Remy Osman has been working in our Singapore office for the last three years, and has seen the fine wine scene blossom again since the pandemic. Here, he tells us about the pleasure of working with such passionate wine-lovers across Southeast Asia, and why he believes we’re in a “golden age” of fine wine.
I joined Berry Bros. & Rudd in May 2021. We were still in the dark days of Covid, limited to two people at a time in the office. Customer lunches or dinners were often impossible, due to intermittent restrictions on dining out. Since emerging from the pandemic, there has been so much enthusiasm here in Singapore and right across Southeast Asia, for tastings, education and discovery. It has been a pleasure to join our customers on their respective wine journeys and help customers in this part of the world build up fantastic collections.
If I were to sum up the local market, it is one of true enthusiasts. Our customers in Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and across ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] all have a genuine passion for wine and love the process of learning everything there is to know about it. People take pride in knowing and experiencing the differences between the terroirs of two neighbouring Burgundian vineyards; having encyclopaedic knowledge of the weather and quality of decades worth of Bordeaux vintages; and being the first to try to uncover the next big Champagne grower.
It is a constant cycle of learning, discovery and sharing. One minute I will be humbled by realising just how much I do not know about wine, and then the next I will share an insight that excites and encourages a customer to try a new wine that they fall in love with.
Like many customers, I first fell in love with fine wine thanks to Bordeaux. It has never failed to amaze me how incredibly well these wines can age. I enjoy thinking about what was happening in the world during the particular vintage year, and all world events while the wine patiently aged in bottle before I drank it. I joined Berry Bros. & Rudd just as the 2020 Bordeaux En Primeur was kicking off, so this “Covid vintage” will always have a special meaning to me.
I feel we are truly in a golden age of fine wine: a warmer climate means that many grapes now achieve ripeness in places where it would historically have been hard to do so, and vastly improved viticultural and winemaking techniques mean that even an average vintage these days is far superior to all but the very best vintages of the 20th century.
We’re enjoying the fruits of this golden age, but we’re also aware of the irony that if the climate continues warming, the wines we know and love might not be possible to make in hotter years. In the longer term, I see huge potential for English winemaking, and I’ve been encouraged that customers in this part of the world are already beginning to try – and enjoy – their first few vintages of still English Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs, which have real structure and ageability. From my vantage point one degree north of the equator, I see such high-latitude wine regions as an exciting part of the future, so it is great that people are already starting to discover and enjoy them.
Indeed, it is a generally positive trend that collectors in Southeast Asia are more confident to branch out beyond the big names and big regions, to discover excellent new wines for themselves. This is partly due to cost – not everybody will want to pay the price of a Bordeaux First Growth or Burgundy Grand Cru. But the joy of learning about wine, and discovering new details, can’t be diminished either.
These days, the biggest flex at a wine dinner in Singapore is not simply bringing the most expensive bottle, but rather being the person who brings a previously little-known producer which people enjoy drinking above the big names. I find this wonderful, because at the end of the day, fine wine shouldn’t be about expense; is about the pleasure of discovery, tasting and sharing something delicious.
We have offices in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. If you’re interested in speaking with one of our Account Managers in Singapore, please contact us at bbr@bbr.com
Spain is one of the world’s fastest-growing fine wine countries, yet Spanish wine is more unfamiliar to many than Bordeaux or Burgundy. Here, Master of Wine and Spain Buyer, Catriona Felstead MW, guides us through this hub of exceptional winemaking, and breaks down what you need to know about key Spanish wine regions
Photograph: Jason Lowe
I am often asked what my favourite wine is. It is a question that I struggle to answer, given the number of truly incredible wines there are in the world (it’s like being asked to choose your favourite child), but I always come back to the same response: “I can’t give you my favourite wine, but I can say that it would probably be a wine from Spain.”
