the two Olivers, furniture and butcher, both holding out for local business and a bit of quality among the gloom.

Those are the localist and economic arguments, all quite valid.  But what about the wine?  Well, I’m biased again I know, but I think small shops do it better.  They get to know you and your tastes.  Often you will deal with the owner or the person who buys the wine.  Once they know what you like they will be able to recommend wines to suit.  Did you ever try asking for advice in the supermarket?  Will this go with my chicken casserole?  People would think you were crazy.

Another big difference is scale.  Supermarket wines literally sell by the truckload.  So their producers make a lot of wine.  Much may be good, reliable stuff, but to me the perfect bottle is something from a small, passionate, artisan producer, something more grown than made.  Maybe not always technically perfect, but vibrant, interesting and with a story to tell.  These are the wines you find in small specialist retailers, if only because they are available in quantities too small for the big boys to bother with.

Now I know there is a big argument about convenience, you can just pop a couple of bottles in the trolley along with all the rest.  But, how much wine do you drink a month?  Six bottles?  Twelve?  Come on.  Maybe 18?  You could roll this up into a monthly trip to the wine shop, buy a couple of cases at a time.  While you are there you can talk to the staff, taste a bottle or two, they might even deliver.  They might even give you a bit of discount on that quantity.  It might be fun.

Perhaps you like a bargain?  Thirty, forty, fifty percent off?  It sounds tempting don’t you think?  Well, call me cynical, but I just don’t believe those figures.  Let me give you an example.  I saw a bottle of Prosecco advertised in one supermarket before Christmas at half price, bringing it down to £9 a bottle.  Well £9 is a pretty sharp price for a bottle of sparkling wine, but was it ever £18?  It would be a decent Prosecco if it was.

Are you convinced?  I hope so.  If you are, I’ve listed some shops you could try.  But it’s not just wine; don’t forget the butcher, the baker, all your local shops really.

I was lucky enough last week to attend a tasting of Lebanese Wines.  The tasting was in Bristol and seven wine estates were represented; Chateau Ksara, Chateau Ka, Chateau Kefraya, Chateau St Thomas, Domaine des Tourelles, IXSIR and the Karam Winery.

I had not realised what a small country Lebanon is, 200 miles north to south and only 50 east to west, the country is also mountainous with many of the vineyards at 1,000 or even 1,400 m altitude.  I must say also that from the photos it looked beautiful, with pine groves and snow topped mountains in the distance.

The wine that put Lebanon on the map is the famous and idiosyncratic Chateau Musar.  The producers at the tasting acknowledged their debt to Musar but understandably felt there is now more of a story to tell.  In fact there are now 36 wineries in the country.  Personally I found it refreshing that there are so few, it seems more digestible somehow, perhaps eventually you could get to know them all!

The wine then.  Well, as you might have expected there was plenty of red.  Each winery had a few reds on offer but surprisingly also one or two whites.  All but one of the wines I tasted were blends, perhaps reflecting the fact that the country was at one time colonised by France.

The white wines were generally from Muscat, Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon and as you can imagine from those grapes tended to have very aromatic floral noses.  What was much less expected is that they generally shared a bright refreshing acidity and a light body.  Even the Viognier based wines managed to avoid being overly full bodied or oily.  I must mention a superb oaked Chardonnay from Chateau Ksara, this had classic oak richness and creaminess alongside a real freshness and was superbly balanced and long.  I tried the 2010 and would recommend you buy it if you can find it.

The red wines too had a surprising consistency.  Again most were blends, generally of Bordeaux varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot but also some Syrah and lots of Carignan which seems to be a signature grape for the Country.

There was that firm acidity again, plenty of tannin in many and also a noticeable and pleasing lack of body.  The wines come across as very dry with very low residual sugar and not much glycerol.  The fruit is also quite restrained and the flavours less primary than many wines you find in the UK.  This of course means they would be perfect with food and perhaps wines for those who like wine to be wine – rather than alcoholic fruit juice.  There was also in some a strong minerality and almost an earthy quality.  I could pick some out some specific wines but if you see anything from the producers listed above, give it a try.

Towards the end of the tasting and thinking of a possible family holiday to the country (I had been spitting out I promise) I asked one of the exhibitors whether there was an area with good beaches.  She replied that the best place to head for was just north of Beirut.  That name is so famous, and so famous for all the wrong reasons.  Family holiday in Beirut?  Are you crazy?  But having met the people and drunk the wine – I’d go.  Perhaps it’s time for us all to think of Lebanon for positive reasons – like the fantastic wine the Country produces.

Last Sat 17th September I was lucky enough to help run a pop up dinner in Naomi Freers incredible studio in St Ives.  The food was a banquet of six delicious courses prepared and served by Lime Tree Events from Penzance run by Miki and Justin Ashton.  I could not believe the food they turned out from a tiny makeshift kitchen at the back.

I would like to say a huge thank you to all the guests who turned up, to Naomi for letting us use the space and of course to Caroline, Miki, Justin, Jenn, Jenna and who did the hard work on the night.

Here are some photo’s of the event, there are another two planned so get in touch if you would like to come to one.

I’m in London at the moment studying wine.  At the age of 42 it is a huge luxury to spend a whole 4 days learning about something you are interested in.  OK, there was an exam on Monday morning but it is a classic case of no pain, no gain.  Without the exams I don’t think I’d commit half as much to memory.

