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The 2015 Eileen Hardy Chardonnay is, and by a mile, the biggest selling white wine in our history with over 3,500+ bottles selling to our private customers across the UK and Europe. If you have a few bottles stored – open one and do let us all know how’s she’s fairing. Magnificently, I bet… As per Accolade’s archaic tradition, they played silly buggers with pricing (an increase to £49.99) and their inability to make the wine available for the UK market, has left a mighty gap in our Chardonnay offerings and respective wine racks. Vinorium customers have always enjoyed white wines which are ‘fuller’ and ‘richer’ on the palate. Save for Leeuwin’s Art Series, linear styles are not favoured by many of you. We have found the odd wine which provided the balanced opulence you so desire however, it’s a constant search as there aren’t many of them out there, if I am being brutally honest. I believe it’s been two years since our last ‘we’ve found another incarnation of Eileen’ which goes some way to prove they’re as rare as hen’s teeth and we take the search very seriously. Today, I am thrilled to unveil a real beauty that has all the hallmarks that many of you enjoy. There’s some bottle age (2019 vintage) which has provided wonderful texture and palate weight.  2019 Amen Break Quarry Ridge Chardonnay "Essentially, this is a pitch perfect mix of fruit, texture and freshness, and like Eileen when she was 2015, seriously undervalued." Stuart McCloskey "The colour is glorious – polished gold, which looks so inviting. Give it a swirl in your Zalto Burgundy glass and you’ll notice the wine's viscosity slowly dripping down the interior wall. Please do not overchill as it will kill off the magnificent perfume which opens to grilled lemons, toast, honey, almonds, sweet pastry, lemon ginger tea, peach, pear, lots of stone fruits and lots of minerality (strikingly so) – orchard blossom and brine too. The palate is silky, graceful, super-glossy with mouth-coating waves of pure deliciousness. Layers of minerals, stone fruits, buttered, spiced orchard fruit wash across the palate. There’s a lot of wine to get your palate around and it’s best served either on its own or with a thick tronçon of Turbot or Brill. Essentially, this is a pitch perfect mix of fruit, texture and freshness, and like Eileen when she was 2015, seriously undervalued. It's as long as you could ever want for and ticks every box. Glorious today and has all the quality to cellar through to 2030+. I bet the prime drinking window will be in 3-4 years, but and let’s be honest, given the scarcity of these wines, it’s not going to last more than 12-18 months. You’ll see! Utterly delicious and a real find…. PS: As ever, there isn’t much available!" £22.95 per bottle SOLD OUT Shipping Update Teusner shipment including the 99-point 2021 Albert Shiraz and 2005 LD Sparkling: We have received a firm booking in date with LCB of 19 April. Once landed and cleared for onward delivery, we will make contact regarding a specific date. Please sit tight and wait for our final communication. Pre-Arrival Offer: 2022 Standish Collection has closed with all orders received with much gratitude. As per our offer, we do not plan to ship any stocks, which is a first. Did you miss-out? Make direct contact and we will do our utmost to accommodate your wishes. Collection / delivery ETAs: We plan to collect out of Adelaide June / July (arriving in the UK September / October 2024). We also plan to combine the new, 2022 Utopos collection with our Standish order. For the curious ones – the ’22 Utopos samples are expected at our HQ week commencing 29 April with our special ‘pre-arrival’ offer to follow soon after.   New Delivery Charges Despite the substantial increase in domestic delivery rates alongside expensive packaging costs (It physically costs The Vinorium £10.57 to send a six-pack to a mainland UK address), we have reduced our ‘free delivery’ threshold from £150 to £100. Orders below £100 will incur a charge of £8.50 down from £9.95. Put simply, buying habits have changed enormously as has disposable income for wine… We either ignore the current economics and sit on unsold stock or move with the flow and sell through wines that are sitting on our shelves. We have also introduced discounted ‘by-the-case’ pricing for much of our portfolio, which can be viewed here… Wine Economics 101: Are we shipping the right wines, at the right price to the right people? The ‘independent wine merchants’ report / results were published last month, which always makes for fascinating reading – Moreso given the cost-of-living-crisis. Circa 200 indies responded (as we did) which provides an accurate feeling for wine life across the UK, Southern Ireland, and the Islands. Based on 188 responses the average basket spend was £53.38. The Vinorium’s ‘Average basket spend’ sits around £215.00 (ex VAT), which on the face of it, looks impressive however, we’ve dropped well over £100 per basket during the past 24-months. Based on 189 independent wine merchants: The average spend on a bottle of still wine is £15.78 (Our average