So, why Spain? Well, I admit, it is partly personal. Spain holds a very special place in my heart; I had my first ever ‘wine moment’ there. One evening back in 1997, I went into a bar in Granada and asked for a simple glass of “vino tinto”. I was travelling in Spain after a year abroad in France as part of my university studies. Up until that moment, I had enjoyed drinking wine (I had just spent a year in France after all) but I certainly hadn’t ever really appreciated it. When I tried that wine, I had a transformative experience; it was unlike anything I had ever tasted before. The flavours and complexity in that glass completely blew my mind.
Annoyingly, I don’t remember the vintage, but I do recall that it was a glass of Viña Cubillo from Bodegas R. López de Heredia, one of the most wonderful, unashamedly traditional, styles of Rioja. That was the moment that I decided I wanted to learn more, the moment that set me on a path to a career in wine, and ultimately to attaining my Master of Wine qualification in 2012.
But this particular Rioja “wine moment” of mine is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many regions to explore in Spain, which also has so many of its own grape varieties, and so many diverse styles.
Spain’s wine regions: Rioja
Central to most people’s experience of Spanish wine is Rioja.
Rioja is actually a ‘Denominación de Origen Clasificada’, the very highest quality level achievable under Spanish wine law. Along with Priorat, Rioja is only one of two Spanish regions that have ever been awarded this status. This doesn’t mean that all Rioja DOCa wines are uniformly great, but it does mean that the minimum quality standards that need to be adhered to here, in both the vineyards and wineries, are more exacting.
Rioja is an unbelievably beautiful region. Tempranillo thrives here, along with its common blending partners Graciano, Mazuelo and Garnacha (Grenache). Red wines are medium-bodied and elegant, in both modern, fruit-forward and traditionally complex styles.
Viura is the mainstay grape of the whites, capable of producing both youthful, fresh styles as well as some of the most astonishing, mature, nutty, complex wines you could ever wish to taste.
There are three main sub-regions: Rioja Alavesa, Rioja Alta and Rioja Oriental. Rioja Alavesa is closest to the mountains (it actually lies inside the Basque Country) and often produces wines with just a touch more red fruit and freshness.
Rioja Alta is the traditional heart of the region, containing the city of Logroño. Many of Rioja’s most famous and long-standing producers are based in Haro, almost on top of one another in the Barrio de la Estación district.
As the name suggests, this district is right by the railway station, the railway itself having been of huge historical importance to the success of Rioja. A series of dreadful harvest started in Bordeaux in 1863, followed by the devastating impact of phylloxera four years later. During this time, the Bordelais came to Rioja, searching for good volumes of wine to buy to transport north to boost their production. This was the start of the great Rioja bodegas as we know them now.
Last, but by no means least, is Rioja Oriental. Thanks to the huge efforts of the inspirational Álvaro Palacios, this is no longer called “Rioja Baja”, which made it sound like a lowly neighbour. This is the true home of Garnacha. The region is dominated by volume-driven co-operatives, but it is also capable of producing some incredibly pure and ethereal styles of red wine.
Spain’s wine regions: Ribera del Duero
Only an hour’s drive south of Haro, and you are in Ribera del Duero, famed for its intense and fruit-forward red wines. These are often made solely from the Tempranillo grape, which here is called Tinto Fino, but some very famous producers, such as Vega Sicilia, famously add Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot to their blends.
One of the main differences between Ribera del Duero and Rioja is the altitude. Ribera lies on the northern plateau of the Iberian Peninsula and its vineyards lie between 750m and 900m altitude, higher than the 300m to 500m average in Rioja.
Ribera also has more of an extreme continental climate than Rioja (which is more moderate as it is closer to the sea). This means that it has hotter days and cooler nights, producing red grapes with thicker skins, and therefore making wines of more density and deeper colour.
Spain’s wine regions: Rueda and Toro
Just further to the west of Ribera del Duero are the smaller regions of Rueda and Toro. Rueda is dominated by the white grape, Verdejo, which makes grassy yet textured styles of white wine, a little along the lines of Sauvignon Blanc.
