The inevitable demise of Threshers
Friday 30 October
Who’d buy a wine shop? I wouldn’t. Supermarkets now account for eight out of 10 bottles sold and independents simply can’t compete on price.
To succeed you have to have a great range and decent customer service. Unfortunately Threshers-owner First Quench were lacking in both departments. I popped into my local Thresher this week before it finally collapsed and quite frankly, I couldn’t see an interesting wine in the place. It was all branded wines and in a specialist at higher prices than the multiples, it just didn’t cut the mustard.
So, now we have the inevitable news that more redundancies are on the cards for the wine industry. 81 have gone today and more are likely to follow. The industry has already been flooded with people laid off from their wine jobs. Things have gotten so bad that a small independent retailer in Sussex told me he’d had more than 600 applications for an assistant manager job in his shop, with ex-Constellation staff filling his inbox with their CVs.
The administrators KPMG are still unsure what’s happening next. They’ve said they’d like to sell the whole portfolio off in one fell swoop including Threshers, Wine Rack, Haddows, The Local but you’d have to be a madman to buy them. They no longer have any brand equity and I can only see them being sold off bit by bit.
Independents are succeeding – take The Sampler in Islington or Taurus Wines for example – they offer customers an interesting selection and make you feel like you are valued. It’s sad news about First Quench but you can’t help feeling it was their own fault.
Hopefully Oddbins will pull themselves out of the red in the next year to keep the high street wine retailers alive. They are doing the right things and it’s their press tasting next week. I’ll let you know if their wine range is up to much after I’ve swirled and spitted.
Have a good and wine-filled weekend.
The low down on Vin Doux Naturels
Wednesday 28 October
Vin Doux Naturels aren’t the easiest wines to sell. Sweet, high in alcohol and sometimes oxidised, they don’t exactly fit the modern wine drinker. As a wine journalist, there aren’t that many opportunities to taste them either and it’s a bit of a gaping hole in my wine knowledge. So, I invited myself along to a back vintage tasting of vin doux naturels from Roussillon.
There was a big on-trade presence at the tasting with sommeliers from St John’s, Hakkasan and Benares - and that really is the market they have to be aiming at. Getting the top sommeliers to make unusual pairings must be their goal because you won’t get people to select VDNs without someone putting it in front of them.
However, I needed to reacquaint myself with VDNs before I went and so I thought I’d bring you up to speed in my blog today.
80% of all VDN production comes from the sunny and dry Catalan region of Roussillon with names like Banyuls, Maury and Rivesaltes all famed for producing these wines.
The wines are generally made from Grenache (red), Muscat Blanc a Petit Grain or Muscat of Alexandria (white), with other minor varieties playing a small part.
In the same way as Port is fortified, the fermentation of Vin Doux Naturels is arrested by adding a neutral grape spirit at a whopping 96% alcohol to kill the yeasts (it’s only 77% in Port). The spirit makes up around 5-10% of the finished wine, which attains a final alcohol level of 15-18.9%. Still with me?
For red wines, the winemaker has to decide whether to add the spirit while the wine is on its skins. If he makes the red wine using traditional maceration then presses the wine off the skins before adding the spirit, the wine’s colour will be lighter than if he adds the spirit while the skins and wine are still macerating. Alcohol is a solvent and at 96% it extracts a lot more colour and tannins. The longer they leave the skins in contact with the alcohol, the more colour and concentrated it becomes.
Some mature the wine in a non-oxidative environment such as a full stainless steel vat, for example those making a Muscat de Rivesaltes for early release. It will have delicate, grapey and floral aromas and a mid lemon colour. Others leave their wines in a glass ‘bonbonne’ or a container outside allowing the wine to age oxidatively, particularly with the reds. It is claimed that one year ageing outside in the Roussillon heat is equivalent to 10 years’ ageing in temperature controlled cellars. These wines get a garnet rim pretty quickly. You’ll get sweet dried fruit, plums, some nutty and oxidised character and, volatile acid on the nose (think nail polish remover),
These wines are unique. But they aren’t exactly quaffers. There is a lot of potential for them as food wines, particularly the older wines – we went back to a 1910 Rivesaltes, which was still incredibly fresh and compared to a Pedro Ximenez without the sweetness.
