Aubert de Villaine, co-director of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
What is the most famous wine in the world? There are many answers to this question, be they the best-loved grape variety, a particularly expensive brand or simply the one who spends the most on advertising…
Written originally for Luxurious Magazine, January 30th 2020
England is producing some world class sparkling wines these days. Here’s why, with some names you need to know. Written for Luxurious Magazine by Helena.
If you’re set to impress this New Year’s Eve, here are some extraordinary champagnes that deserve your attention. Written for Luxurious Magazine by Helena.
Are you lucky enough to be spending Christmas on a yacht? Here’s a little piece I wrote for Princess Yachts about what to drink and space-saving gifts for wine lovers.
By Helena Nicklin
To celebrate the launch of Part Two of The Three Drinkers do Scotch Whisky, we’re giving away 12 drinky prizes to 12 winners, picked each day from 1st December. To enter and for all T&Cs, head over to our competition page here!
1st December: Uncle Nearest Bourbon Pair
Two very special Bourbon whiskies from exciting brand Uncle Nearest. The whiskey honours a former slave called Nathan ‘Nearest’ Green who was the first premium distiller in Tennessee and even taught a certain Mr Jack Daniels. These whiskies by Nearest Green Distillery honour ‘‘the best whiskey maker the world never knew... until now’. The 1856 RRP £55 & the 1884 small batch whiskey is RRP £45 but not yet available in the UK. Find out more here.
2nd December Old Bakery Gin & Rum
We’re loving this brand new, yet super old, small batch distillery gin that has made a big splash on the likes of Dragon’s Den. When owner Ian Puddick bought an old bakery in London’s Palmers Green, he discovered a centuries old illicit distillery on the premises and set about sourcing original recipes. They now have three gins and a rum, which has just been released. Yum! Gin RRP £38 Rum. RRP £43. Find out more here.
3rd December Le Serre Nuove dell’Ornellaia 2015 MAGNUM
Our friends at Armit Wines have offered a magnum of red wine from one of Italy’s most famous Tuscan wine estates: Ornellaia. Le Serre Nuove is an elegant, silky blend of Bordeaux varietals. Drinking now but will keep! See more here.
4th December: Coravin Model One Black
The original Coravin gadget that allows you to have a glass of wine without pulling the cork! It works by sending a needle through the cork and replacing the wine with inert argon gas. Genius! RRP £199 See more here.
5th December Giant Glencairn Glass
Remember the oversized glass from our Loch Ness episode? Well, award-winning family business Glencairn Crystal - creators of the whisky industry’s favourite glass - is offering you the opportunity to win a limited-edition giant Glencairn Glass. The oversized version is 12 inches tall and can hold just over three bottles, or nearly 100 drams! Collectable, with only a small number made each year. This glass is worth is worth over £150. See more here.
6th December: 30 year old ‘Blue Flower’ Baijiu
Photo credit: Cheng International Co. Limited
Baijiu is the world’s most popular spirit but have you heard of it? This stunning, grain spirit from China has many guises, but we love this elegant, 30 year old ‘blue flower’ Baijiu from Fenjiu. It’s pretty rare and has an RRP of £150. See more @fenjiu_london
7th December: Ice Cool Luxury Wine Cooler
These compact Ice Cool Wine Coolers are beautiful and practical. They maintain the temperature of a wide range of bottles yet take up less space than an ice bucket and don’t get the label wet! Available in a variety of finishes and with a personal engraving. See more here.
8th December: Master of Malt 6 Month Whisky Dram Club Subscription
Our friends at Master of Malt are offering six months worth of their Dram Club subscription to one lucky winner! You’ll receive five carefully selected whiskies worth up to £100 a bottle, right to your door. Read more about them here.
9th December: Eto wine decanter
The decanter reinvented, Eto is a work of art that works as a decanter and a wine preserver at the same time. It works by displacing air thus not allowing wine to spoil for up to 2 weeks. Perfect for that one (!) glass in the evening and keeping the rest. RRP £125-145. See more here.
10th December: Frapin 1270 Cognac and Cocktail Kit
Frapin 1270 is a versatile cognac which can be enjoyed neat or mixed, thanks to its great aromatic richness. Win a full size 70cl bottle, two cocktail glasses and a cocktail mixing kit with all the essentials you need to start mixing like a pro and impress your friends with classic Cognac cocktails such as Mint Julep, Side Car and Old Fashioned. Prize worth over £100. See more at @cognacfrapinofficial
11th December: Armand de Brignac Brut Gold Champagne
Gold Brut is the most iconic cuvée in the Champagne Armand de Brignac range and is created using the old world traditions of champagne blending. This prestige cuvée is a trio of vintages from some of the most highly-praised terroirs in the region and expresses vibrant fresh fruit character, and layers of complexity. RRP £300. See more here.