Toro has similar conditions to Ribera, still high up on the plateau with the majority of vineyards at a high altitude. However, it is closer to Portugal and generally even hotter here. Tempranillo is still king – but here it is called Tinto de Toro.
The soil is also full of remarkable pudding stone pebbles, similar to the galets found in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The reflection of the heat from these makes the growing conditions even hotter, leading to even more powerful red wines, often with a little less sophistication than Ribera del Duero.
Spain’s wine regions: Galicia
Moving north from here, we eventually reach Spain’s beautiful north-west. Galicia is a green, verdant region, thanks to its generally cooler, wet weather and proximity to the sea. It has many sub-regions: Rias Baixas is the best known for its fresh, salty white wines made from the local grape, Albariño. Moving into Ribeiro and Ribeira Sacra and beyond, this is then often blended with other local partners, Treixadura and Loureiro, and many other historic, local varieties. Godello has risen as another star grape of the region, namely thanks to Rafael Palacios (Álvaro’s younger brother) and his incredible work here turning this into wines that can rival some of the fines Burgundies in complexity.
Crisp, crunchy reds are also produced, often as blends of many local grapes, but with the star usually being Mencia. What Rafa has done for Galician whites, Telmo Rodiguez has achieved for Galician reds, both based very near each other in the eastern subregion of Valdeorras.
Spain’s wine regions: Bierzo
Just over the mountains is Bierzo, which has gained fame for its red, Mencia-dominant wines. The mountainous border keeps Bierzo much dryer than Galicia, lending more of a richness to the wines.
Descendientes de J. Palacios, a joint project with Álvaro and his nephew Ricardo Pérez Palacios is one to watch here, as they produce tiny volumes of sensational red wines high up in the mountains. Their most prized vineyard, La Faraona, produces electric wines, full of indescribable energy, finesse and power.
Spain’s wine regions: Priorat
Flying back over Rioja to the eastern coast of Spain, we get to Catalonia and the historic regions of Priorat and Penedès.
Priorat, if you recall, is the other DOCa region of Spain, making luscious yet sophisticated wines from Garnacha and Cariñena (also here called Samsó), often from very old vines. The soil is predominantly a volcanic black slate called llicorella which absorbs heat whilst also reflecting sunlight.
International varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah are also authorised here, and a much smaller volume of white wines is also made. This is where Álvaro Palacios made his name, crafting astonishing, remarkable wines from around the village of Gratallops.
Sangenís i Vaqué is another great producer here, producing more traditional wines of great character. It is very small and run by a historic Priorat family which can trace its wine-producing descendants right back to the 1700s.
Spain’s wine regions: Penedès
Moving now into the heart of Spanish sparkling wine production, we arrive in Penedès. Historically this is the home of mass-produced, traditional-method Cava made from indigenous grapes Macabeo (Viura), Parellada and Xarel-lo, as well as Chardonnay and Malvasia, although Cava can also be produced in other Spanish regions.
Penedès is now led by a number of premium producers who have moved away from the fairly innocuous Cava DO designation to make instead top quality “Spanish sparkling wine”. Leading the way was Pepe Raventós, who removed his family property, Raventós i Blanc, from the Cava DO back in 2012 to focus on creating terroir-driven sparkling wines from the marine-fossil soils of Conca del Riu Anoia.
Eleven other famous premium producers in the region, including the venerated Gramona, also pulled away from the Cava DO to create a separate group, “Corpinnat”, in 2017. Meaning “heart of Penedès”, this group commits to producing 100% organic wines with very strict quality rules.
Spain’s wine regions: Jerez
There are so many other small regions in Spain to discover, in addition to those already mentioned here, but one final region that we cannot ignore is Jerez. Right down in the south of Spain, Jerez is set apart both geographically and stylistically from the rest of this fascinating country. The reason for that is that it is home to Spain’s iconic fortified wine, Sherry.
