Mark Pardoe MW, the wine-buying director of Berry Bros. & Rudd, has a touching fondness for The Spectator. Either that or his maths is terrible. He shows me some excellent wines, all of which I love. I narrow them down to six and ask whether he might see his way to knocking a few quid off. I suggest a figure and he quadruples it — the discount, that is, not the price. I’m not a great haggler but I thought the way it worked was for the customer to ask for the world and the merchant to give away peanuts, not the other way around.
Anyway, the result is that all the wines have socking great discounts. Mark insisted that each bottle should have the same price (£9.95), meaning that he then had to lop a full seven quid off one wine, six quid off another and so on. The mixed case costs £119.40, down from Berrys’ list price of £174.50. That’s what I call a bargain.
First, we have the barrel-fermented 2012 Foxwood Vineyards Chenin Blanc from the Western Cape. I love Chenin Blanc, one of the most versatile of all grapes and the most widely planted in South Africa. Here, in the hands of winemaker Matthew Krone, it’s been crafted into a deliciously honeyed and creamy wine, full of quince, apricots and citrus with just the tiniest touch of savouriness at the very end of the crisp finish. £9.95 down from £14.95.
The 2014 Sauvignon Blanc II, Von Winning, is a delightful curiosity: a Sauvignon Blanc from Deidesheim in the heart of the Pfalz region of Germany. This is Riesling country, of course, and Sauvignon Blanc has no business being here, except that the conditions suit it perfectly. It’s more Kiwi than Loire, but with a minerality and — did I imagine it? — a hint of Riesling petrol among the tropical notes, cut grass, green apples and gooseberries.
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