12th December: Personalised bottle of 18 year old Highland Park
A rich and fruity 18 year old Highland single malt bottled in 2019, this whisky from The Whisky Exchange is limited edition (only 276 bottles) and will arrive personalised with a message of your choice. Prize worth £99.95. See more at @whiskyexchange
In every bottle of wine there is a story. Sometimes it reads like a comic book and other times like War and Peace, yet there is a time and place for every single glass. Wouldn’t it be lovely to capture these moments forever?
Despite our increasingly hectic world we are thankfully, albeit slowly, coming back to the notion of experiences over ownership of ‘things’ when it comes to downtime or even gifting. Moments matter more than material goods. Anyone who loves wine will be familiar with its powers to bring people together; to bond, to celebrate successes and to commiserate lost challenges, but there’s another reason many of us love the world of wine that may not be immediately obvious.
Wine engages the senses like nothing else. The pop of the cork (or the crack of the screw cap), the glug glug into the glass, the swirl, the sniff, the taste… Those of us who taste wine for a living look forward to the sea of wines at a press tasting where we can do nothing else but engage our senses for a couple of hours. We emerge refreshed from a truly meditative experience, alive with all the new stories we’ve experienced. It can be the same with a single bottle; a unique moment shared that you’ll want to find a way to remember forever. How do we do that?
Studies have proved that our sensory human brains remember images, sounds and smells much more easily than dry facts and figures. How often has an aroma taken you straight back to a time and place, for example? Or a music track evoked the memory of a loved one? Art, music, perfume, film, literature all punctuate our lives on the most basic, beautiful human levels. Doesn’t it make so much sense then, to use the arts to capture the moments created with a glass of wine, not just to remember them better, but to enhance the whole experience? Perhaps a meditative Mozart aria made you stop and savour your quietly complex Burgundian Pinot Noir a little more? Or that earthy, Southern Italian red brought an extra dimension to the last few chapters of your book by Elena Ferrante? Wine can enhance a precious human moment, as can a piece of music a film or a book. Put all these things together and the result is far greater than the sum of its parts. We know a place where you can keep these moments together and so much more besides.
At the forefront of wine technology, the people at Coravin, the ultimate gadget for wine appreciation, have always understood the power of wine to create unique moments and the links between wine and the Arts. (Want an overview of Coravin? Read our article here). It was with this in mind that they created the Coravin Moments App; a one stop shop for wine lovers looking to capture and visualise their own wine moments as well as their own collections. You can create your own ‘moments’ or see those that others have made and edit them to make them your own. These moments inspire unique wine pairings for any occasion. Burt Bacharach, bolognese and Bordeaux, anyone? Surely the ultimate Friday night in! There is more you can do with the App too.
With the App, you can log your own wine collection as well as those you have tasted and have them presented visually by flavour profile. You’ll also never again forget a great bottle with the App’s ability to take a photo of a wine label, the wizardry to read it and even give you more information about the wine itself. Those lucky enough to own the epic Coravin Model Eleven (a fully automated version of the Coravin, which allows a glass of wine to be poured without having to pull the cork, read more here), can do more with the Moments app. It can be connected wirelessly via bluetooth to monitor levels in the argon gas canisters, battery levels and receive reminders for when to clean it. You can even shop for Coravin products through the App too.
Have you tried the app yet? Let us know your favourite wine pairing moments via social media (handles below)! If not, you can download the App from the Apple Store or directly from the Coravin website here. Currently only available for iPhone. Android, watch this space...
If you’re a wine lover, chances are you’ll know about Coravin: the ultimate wine gadget. You may have even read about what it is and how it works on our magazine here. Did you know about the super duper, newest Model Eleven, however? Here’s the skinny on one wine gadget you won’t want to do without this winter.
If you’re thinking Spinal Tap rather than why model numbers three to ten don’t exist, then you’re on the right track. Coravin Model Eleven was so-named because on the scale of one to ten, team Coravin reckoned it went up to eleven. Always at the forefront of wine technology, this model does everything the previous models can do and more, plus it’s fully automated.