Whilst it is often common to think of Sherry as being sweet (and much of the bulk production is), the most lauded styles tend to be the dry wines. Some of these are made under the influence of the flor yeast that thrives here. Nutty, almond-salted Manzanillas and Finos, hazelnut-led Amontillados and walnut-focused Olorosos are just some delights to be discovered from incredible, quality conscious producers such as Bodegas Lustau.
For those that enjoy a dry Manzanilla with juicy green olives, almonds and jamón ibérico (myself included), it is hard to beat as the finest food and wine match on the planet.
Spain is such a fascinating and diverse country, there really is something for everyone here; crisp, mineral sparkling wines from Penedès, dry, saline white wines from Galicia, elegant, smooth Riojas, powerful Priorat and Ribera del Duero wines and deliciously nutty Sherries, amongst many others. Some of these are amongst the very finest wines in the world, and just get into your heart and soul when you drink them. This is why I keep coming back again and again to Spain when I buy wine to drink at home – ¡salud!
Browse our full range of Spanish wines now on bbr.com.
There’s something exciting happening at Château Cheval Blanc’s outpost in the Andes. Ahead of the release of 2021 Cheval des Andes as part of our La Place de Bordeaux offer, Charlie Geoghegan finds out more.
“Cheval des Andes is not a traditional Argentinian wine, and it’s not what it was 15 years ago.”
So says Arnaud de Laforcade, financial and commercial director at Château Cheval Blanc – and this, its sibling estate on the other side of the world. He is at No.3 St James’s Street to show us the new 2021 vintage, about to be released through La Place de Bordeaux.
Founded as a joint venture between Cheval Blanc and the Mendoza-based Terrazas de los Andes in 1998, Cheval des Andes has undergone a transformation over the last decade or so.
The estate has 47 hectares of vines, split between two of Mendoza’s most prized areas: Las Compuertas, part of Luján de Cuyo; and a smaller share in Paraje Altamira in the Uco Valley. But until 2014, the wine itself was produced from a broader selection of vines, including some of Terrazas’s best parcels.
Then something changed.
From brand to land
The early 2010s saw greater involvement here from “the new generation at Cheval Blanc”, including Arnaud and his colleague Pierre-Olivier Clouet, technical director-turned-CEO. Things got a little philosophical, and they began to wonder what a joint venture should, or could, be.
Cheval des Andes was a blended wine, assembled with care and precision like a fine Champagne. But this was not the Cheval Blanc team’s forte. “Why would we have any legitimacy in blending in Argentina?” they asked themselves. “We don’t know anything about blends.”
Back in St Emilion, Cheval Blanc is, of course, a blend – of grape varieties and parcels. But the approach to blending there is deceptively simple – and just a little bit radical. Rather than starting with a blank slate and building up, “it’s just taking away the weak plots,” Arnaud says.
It reminds me of marking in the French education system; as friends have described it, the student starts with a possible 20 marks out of 20, and it’s the teacher’s job to remove points from the maximum rather than the inverse.
Pierre-Olivier Clouet once told me that he would use 100% of the grapes at Cheval Blanc for the grand vin there if he could, if the quality allowed. A good vintage in his mind is one where everything is so high in quality that there is simply no second wine. He gets his way sometimes, as he did in 2015 and 2022.
They can afford to do this at Cheval Blanc because the wine comes from a specific place that they know intimately, and over which they have total control. Things operated a little differently at Cheval des Andes, calling for a change – “going from a brand to a growth,” Arnaud says.
A change of pace
And so, with the 2015 vintage, those 47 hectares became the sole grape source for Cheval des Andes. In tandem came a wholesale reconsidering of the vineyard: replanting where necessary and questioning established practices on pruning and picking.
These developments came at a welcome change of pace from Arnaud’s home patch. “In St Emilion, everything moves slowly,” he laments. “In Argentina, there’s a sense of freedom. If you want to change your harvest date, you can.” So they did.