being £40.05). Specific to The Vinorium, and based on the current rate of sales, it would be time to sell-up or close the doors as the maths does not cover the bills at £15.78… I will address our reader survey next week however, numerous customers are calling for ‘more sales’ which is a prevalent curse in the wine trade and will lead to much bigger issues. Cheaper wines was also another observation from our survey although, it is difficult to quantify what value one places on a ‘cheap’ bottle. We are certainly working very hard to provide an excellent selection around the £20+ mark however, customers wanting Krug for the price of Prosecco or great Aussie Shiraz (drinking like a forty-quid bottle), but only willing to pay the price of Yellow Tail is a fantasy. As is ‘I am looking for something similar to Standish but around the £20 bracket. What have you got to offer?’ Nothing I’m afraid, and don’t be so blooming daft… You wouldn’t walk into a Porsche centre and expect to pay the cost of a Peugeot for a 911, would you? Granted, commercials are tough (the hardest times I have witnessed in 25-years) however, cheap wines are exactly that – lacklustre, the quality is questionable, but I respect there is a market for them. Moreover, they are simply not worth the money which is a strong statement to make. Allow me to explain…You’ve walked into your local indie / supermarket and purchased a midweek bottle of Aussie Shiraz for £10. Let’s look at the cost of that bottle versus content: A £10.00 bottle of Aussie Shiraz @ 14% ABV Take the same maths and work through the numbers… On a £6.50 bottle wine: 40p is left for wine and farming (margin reduced to circa 25%) *In our case – shipping / logistics / packaging amounts to a colossal £2.76 per bottle I am not being arrogant or insensitive as we’ve done our utmost to accommodate the new ‘era’ of wine buying. Furthermore, we are not in a privileged position to ignore the economics which have severely affected the wine market. Nevertheless, and as I work my way through a table stacked with new samples, I am left feeling rather dejected with the quality and drinkability of mid-value wines. Last week I sampled my way through a set of Chardonnays which arrived direct from the Margaret River. With one exception, they were dreadful. Truly so… We have a system, albeit a rather simple barometer to assess a wine’s potential. Our cost price, versus your buying price, versus does it genuinely command the price tag. With this in mind and with a reasonable 30% gross margin, these Chardonnays would retail between £16.00 to £21.00 per bottle. How did they drink? Gobsmackingly ordinary, bordering bloody insulting. They call this watery liquid - ‘wine’? This is the crap they serve-up in Wetherspoons and best served on your chips. If this is my future – I am done. Finito, I am moving to the West Coast of Scotland and shall find solace in the mountains and on my bike… Conversely, is the vinous god testing my skills? Can I find wines that are super-duper for £15 or less. Nope – I can certainly find wines that are ‘OK’ but I am still off to Scotland as ‘OK’ is best left for others who specialise in this sector… Can I find gems that retail between £15 and £20. Quality gems are rare, as are the wines at this price level. Of course, there are lots of delicious wines which we do / have recommended however, please remember the price bracket. Domaine Naturaliste Floris Chardonnay 2021 is a great example and an elevated one if served in the correct glassware (please see my Zalto article). Ditto if you haven’t tried Nocturne Wines Sub Regional Chardonnay 2021 (£20.40 six-pack price). We lost the Nocturne agency due to our lack of commitment to provide annual order numbers, which is a direct result of poor customer sales (unless we knock off 20%). The new collection can be purchased for £31.99 (sub regional) and £46.00 (single vineyard) from their new, UK agent via an independent wine merchant. At these new RRPs - you’re drinking a good Audi, but you’ve paid the price of a Porsche, if you get my drift. We’ve always aligned quality to price and have no room for anything that hasn’t proved itself during the sampling process. Nocturne wines are well made and come highly recommended however, not at the new pricing levels. Compare the old with the new… Unquestionably, pricing has gotten out of control. Producers expect year-on-year increases against the backdrop of financial austerity. Australia has endured three tough years, mainly due to China’s punishing 218% tariffs on imports (now lifted), but not solely as most countries have shipped less volume and value. Penfolds is the biggest player in China’s market and suffered dreadfully. Now, they plan to increase their pricing for the ‘premium’ range. I wonder if they have given any consideration to the unimaginable numbers of unsold bottles that are lying in the many warehouses and shelves around China. China’s economy isn’t great either, neither is their consumption of wine. Prices increase and global scores decrease which is a long article (I’m a third of the way through it). Henschke release their new collection (1 May) which includes the 2019 Hill of Grace and 2019 Mount Edelstone. The plethora of critics receive samples and voice their respective opinions to their awaiting audience. Of course, it’s Russian roulette on the score front, but that’s the game you play. 2019 Hill of Grace: Wine Front awarded 96 points / Wine Advocate 97 / Decanter 97 / Halliday 99 / Wine Pilot 95. The price circa $975 per bottle. 