BILL KNOTT
A CASE FOR THE WINE SOCIETY
What is in store for wine-drinkers this year? A maelstrom of price hikes, supply chain disasters and frost-stricken vintages? Or the sunny uplands of new trade deals and a couple of quid off a bottle of Penfolds Grange? And what should we be drinking? Is orange the new rosé?
As I have seen the drivers from the Wine Society more often than my family over the last year and a half, I thought Pierre Mansour, a buyer for the society since 2003 and its chief buyer since 2017, would be a great man to mark my card.
If you thought the Wine Society was just an old-fashioned, genteel sort of club for claret-swillers, think again. It has 180,000 active members – ‘We didn’t expect to reach that number for another two years,’ Pierre says; it is selling 50 per cent more wine than before the pandemic. This year’s expected turnover is £140m.
There have been growing pains – the old warehouse is creaking at the seams – ‘but we’ve made some changes, and now we can dispatch twice as much wine from the same space’. That remark brought to mind Ian Carmichael’s hopelessly naive Stanley Windrush from I’m All Right Jack.
So what should we be ordering? Pierre would happily talk about the society’s 1,400 or so wines all day. So it seemed wise to narrow him down to Spain, where he is the society’s head honcho. On my last few visits to various Spanish wine regions, I’ve been struck by how a new generation of winemakers are reviving old vineyards and tearing up rulebooks, and Pierre concurs:
‘The younger producers are really pushing boundaries, and getting so much better at focusing on the quality of the fruit. Garnacha [aka Grenache] is really exciting. In Spain, it’s always played second fiddle to Tempranillo but, like Pinot Noir, it expresses a sense of place, from the rich and powerful Priorats to the higher altitudes in the north, where it’s pure, fresh and vibrant.’
And great value for money. Pierre singles out Zorzal, a family-run estate in Navarra, where winemaking brothers Xabi and Iñaki are younger than most of their vines. Their entry-level Viña Zorzal Garnacha 2020 is a mere £7.25. The supremely elegant, single-vineyard Malayeto Garnacha 2018 is £14.50.
There are rumblings of change in Rioja, too. The society has championed terrific, old-school wines from La Rioja Alta but Pierre has a penchant for the more modern style of the Muga bodega, too: ‘Their wines aren’t super-modern, but they have impeccable fruit, as well as being aged in French and American oak.’ He recommends the Muga Reserva 2017 (£16): ‘It’s a bit like how BMW remodelled the Mini, keeping the style but making it more modern and functional.’
White Rioja, too, is back in fashion. The society’s fresh, nutty, own-label version (£8.50) is from Bodega Classica’s ultra-modern winery in Rioja Alta.
Life membership of the Wine Society is £40, including £20 off your first order, although with no obligation to buy. Every wine writer I know is a member.
If you are not, and you love wine, I can think of no better New Year’s resolution.
This month’s Oldie wine offer, in conjunction with DBM Wines, is a 12-bottle case comprising four bottles each of three wines: a tangy Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire; a pink crémant that no fridge door should be without; and a rich Syrah that would make a perfect partner for a beef stew. Or you can buy cases of each individual wine.