Food matching ideas
Muscat de Rivesaltes with tapas, sweet and sour, Thai cuisine
Maury or Banyuls with duck, hard goat’s cheese, chocolate or blue cheese.
Retailers accused of paying ‘lip service’ to the green issue
Sunday 25 October
I’ve just attended a debate, which asked whether the promotion of environment credentials is a marketing ploy. The room was half-full at best, which is a sad indication of the importance of the green issue in the UK wine industry. Or perhaps everyone had gone on half-term a day early? Compared to the full-house at the recent low alcohol forum, it was a poor showing – I didn’t spot one major retailer.
It appears many wine producers are going green for the right reasons but retailers were accused of using the green message to suit their own agendas – making a profit. Unfortunately the supermarkets weren’t there to defend themselves, but there were some damning comments.
Michael Cox, UK director for Wines of Chile, which is one of the main producing countries leading the sustainability drive along with South Africa and New Zealand, said, “Most multiple retailers will pay lip service to green initiatives.”
The main problem is consumers see wine as a natural product and that means the word sustainable or organic on a wine label has less meaning than organic on a bunch of carrots. It goes some way to explaining why sales of organic wine have not kept pace with the rest of the organic industry. Cox added, “Having a social conscience does not appear to sell more bottles. The consumer is not prepared to pay a premium for organic wine because they don’t understand the concept. ”
Retailers are clearly doing things to help the environment such as the plastic bag reuse scheme but a cynic would argue it is only because the authorities have ruled they must reduce their plastic bag use. Angela Mount implied retailers didn’t give a damn about saving the environment – it is all about saving money. If the changes didn’t save money, then they wouldn’t do them. She argued bulk shipping and lightweight bottles improved margins for retailers, adding “I don’t believe the green issue is driven by the consumer. It is often a convenient ploy to reduce costs.”
Peter Darbyshire, MD of UK importer and distributor PLB agreed, “The green solution is to move the point of packaging as close to the point of sale. It is moving to the UK but sadly driven by retailers’ price motivation rather than the green agenda.”
The end of ANIVIT
Wednesday 21 October
Following the launch of the new wine category vin de France, ANIVIT, the trade organisation for vins de pays and vins de table wines, has been renamed ANIVIN.
Regular readers of my blog will know that the new vin de France designation permits table wines to bear the vintage and variety on the label, making it a much more appealing for big brands including J.P.Chenet.
The organization will no longer by responsible for vin de pays wines and will focus entirely on developing the new category vin de France.
As an aside, I am still trying to find out what is going to happen to the high-profile top 100 vin de pays competition when the category becomes Indication Geographique Protegee (IGP). A competition for a category that no longer exists would be slightly eccentric.
Tesco wine marathon
Tuesday 20 October
Expect to be reading about Tesco’s autumn press tasting in the nationals in the coming weeks – the big names had turned up to taste through some of the 150 wines at the tasting.
What will be their verdict? Well, I can’t predict that but take it from me, Tim Atkin MW will not be enthusing about the £3.74 White Merlot.
Personally, I struggled to find any gems in the pack. I admit I didn’t taste all 150 wines as fatigue kicked in and my enthusiasm waned half way through the reds but my black teeth are proof that I put my time in today.
The whites were generally of a good standard – you get what you pay for. I’d be happy to drink most of them and they are varietally correct but there was nothing that I would rave about. Picks of the bunch would include Tesco’s Finest 2008 Gavi (£7.49), Finest Ken Forrester Chenin Blanc 2009 (£6.98) and Tim Adams Clare Valley Riesling 2008 (£8.99).
Unfortunately the reds I tasted didn’t leave me feeling very cheery either. Its Finest Hermitage 2005 costing a cool £19.99 was not up to scratch in my opinion nor was its 2004 Rioja Reserva from Vina Mara. I think I would feel rather cheated if I had paid £8.98 for this brett-central Tempranillo.
Anyway enough doom and gloom. On a positive note, I must be turning into a bargain basement wine taster because its Finest Mendoza Malbec 2008, made by Catena, and costing just £4.24 was a bit of a stand out. This inky purple wine has classic Malbec flavours – ripe blueberry, blackberry and a lick of dairy vanilla on the palate. The concentration’s pretty good at this price. Ok, the tannins are pretty drying and the alcohol’s a little warm but I can forgive that at under a fiver.