What does the course cover?  How to make wine, that was Monday’s multiple choice, growing grapes, making wine, the technology of wine.  We’ve covered styles of sweet and fortified wines – see pictures of that tasting.  We are now looking at styles of table wine, so in a day we have learned about and tasted wines from Bordeaux, South West France and lastly the Loire.  A lot to cover in a day but we are expected to do 90% of the learning in our own time.

So what’s the benefit of the course?  For me the absolutely key benefit is to learn me what good “looks like” in wine.  The really key thing you learn is tasting technique and how to differentiate good from bad.

So what makes good?  Well some of the things on the shopping list are;

• typicity, tasting of where the wine comes from and the grape it is made from
• concentration, ie lots of flavour and depth of flavor
• balance, having everything work well together with no element out of place
• complexity and length give interest and stop the wine seeming dull or one dimensional

The one thing I would recommend, if you are at all interested in wine, is to take a course.  The entry level one is known as the intermediate level.  Any member of staff at Scarlet Wines who stays for more than a couple of months does this and it is fantastic.  It takes about five days and for most people is an incredible eye opener.  At present St Austell Brewery offer these courses two or three times a year but if there is a demand it might be something we will offer at Scarlet.

It’s different from school days though – learning can be fun, at least if you love the subject.

There are a lot of scare stories in the world of food and drink.  You don’t want gluten, cholesterol, free radicals, salt or sugar but you need to have Omega 3, antioxidants and whatever else is currently in vogue.  The same sorts of things crop up in wine.  Ideas like; organic, biodynamic, fair-trade and sulphite-free.

You can get organic wine but it’s rare.  The reason for this is that grapes are delicate souls  easily affected by mould, insects and a host of other pests.  They are also the livelihood of the wine-maker.  So if vile damp rainy weather arrives in the weeks before harvest the wine-maker has a choice – spray to prevent mildew or risk losing the harvest for the year.
The financial imperative to spray is strong.

In practice this means wines tend to be organic in some years but not in others.  Perhaps rightly the Soil Association wants the whole farm to be organic, all of the time.  This means that most wine growers at some point give up getting the certificate even if they do generally work organically.

The crazier end of the French wine world has taken organic a step further with biodynamic wine.  Like organic this eschews pesticides and fertilizers other than manure but is even more extreme in that vineyard work is timed by the phases of the moon.  Whether or not it makes your wine taste better isn’t clear.

The idea of Fairtrade food is rightly popular.  Who could argue against paying the poorest farmers in the world a fair price for their efforts?  The idea is tricky with wine though as the vast majority of wine is grown by people who are anything but poor.  South Africa is an exception but for most places the idea just doesn’t stack.

Lastly, sulphite-free wine.  If you look closely at your next bottle you are likely to see the words “contains sulphites” on it.  “Oh no” you think “something else I need to worry about”.  Well don’t.  Sulphites are simply compounds that contain the element sulphur.  This occurs naturally in grapes and wine-makers use sulphur dioxide as a simple and safe
way to clean their equipment.  Without it you’d have a bottle of vinegar.  A few people seem to have a reaction to them but unless you are one of those, relax.

So where does that all leave you?  Enjoying your wine I hope, without getting too hung up on all the terms.

I hate it when people ask me if I’m local.  Because to me, it’s not where you are from but what you are like.  I’ve met great people from horrible places and the other way round too.

But, if you were a grape, where you come from matters rather a lot.  It matters in the way that really counts; in money.  Why?  Because wine, in Europe at least, is classified geographically.

So, in Italy there are just a few square miles of land from which you can make Barolo.  If you are the same grape from a mile down the road the wine you make is just Nebbiolo from somewhere else in Italy.  And I reckon Nebbiolo from somewhere is at least £10 a bottle cheaper than Barolo.

This happens in a lot of places.  Think of the really famous wines you know; Champagne, Chateauneuf, Chianti, Chablis, and that’s just the C’s.  All of these command a price premium because of their name.  The odd thing is that the name itself is no guarantee of quality.  So it is very possibly to get a better wine from just outside the designated area, made from the same grapes in the same way, sometimes by the same person that is far cheaper.

Now that, to me, sounds like an opportunity.  An opportunity to drink great wine for sensible prices, if you shop around for the “nearly ran” areas.

I’m thinking of some amazing parts of the South Rhone, the appellations of Lirac, Gigondas, and the Cotes du Rhone Villages like Plan de Dieu and Cairanne.  These places have the same climate as Chateauneuf, similar topography, soil and similar grapes.  So it is no surprise that you can buy wine every bit as spicy, robust and fantastic as Chateauneuf but for £10 or so less.

The same is true for the sparkling Cremant de Bourgogne wines of Burgundy, Nebbiolo from Langhe in North West Italy, and in a similar way for many of the wines from the “New World”.  I’ve drunk superb Cabernet Merlot from Australia at £10 made in a great, restrained and powerful style by a man trained at Chateau Margaux.  The origin of that style is classic Bordeaux, the most expensive area for wine in the world.

 So the moral of the story is shop around, explore the outer reaches of the shelves and ask your wine merchant for a recommendation.  The wines may not be from the right part of town but who cares if you are local.