In the past, harvest at Cheval des Andes took place in early May. Now, it’s in early March or even the end of February; it was 4th-19th March in 2021.
You may be able to move fast in Argentina, but that doesn’t mean you do so recklessly. The decision to pick early needs to be made well before harvest, at the beginning of the season. “To have balanced grapes,” Arnaud says, “you need to tell the vines you’ll be picking early.”
Some people will tell you that there’s little to no vintage variation in Argentina. The vagaries of one year, the logic goes, are not all that different from the next – and the impact on the wine is minimal, in any event. Arnaud is not so sure. It may ring true, he says, for those wines where oak and extraction play the key role. Strip out the heavy winemaking hand, though, and you might be surprised: “Start picking earlier, stop all the new oak, increase the size of the ageing vessels and you leave room for nuance, for a more delicate expression of the vintage effect.”
There is one area in which Cheval des Andes sees very little variation: the size of the crop. Cheval Blanc is a not incomparable 39 hectares of vines, though the yield there can vary widely, Arnaud says: “100,000 bottles one year, 40,000 the next.” At Cheval des Andes, they see a far steadier 90-120,000 bottles each year. Arnaud puts this down to the water supply.
The climate in Mendoza is too dry to viably grow grapes without irrigation, he says. Though not permitted in Bordeaux, irrigation is a fact of viticultural life here. Improvements in irrigation at the estate, including the installation of a reservoir and the sparing, targeted approach of drip irrigation (as opposed to the more one-size-fits-all flood irrigation) have helped enormously. Irrigating only when and specifically where it is necessary to do so has given them steadier yields – and a huge improvement in the ripeness level of the Cabernet Sauvignon.
The Bordeaux influence
There is a clear Bordelais influence here – in the approach and in the final wine. Cheval des Andes was conceived in part by Pierre Lurton, among the most significant figures of his generation in Bordeaux. Today it’s overseen by the uber-talented Pierre-Olivier Clouet and Gérald Gabillet, in partnership with the local team.
If you tasted it blind and thought it was a Bordeaux, you could be forgiven. The tannins are refined, there’s a Cabernet-derived leafy note, there’s plenty of spice – and there’s balance. This is a harmonious wine from the off; tasting Cheval des Andes, even the just-released 2021 vintage, is never hard work.
But there’s more to it. This is not just another Bordeaux blend from Argentina, nor is it purely a Cheval Blanc lookalike. The not-so-secret ingredient here is Malbec. Argentinian Malbec is ubiquitous now on supermarket shelves, but the grape itself is native to the South West of France (Cahors rather than nearby Bordeaux, but close enough). It was a significant presence in Bordeaux until Phylloxera and, later, frosts, all but wiped it out. It remains on the books today as a permitted grape for red Bordeaux, though plantings are minuscule. There is, notably, half a hectare of Malbec now planted at Cheval Blanc; watch this space.
The Malbec at Cheval des Andes hits a bit different, though. Malbec makes up just under half the blend in 2021, alongside 49% Cabernet Sauvignon and 3% Petit Verdot. There’s more to Malbec than the over-ripe fruit bomb for which it is sometimes disparaged, Arnaud believes. He likens it, to my surprise, to Pinot Noir: “Earthy, gently floral, relatively low tannins, and a good balance between alcohol and acidity.”
Put it all together, and there’s something very exciting happening at Cheval des Andes. The 2021 is not overly showy at this early stage, more delicate and reserved. But there is a great deal of complexity when you go looking for it. There is beautifully pure fruit, with nicely defined blackberry coulis and blueberry notes, along with dusty dark chocolate and cocoa-powder character. It’s all a bit tightly coiled for now, but there’s spicy black fruit and tobacco ready to reveal itself. An underlying spicy edge is peeking out, though that fruit stands out above all. Fine tannins and lively acidity indicate a bright future.