2019 Mount Edelstone: Wine Pilot awarded 94 points / Wine Advocate 96 / Decanter 96 / Halliday 98. The price circa $245 per bottle. I’ll let you make your own decision on whether you would buy these. Die-hard fans of the Henschke brand may, but those who chase the ‘score’ will certainly avoid them. In reality, customers have less to spend / or are prepared to spend less against the backdrop of wanting much, much more for their hard-earned bucks. Who budges first? Ordinarily, it’s down to the wine importer to balance the books as it would be detrimental for a well-established brand’s ego to bow to reality. It’s been the widespread curse of Bordeaux for years with their egos taking the number one spot over sales. This year’s En-Primeur campaign will be fascinating after the failure of last year. Possibly, the final nail in the coffin, but then again, how many years has this been bandied around. Yes, it’s true. We completely sold-out of the 2007 Finch’s Line Shiraz within 30-minutes. It felt like a game of hungry hippos with slowcoaches not standing a chance. Apologies for those who missed out. Those who made use of our ‘email me when back in stock’ received early notification of the below offer, the 2009 Finch’s Line Shiraz which is equally delicious, but an entirely different proposition. Textbook Hunter Valley and shows vintage variation in the best light. All ’09 Finch’s Line Shiraz orders will be dispatched on Thursday 18 April for arrival on Friday…  2009 Finch's Line, 5th Mile Shiraz Stuart McCloskey "The bouquet is immense and takes time to unfold. Anise, raspberry, dried cherries, rosehip, warm earth, clove, an abundance of spice, leather, beef broth, bacon fat, coffee and orange zest bring the epic bouquet to a close… The palate feels energetic and shows no sign of ageing fatigue. The back label suggests 10-years in the cellar. We’re at 15 and there’s a good few years left in the old-girl. Equally, the palate is jam packed with flavours and shows lots of old-school charm – it feels wild and untamed in the sense that very little has interfered with the grape-to-bottle journey. Textbook Hunter Valley terroir articulates through the abundance of spice and earthy notes.. Leather, wild hedgerow fruits and coffee join in… This is long, spritely, and wonderfully umami with more beef broth. Tremendously delicious. I suggest an hour in the decanter and serve in Zalto’s Burgundy glass (the big bowl helps to develop the bouquet and flavour – the narrowed rim keeps-in the wondrous bouquet and reduces contact with the air). Drink now to 2028+.” £25.00 per bottle SOLD OUT The Fruit for the 5th Mile Shiraz is from the Maluna Vineyard, planted in 1968 by the Maxwell family. Low yielding, with only 600 bottles produced.   "All the vibes of an old-school Château Beychevelle, Talbot, Leoville Barton etc... excites the hell out of me."  2012 Killibinbin Museum Release Cabernet Sauvignon Langhorne Creek, South Australia Stuart McCloskey "Undeniably, Cabernet Sauvignon is my favoured varietal. Perhaps 17-years working in the Bordeaux trade is to blame, nonetheless I still perk-up when a good example arrives at my desk. This has all the vibes of an old-school Château Beychevelle, Talbot, Leoville Barton etc… The bouquet exudes to the sweetest tune of plum, cassis, leather, cedar, mint, violet, sweet tobacco, spice, kirsch, menthol and star anise. Gamey notes develop with more aeration as do the telltale tobacco and saddle leather notes. Utterly intoxicating and it has my unbridled attention. The palate is an absolute charmer – suave, svelte, fleshly, generous, sophisticated and highly addictive. What a beauty… The fruit is ample, succulent and fills every facet of the palate. The tannins are ripe, and the acidity is spot-on. I served her on the ‘cooler’ side and straight from bottle to my glass, which I highly recommend. She’s exuberant in a modest way, but excites the hell out of me. This is exactly why I love my job. I believe I get more joy from wines of this value and drinkability than I do from the hundreds I sample above £50… Keep her cool and she’ll treat you with the same degree of respect. What a girl. I love her… Drink now to 2028+ and perhaps for longer, but I see little point in denying yourself of the pleasure… Served using Zalto Burgundy glassware as it holds the wonderful perfume better than the Bordeaux." £20.95 per bottle In preparation for today’s newsletter - we listed a small parcel on our website, which was snapped-up prior to launch. Well done to customers who keep an eye on our ‘New Arrivals’ category. We are hoping to ship more stocks from Australia. Let us know if you would like to be added to the waiting list… click the button above and request an email. |
