We had a very busy sales period over Christmas, and as a result, now in the relative calm of January we are having to increase our storage capacity. This means making more storage space upwards as we can’t expand outwards. So here’s Charles doing a spot of angle grinding as we install some pallet racking [...]

Well, we’ve been to check what’s happened since we spotted the obvious contenders for “half price” Champagne. Who had the most bare-faced cheek this year? (so far);
Adsa - Pierre Darcys £23.98, and Francois Rozay £23.98. The Pierre Darcys is down 60% to £10.00
Waitrose - Bredon £20.99 Down 33% to £14.00
Tesco - G.H.Martel & Co £26.97, [...]

We are about to enter the Christmas promotional period in the supermarkets so I have been round to see if I can spot the Champagnes intended to be “half-priced”; you know - bring in a product, pretend it’s on sale at a high price for a month, then surprise, surprise, it’s at a massive discount for [...]

As I was sitting down to my first glass of the evening just now (Les Cimels Blanc, as it happens -great wine. If you like Gavi di Gavi try this) to watch Eggheads (6p.m. start)  I realised that three years ago when we had just started up the business I was sitting down to watch Countdown [...]

If I drink three pints of Real Ale over the course of an evening in the pub, or enjoy and savour three and a half glasses of quality wine during a dinner party, that officially makes me a Binge Drinker. So both pictures above are accurately depicting Binge Drinkers, yet I really do not consider [...]

I first met Miguel Merino back in the ‘80s when we both had more hair and I was buying Rioja for Grants of St James’s. Miguel left Bodegas Berberana to develop Navarra wines just north of the River Ebro where his force of personality was instrumental in putting Navarran wines on the international wine map. [...]

Simon Woods is a wine writer I’ve known for more years than I care to remember. He has a very good website and his latest subject is the UK’s leading wine brands. He spent three weeks tasting the lot and you can see his “journey” (as everyone calls everything these days) on the link.
The bit that [...]

How fantastic it is to see the growth and already to have picked strawberries (which are perfect with Verus Yellow Muscat, by the way).
We are capturing all our rain water and so far have not used the mains water supply once to water the plants. Well, we are on a meter and we need to [...]

Other really interesting stuff about how you can improve the quality of your Champagne came to light during my visit to Marc Chauvet Champagne recently. Clotilde is at pains to stress the extra time her Champagnes are aged on the lees (dead yeast) before release. By law the wine must age with the yeast for [...]

I was in Champagne last week visiting Marc Chauvet and needed to get to the bottom of that often asked question about the size of bubbles. The “prise de mousse” as they call it comes during the secondary fermentation in bottle when extra yeast and Champagne grape juice are added to the already finished, first-fermented [...]