You can Trust English wines
English wine is having a good summer - and not only the weather. The National Trust has linked with a key producer to sell its wines in all 84 licensed restaurants on its properties.
In a major drive to support local and regional suppliers, the restaurants now offer a selection of wines produced by Kent-based New Wave Wines. The company has won a mantelpiece full of awards in the past couple of years, and its Tenterden vineyard adjoins a trust property - Smallhythe Place, once the home of Victorian actress Ellen Terry.
"We rather liked that synergy," says the trust's head of catering, Stuart Richards.
He adds: "We're trying to feature as many local products as possible, and that includes English wine. But we're not just taking it on because it's English, we're taking it on because it's good wine."
At its vineyards in Tenterden and Lamberhurst, New Wave Wines has a total of 40 acres, making it the country's largest wine producer - and it has held the title of Winemaker of the Year for the past two years.
New Wave makes 26 different wines in all (16 whites, four reds, five sparklers and a ros‚) in addition to its estate wines, and each trust restaurant will eventually be able to choose freely from the list. Initially, though, each of the 84 licensed trust restaurants will stock three white wines from the Curious Grape range, the main draw for Richards being their availability in quarter-bottles.
"Wines by the glass are a little trickier in our style of self-service restaurants," he says. "And though we don't sell huge quantities of wine, it's about keeping true to our philosophy of protecting our heritage and promoting local produce."
The scheme took off just over a month ago and, so far, 20 trust restaurants are offering the wines. "I haven't had any sales figures back yet, so it's too early to tell," Richards says, "but the response from our catering managers has been extremely positive."
In addition to New Wave Wines' offering, the trust has an initiative with its own Waddesdon Manor, near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. Waddesdon is the family home of the Rothschild family and is managed on the trust's behalf under the chairmanship of Lord Rothschild. It's providing the trust with an additional two quarter-bottles of its (French) red and its (French) Sauvignon Blanc, and it supplies the trust with Champagne.
Richards and company have also begun a series of educational wine lectures and lunches, which will be held in selected restaurants in the coming months.
Shorts
Sloe, sloe, pick pick sloe As autumn approaches, Plymouth Gin's master distiller, Sean Harrison, is searching out the best fruits from the local sloe harvest for this year's release of Plymouth Sloe Gin, with the best sloes trickier to find, since the brambles grow wild. But gin drinkers are promised a preview at this year's Great British Cheese Festival, which takes place at Blenheim Palace on 27-28 September. The Devon-based gin company has lined up a gin stand, called the Plymouth Gin Palace, enabling visitors to take part in tutored tastings featuring British cheeses and its Plymouth Sloe Gin.
Once, twice, five times a distillation
Distiller G&J Greenall is rolling out its super premium gin, Quintessential Warrington Dry, following its success in the USA and Canada. With an abv of 45%, Quintessential has been distilled five times (when the industry norm is three times), adding each of its botanicals separately after each distillation process - "to create a pure, smooth and balanced flavour", explains Greenall's Stephen Ferris. Initially, he says, the brand will be available only through top-end on-trade outlets, including a number of top style bars, but there are plans to roll it out into the UK off-trade.
Message in a bottle The Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) has launched the fourth edition of its Good Bottled Beer Guide, priced £8.99. The number of bottled real ales on the market has rocketed in recent years, from just five in 1971 (the year Camra was established) to 500 listed in the guide today - an increase of 150 beers since the last edition of the book was published two years ago. "I keep on finding more and more," says the guide's author, Jeff Evans. "The brewers may not have the resources to shout about their efforts, like the multinationals which dominate the business, but they are clearly changing the face of beer drinking at home." Or in the restaurant - if you don't offer a decent bottled beer list, you'd better start thinking about it.
Wine education can be awe-some Need someone to come and talk to you and your staff about wine? There's always your wine supplier, of course, but if you'd prefer someone impartial, don't forget the Association of Wine Educators (AWE). It has just published a new, bigger-than-ever directory of members, and has revised its website - www.wineeducators.com - which has full biographies, plus details of courses, holidays and wine workshops.
Learn wine online Talking of wine educators, the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) also has a new-look website - www.wset.co.uk - with updated information on forthcoming courses and tastings. Students can also now book courses online and order study packs and books. A staggering 11,000 people in 24 countries took the WSET qualifications last year.
