If you've been perusing our website lately (as we hope you have, unless you work for one of those companies which blocks alcohol websites), you might have noticed it running very slowly, or even grinding to a halt. We know, and we're sorry. It was driving us spare for a bit. More than once, I found myself banging the keyboard like a concert pianist and growling at the screen. When we put this to the nice people who host our website, they told us that 'aggressive crawlers are triggering the facets'. Come again? 'Triggering the facets' sounds like 1970s sitcom innuendo, along the lines of, 'oo-er missus, it's triggering me facets!' Aggressive crawlers sound like something on Ed’s allotment.
It turns out that aggressive crawlers are AI bots that try to read everything on our website. The facets, apparently, are structures that build product search results. My understanding of the geekspeak is that the facets and the crawlers get stuck in a death loop together and that makes the website unresponsive.
The good news is that the IT team has erected a crawler fence (I’m being impressionistic here), and we seem to be winning this round of the crawler/facet war. If you have been affected by our website running slowly, our apologies again, and hopefully that is now behind us.
Bottles, bubbles, big
Every month we run a raffle, and one lucky customer wins a magnum of Champagne. It could be you! There are two criteria. You need to be on our mailing list, and you need to make a purchase through the till. One purchase is one entry in the draw, so prolific purchasers have more chances to win! This month's winner Daniel is taking home a magnum of Roederer Collection.
What we've been drinking
Andrew's been raving about his bottle of 2021 Freeman Pinot Noir Akiko's Cuvée. Freeman are a fabulous Sonoma Coast producer, and Akiko's Cuvée is a barrel selection made from what winemaker Akiko Freeman judges to be the very best barrels of Pinot that year. It's invariably the best wine in their range, although not the earliest drinking. But at 5 years of age, Andrew says the 2021 is in a fabulous place, or as Ed would say, 'banging'. Jabu is doe-eyed about the bottle he took home of 2023 Boxler Vanne Riesling. Boxler are one of Alsace’s great, classicist producers, and Vanne comes from old vines in the Sommerberg grand cru. Jabu's also been raving about some German Pinot Noir. Centgrafenberg is Franken's greatest spot, a steep, concave site above the River Main, where vines benefit from both reflected river sunlight and the moderating effect of the river on temperatures. 2022 Furst Spätburgunder Centgrafenberg GG is like grand cru red Burgundy in a dirndl, and it made Jabu do an oompah music knee-slapper dance around his kitchen.
What's new
Ed was getting bored having to buy Campari for his negronis from other outlets (they wouldn't give him staff discount, what rotters), so we're now stocking the Vault Bitter Aperitivo Rosemary & Orange. Vault are an English aperitivo distillery in Saffron Walden, and their Bitter Aperitivo Rosemary & Orange works in a negroni just like Campari. Ed's negroni recipe is now a third each of Smeaton's Gin, Scarpa Vermouth di Torino Rosso, and Vault Bitter Aperitivo Rosemary & Orange. And if he's had a bad day at work arguing with Andrew about the website, he adds a dash of orange bitters.
As for wines, I can't remember when we last had so much Cotat on the shelf, especially the lesser-spotted La Grande Côte. I’ve previously gotten excited about the El Reventón Garnacha La Reina from up in the Gredos mountains - now we also have two of the grander labels in the range, the Cru Artesano (a special single plot from within the La Reina vineyard) and the El Reventón itself, the vineyard that has also been bottled separately by Comando G.
What's old
We continue to have great mature Bordeaux on the shelf, with 2000 Brane-Cantenac, 2005 Grand-Puy-Lacoste, and 2006 Pontet-Canet all recently arrived, among others. Now they've been joined by a selection of mature Burgundy. How about 2001 Bouchard Beaune Grèves Enfant Jesus, 2009 Pousse d’Or Volnay Clos des 60 Ouvrées, or 2013 Domaine des Lambrays Morey-St-Denis? And we have mature Italian appearing as well: 2013 Elvio Cogno Barolo Ravera, 2014 Le Potazzine Brunello di Montalcino, 2016 Prodottori del Barbaresco Barbaresco.
