GuytheGrape

Miguel Merino. The man in this photo is Miguel Merino who in some ways is the inspiration for Smith and Evans wine. In the mid 1990s when I was working for the Spanish company Freixenet, I was asked to have dinner with the export guy for a Navarra winery called Ochoa. This sort of thing could be a real chore but Miguel was great and we had a lot of laughs. He was talking about buying a building a winery from scratch.  In his own words - Since the beginning of my exporting career I have long dreamt of having my own small "bodega", where I could make a few bottles of wine of the best quality possible. Briones, in the heart of the Rioja Alta,  gathered all the conditions  I was looking for: old steep vineyards of Tempranillo grapes, chalky soil and a climate showing a marked Atlantic influence. Declared a town of historic and artistic merit, Briones is where we decided to site our bodega.  Twenty years ago, we restored an old 19th Century house on the outskir...

Double Guyot. When we planted at Higher Plot we chose a system called Double Guyot. Not because it had my name in the title but just because that's what French people did.  Not exactly scientific but as good as anything to start with as it wouldn't stress the vines too much. What we have found is that the plants are happy here, maybe too happy and we can't have that. They give a good yield of grapes but they are also pretty vigorous growing lots of greenery and there's no market for leaves unless you are a Dolmades producer. What we need to do is to transfer that energy into extra grapes. Scott Henry This year we're experimenting with double decker vines. This will mean more shoots but shorter ones. This has benefits in that less greenery means that there's better airflow which reduces the risk of disease and also potentially better quality as there's less shading and more light to ripen the grapes. Just to name drop, it was recommended to us ...

I'm terrible at writing the blog so, I thought I'd film it.

Not Pretty but they work! The Romance of Winemaking. For me our 2012 wines have existed as two spreadsheets on my laptop that show a series of chemical analysis and wine making steps. Once the grapes are delivered and pressed we issue instructions based on the initial readings as to how the juice should be handled. After that unless there's a proble, there is really not much point tasting the wines as it's easy to make snap judgements on something that is changing so quickly. Eventually no amount of analysis will compensate for getting some of it and having a great slurp to see how it tastes. The result is that yesterday in between meetings I called into the winery and was standing in a lab in front of two cheap plastic jugs that represent the better part of a years work. One a tank sample of 2012 sparkling win e and the other our still wine. Always a nervous moment. As we are now three years in, we have a much better idea of the context of how wines will develop and...

Thanks to Liz Weber for the Picture. Thinking back on the difficulties of  growing grapes in 2012 anybody sane would have just put the secateurs away, polished the tractor and opened a bottle of 2011 Rosé in memory of sunnier times and then sat in front of the telly for the whole "summer". All the way from late April to the end of September it has been like a stuck record - as long as the weather improves from now then all will be well but, it never did. Twice the work for half the crop. That just about sums up 2012 for us. But looking back we do have reason to be quite happy. The site has withstood all the ravages of the worst summer for 100 years and still produced 1.5 tons of clean ripe quality grapes that will make quality wine. This is remarkable considering some illustrious names have made nothing at all and others are up to 90% down. You can always tell that it's a low volume year when we drop off the crop at the winery. There are normally stressed people in v...

Things are changing in the world of volume wine trading which makes my job quite interesting at the moment. A series of factors have come into play that mean that wine as a whole is going to become a bit more of a luxury item for most people rather than the first thing that they thoughtlessly reach for from the fridge after a hard day at the office. This is not just down to high taxation although this plays a part. What used to happen was that if the price of something like Chilean Cabernet went up because a poor harvest or more likely foreign exchange movement, then buyers would just drop it and move onto whatever else was cheap which could be Spanish Tempranillo or California Merlot, it didn't matter.   For years there has been over supply particularly from the European powerhouses of France, Italy and Spain. Growers have been desperate to get anybody to buy their grapes but also with the full knowledge that if nobody did then a friendly EU official would com...

Jo Trendall at alliterative Lettuce and Lovage in Langport has just sent us the menu for our 2011 still wine  launch on June 6th. Can't wait it sounds wonderful and hopefully our wines will do the food justice in a great riverside setting. Apparently we are up to 15 people already so looks like it could be a sellout. We will also be serving our Two Tuns Shiraz which in someways is where it all started - buying grapes in the Riebeek valley in South Africa and making wine at the local cooperative with our friend Zakkie Bester. We really should revive this, at almost seven years old the wine is still developing. If you want to book then the details are at the bottom of the post. I wonder if there will be a few surprised faces when they see that this years white wine is pink.   Smith and Evans Wine launch & tasting Evening 6 th June 2012 Appetiser Warm bread, cannelini bean and olive puree To Start (rose) Mackerel fillet, rh...