The 2021 vintage of Cheval des Andes is available on bbr.com.
Rob Whitehead has the unique pleasure of sourcing the world’s best spirits for us, and there’s one style he believes is woefully overlooked: rum. From the rich and fruity to the refined and elegant, the world of rum is every bit as fascinating and varied as whisky. Here, he tells us why he loves rum so much, and why you should too.
Being the Spirits Buyer at Berry Bros. & Rudd is my immense pleasure and privilege. It means I get to work with some of the greatest, most respected and best-loved distilleries in the world. I don’t take that lightly.
Rum is the least explored of the truly great spirits categories. Part of my role is about finding new, smaller and lesser-known producers, alongside the superstars – giving them the love they deserve alongside our other wonderful categories. The world of rum is full of all sorts of producers, right across the spectrum. There are distilleries that have been operating for centuries; others for mere months. There are distilleries operating on truly epic scales of production, fermenting millions of litres; and there are distilleries operating out of sheds and converted stable blocks, garages and farmhouses.
The rum distillery is where the craft and work of the distiller is paramount. There are so many incredible visionaries creating beautiful products tied to the land, keeping as much of that terroir, that soul of the place – trying to translate that from the local sugarcane as closely as possible into the finished drink. But there are also passionate makers producing fine rum thousands of miles away from where it’s even possible to grow sugarcane.
Neither is better or worse, neither is fundamentally the only and correct way to do things. Both have the propensity to make truly world class spirits. The rules surrounding rum production are generally fairly loose, and that allows for a wonderful combination of strict traditional expressions and maverick experimentation right across the globe. There is nothing to stop anyone, anywhere, buying some molasses and making rum – and that’s what makes it all so thrilling.
Over my time working in this ever-blossoming industry, I’ve found rum to be full of fascinating and welcoming producers. Everywhere I go, from Guyana to Stevenage, I’ve found committed, passionate people – wanting to share their home, their heritage, their ideas, their stories.
Rum can be as great and as versatile as any other drink in the world. Styles range from the unaged and spiced to truly fine, top-quality stuff on a par with the world’s most exquisite spirits. After nearly two decades of my time here, the world of fine rum has very gently and slowly started opening up. More people every year are doing exceptional work. There’s just so much to explore. I hope you’ll join me on this journey.
Richard Seale and his team are arguably some of the best rum distillers in the world. Richard has this incredibly mysterious, mercurial genius when it comes to selecting the casks to put together to create a beautiful bottle – and this 15-Year-Old is just impeccable. It’s rum at its most elegant, its most beautifully coiffured and manicured. It’s pristinely made with intelligent production, but with real love for the place and the molasses; real care and attention to what a Barbados rum should be. This is truly the work of a brilliant maker.
Diamond Distillery is the only commercial distillery in Guyana. Here, rums are made in a range of styles: some light, others incredibly dense and rich – with everything in between. What’s interesting here is that they are, unlike some rum distilleries, creating rums on different stills, with different characters. Sean, Sharon and the team here are making incredible spirits with this range of styles. They then put them together and age them in cask, as opposed to ageing each independently. This 9-Year-Old is deep, dark and full of pruney, figgy, chocolatey notes. We have macerated cherries. We have sack loads of spice. We have gooey, treacley toffee – stuff just landing and sticking to the palate. It’s maddeningly complex. Extraordinary distillation, beautiful blending.
Jamaica has a reputation among rum lovers for producing the most characterful and funky styles of rum – much like Islay has among whisky-lovers. This is from Clarendon Estate, who make high-ester, smoky, fascinating expressions. It has a classic Jamaican character: overripe, almost rotten, fruit; gooey, crushed-in-your-hand stone fruits; orchard and citrus fruits; charred, toasted spices. We have thick cane molasses and treacle. It feels impure, far from pristine. This is mucky stuff, but my gosh, it’s wonderful.