Charge up your Eleven with its USB charger, slot it over the top of the bottle (remember to check that it’s a real cork!) and a green light will confirm that you’re ready to go. Simply push down and tip. A small needle will puncture the cork and push inert Argon gas in, forcing wine out. Pour until you decide to stop; it works out the exact amount of gas you need. The cork will reseal itself almost immediately, thus preventing oxygen from getting in and spoiling the wine. Et voila! Your Coravin will then sleep up until you next pick it up again.
As well as the automation, Coravin Model Eleven does some other natty things. Using bluetooth technology, you can sync it up to the Coravin Moments App: an app designed to match wines to moments, be they food, music, films, books and more (read more here). It helps you keep tabs on battery life, on how much gas remains in your canister and sends reminders for when to service and clean your Coravin.
Oh Coravin, how do we use thee? Let us count the ways! When we spoke to the founder, Greg Lambrecht, he told us the Coravin came into being because he wanted to be able to enjoy a single glass of decent wine without worrying that the rest of the bottle would be wasted if it wasn’t all tasted that night. Great for one glass but also great if you want to try several glasses of different wines without opening them all up. Perhaps you’re serving a dinner with several courses and want to build your own tasting menu? Maybe you want to see if that wine in the cellar is ready to drink without pulling the cork? If your favourite wine bar has one too, you’ll know that you can afford that one small glass of something rather special without having to purchase a whole bottle. Quite simply, it’s genius.
If you like your gadgets, you’ll love unboxing the Eleven. As well as its soft, stylish carry case and sturdy display base, you’ll get a pack of six gas canisters; enough for around ninety glasses. There’s also a dedicated aerator, which attaches to the Coravin spout to air the wine as it pours, giving even smoother results (they say it’s the equivalent of over an hour’s worth of decanting). As a brilliant extra, the pack also includes six Coravin screw caps, which will allow you to use your swanky new toy on screw capped wine! Each one is made with silicon which can be used up to one hundred times.
We’re addicted to ours and we’d love to know what you think! If you have one, send us a message. You can find out more about Coravin on their website.
The Three Drinkers headed to the first portfolio tasting in years of wine merchant Armit, famed for its stunning Italian wine agencies like Sassicaia and Ornellaia. Expecting the Italians, they found a lot more on offer, some of it equally spectacular. Colin Hampden-White tells all...
Armit Wines has now been supplying wine to the trade and private clients for over thirty years. Founded in 1988 by John Armit, the company started to forge relationships with producers so they could buy direct. Some of the strongest relationships were with Italian wine producers including the greats like Sassicaia and Ornellaia and it was with these relationships and wines that Armit became well known. Italian wine isn’t the only wine Armit specialises in, however. Far from being a one trick pony, Armit has wines from all over the world, and these wines are just as impressive as the Super Tuscan wines they still supply.
There was something different about the Armit tasting this year in comparison to some they’ve had in the past. There wasn’t an Italian wine to be seen. Armit wanted to show off more wines in their stable and shine a light on some other great regions.
Kicking off the tasting were a couple of wines from New Zealand. A fresh and fruity Riesling from Borthwick vineyards and some rich and refined Pinot Noir from Bell Hill, showing how well New Zealand competes with the likes of Burgundy for Pinot Noir. Staying in the southern Hemisphere, there were wines from South Africa, with a Grenache from Momento and a Cabernet Sauvignon from Delaire Graff standing out. From Napa there were stonking wines from Diamond Creek and away from the usual Californian regions, there were wines from Santa Maria Valley by Bien Nacido and Solomon Hills showing very well.
Baptiste & Julie Guinaudeau from Lafleur in Bordeaux
The new world wines didn’t have it all their own way though. Armit also have some great relationships in Spain and France, with two prominent producers being Domaine Leflaive and Lafleur in Burgundy and Bordeaux and in Rioja, Rioja Alta. These are some of the best estates in the world and to find them in one room is testament to the selection Armit have harvested over the years.
Alongside these grand names in wine, there are lesser known, but just as exciting, wines from Torre de Oña, also in Rioja, Dowie Doole in Australia, Domaine Huet in the Loire and closer to home, Digby sparkling English wine. And just to top things off, Chateau Dereszla in Hungary had some very refined Tokaji, both dry and sticky in style.
The quality of wines on show was over all very high and the message from Armit was loud and clear: They are not only an Italian wine merchant. Sure, you can still buy your favourite Italian wines from them, but try reaching further afield when you visit their website, or call for advice, and you will be well rewarded for it.
See more are armitwines.co.uk
By Colin Hampden-White