Provenance is everything
When mature wines appear on our shelves, they are almost always wines which we have bought back from our customers, and which will have only just been released from in-bond storage. Over 30 years of trading, we have built up deep reserves of customer wines which are professionally stored under bond at LCB Eton Park, in Burton-on-Trent.
English Filth
Ed puckers up and pulls a face when we offer him a sample of English wine to taste. He likes to condemn the whole category as 'English filth'. This irrational dislike seems to be down to bad experiences in his youthful, idealistic phase as a woofer (willing worker on organic farms, which as far as I can tell is 'work for free to help other people make money'). The Crouch Valley in Essex regularly benefits from England's warmest temperatures and lowest rainfall, and it's the newest hotbed for English winemaking. 2021 Althorne Estate Chardonnay Crouch Valley is on the shelf now, and it's one of the very best still English whites we've come across. Ed was only slightly sniffy. Althorne winemaker Louise Brown learned her craft in California, and she'll be in the shop on Thursday lunchtime to show us her sparkling Classic Cuvée, and her still Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. So come along, meet Louise, taste, and tease Ed about English filth.
Coming up at Copthall
We are very pleased to have Olivier Humbrecht joining us to host an evening tasting on Tuesday 9 June. Olivier (proprietor and winemaker at Zind-Humbrecht in Alsace, and a Master of Wine) has been a regular guest at Uncorked for the past 20 years, and a tasting with him is always a spectacular opportunity to learn more about viticulture, winemaking, Alsace, biodynamics... an unmissable tasting, we hope to see you there.
Independent arbiters required
About two hours' drive along the coast and inland from Barcelona, you come to one of Spain's greatest winemaking areas, the hills and steep, deep valleys of Priorat. Winemaker Jean Belondrade is already responsible for one of Spain's greatest white wines (Belondrade y Lurton), and when a beautiful, abandoned vineyard in Priorat was drawn to his attention, red started calling. He spent four arduous years reconditioning the vineyard before he could release the first vintage of his Priorat red, NerinTerra. That was the 2018 vintage, and Uncorked is proud to have imported every vintage from the beginning.
Now, I recently took home a bottle of the newly arrived 2022. I was bowled over and immediately decided it was Jean's best yet, an impression that didn’t shift over the three nights I followed it. Andrew also took home a bottle of the 2022, which he clearly enjoyed (his didn't last three nights) but he still insists the 2021 was better. Disagreeing with the boss is always delicate, but neither of us is budging.
So, grab yourselves bottles each of 2021 and 2022 NerinTerra, and help us sort this out. Try them both side-by-side or one after the other and let us know how you get on. We'll be only too delighted to publish a tally of the results in next month's roundup.
Jancis Robinson now on sale in Copthall Avenue
When we're not debating the merits of one Priorat vintage or another, it's wine glasses. And a debate we've been having for a while is what glass we should stock as a more affordable alternative to Zalto and Sydonios. Zoë voted for the Jancis Robinson Precision Universal, a machine-made, more robust alternative to the original mouth-blown one, and, since this is no democracy, that's the one we've got. They've just arrived at the shop and are priced at £90 for a box of 4 or £25 for a single stem. As an introductory offer, there's 10% off those prices if you mention that you read this far down this email.
Left my wallet in El Segundo
We're forever sending out invoices and statements and payment links. For debt over 30 days, we even send out these bolshy 'PAY NOW' reminders with capital letters. Did you know you can evade all this directly on our website? Log in, and go to the Account Statement page - you’ll see all your unsettled invoices, with a handy button to take you to the payment screen. A clear account is the route to happiness and a good night's sleep.
Hope to see you on Copthall Avenue soon. /NT
