Some wine shows we didn't write up at the time # 2, London Wine Fair 2025

 

London Wine Fair 2025

There are always some left field wines at the LWF and 2025 was no exception.

 

 

At the Japanese Liquor Store stand, our first Japanese Red wine.

Bailey A Dry

 

Our first Japanese red wine.

The label says ' "Fox Village is the name of the winery in Japan which is located in Yamanashi prefecture, famous for its grape (sic) and winemaking."

It claims Muscat Bailey A is native to Japan.

Bailey A or more properly Muscat Bailey A is the main grape for Japanese red wines. It is a Japanese hybrid obtained in 1927 from Triumph and Extra where Triumph is not Triomph d'Alsace but a Seibel product and Extra is a Big Berry and Triumph hybrid. Big Berry is a Vitis Lincecumii grapevine found by one Thomas Volney Munson (1843 - 1903) in the US. Why on earth it was found necessary to choose this unbelievably involved and obscure grape to combat the difficult climate of Japan is hard to imagine. Suffice it to say this wine tasted like wine. 

If you would like to taste Japanese Muscat Bailey A, you can buy a bottle from the Japan Centre in London, 35A Panton St. SW1Y 4EA at £65 a bottle. They also have a Koshu at £35.

 

There was also a Japanese Sparkling wine called Bloom made with Chardonnay, Pinot Noir...and...Sake (8%)! That was original, to be sure.
 

 

 On to China.

 Not so original Cabernet Franc.

 

 Interesting Franco-Chinese initiative: Marselan with bits of Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache.

 

 On to Kosovo or Kosova as they call it

 

 

here we though we had discovered a Kosovan variety hitherto unknown to anyone but Kallmet just turns out to be their synonym for Kadarka.

 

 

It was interesting to see they grow Fleurtai and Cabernet Volos in Kosova. 

 

 It always seems miraculous to see Ukraine at these shows but here they were in force.

 Serbia has some good producers. We looked in vain for our favourite Oszkar Maurer.

 

 

 Good to see Israel represented. Feldstein's Dabouki/Marawi/Jandali is a real rarity. 

Their Gilgamesh is a Carignan, Argaman, Syrah, Cab S, and Grenache blend.

Kedem is big in Kosher wine worldwide.

 

 All in all a good event in 2025.

 

 

 

The strange case of the English Samso

 

On one of our periodic trips to Cornwall we paid a visit to Porthleven and were glad we did. Excellent nosh at The Square, exciting breakers rolling in outside the inner harbour soaking walkers with spray (fun to watch) and generally pleasurable atmosphere. They do say though that it gets rammed in summer with people some of which are pretty yobbish.

A short stroll up the hill we came across a so-called Bottle Shop 'Bolla.' No idea if this is named after the renowned Veneto producer of the same name but whatever, it looked interesting with people eating in the front and indeed, quite a few bottles on the side.

Among these there were three bottles under the heading 'English Red' that looked mysterious. The labels gave nothing away so we asked at the counter and were referred to a very pleasant lady who despite having the air of someone about to leave in a hurry kindly informed is that the bottle on the left was Cabernet Franc, the one in the middle was 'a blend,' she knew not what of and the one on the right was (wait for it) Samso! I asked if the Cab Franc and Samso were grown in England, maybe in Polytunnels but she wasn't sure. She was kind enough to give us a 20% 'End of Season' discount which was appreciated.

Even so these three were not cheap but we absolutely had to have the English Samso. Samso is a Spanish synonym for Cinsault by the way but never matter.

Further examination of the label was tricky. You needed a microscope but armed with a magnifying glass we were able to make out the words Ham Street Wines. Firing off an emeail to them we got a reply from 'Lucy' by return saying they didn't grow Samso and the wine was Pinot Meunier.

Pinot Meunier is one of our favourites so we were happy even though a Samso gown in England with or without a Polytunnel would have been quite something.

How to make wine from a couple of vines in your garden

 

People have been asking if they should try to make wine from vines in their garden. Most often these vines have come with the house and grow up pergolas or on terraces. Their origin is probably lost in time. Even if bought from a garden centre people don't remember what the variety is.

If the grapes taste sweet the thought arises 'why not make wine,' That's where things usually come to an end but they needn't do because making wine with household equipment couldn't be easier.

Everything must be kept clean. Note rubber gloves

First pick your grapes. If there are both white and red, no worries. You can make a 'Blouge' unless you have enough to make two vinifications, one for red and one for white. However, quantity is important as we shall see.

De-stem the grapes. This is not essential but preferable. Doing this also gives you the opportunity for quality control. 

Throw away any dubious ones. De-stemming can be done by hand. It takes a while but is quite therapeutic.

Boots for treading.

Next, crush the grapes either by treading them in a sanitized bucket (use Milton sterilizer for example - widely available for sterilizing babies' bottles). You can use your bare feet. We wear these boots bought in Venice for the Acqua Alta by common request. Otherwise you can put the grapes in a clean baking tray and bash with a potato masher.

Once the grapes start to look more like porridge than berries, you will need to press the grapes in order to obtain the juice. 

Potato basher (left) and Ricer

You could do this by putting them through a ricer or one of those hand cranked food mills.

  

That's all folks.

The 'cake'

Once you have the juice (and this might be less than you imagined), wash, clean out and sterilize one large and one small empty water bottle and pour the juice into them. This is where quantity comes in because you will need a bit more juice to top up the main bottle when it comes to racking as we shall see.

The next bit might involve you in buying a couple of airlocks and bungs. This is easy to do online and costs flumpence. Keep the grapejuice airtight with the bottle tops screwed tightly in while waiting for your order to arrive or make an airlock yourself. Check instructions on You Tube, There are a number of very boring videos telling you how to do this.

After a couple of days the juice might start bubbling producing satisfying burps in your airlock. This is the time to rack the juice off what is called the Gross Lees which will have collected in the bottom of the bottle. Just pour the juice into another bottle or container having sterilized these previously and pour the gunk down the sink, You can return the clean juice to the bottle and top up with juice from the auxiliary (smaller) bottle. Be sure to leave some headroom because the juice will well up during fermentation.

You may rack the juice once or twice again at some later point but basically just leave the juice to turn into wine which it will do miraculously in a couple of months.

The resulting wine may be delicious or not  but it will be yours.

In praise of Uncorked

 

You may think you know all the good wine shops in town but then another emerges. Not a new one, a shop that has been there all the time but you just haven't come across it yet.

Uncorked is in the City, well inside the Square Mile. Copthall Avenue EC2 is narrow street with no parking so we hadn't ever driven past or had any pretext to go there. Now we have because it is a very interesting destination. 

Thanks to Winesearcher we identified Uncorked as the nearest place we could get our hands on a bottle of Ferraris' Ruche. It's a while back so we don't remember which source was singing the praises of Ruche but we remembered we hadn't been impressed that one time we gave it a try.

'Ruche not OK' was what we wrote, perhaps unfairly?

Checking 'Native Italian Grape Varieties (by Ian D'Agata), we read that one of the best producers was Ferraris, hence our foray to Cophall Avenue.

The shop is a treasure trove of interesting wines. The two gentlemen presiding were very well informed and we came away with not just our Ruche but a Mersequera and a bottle of Cincinnato's Nero Buono to replace the one we had bought in Rome. We could have bought so much more.

We had enjoyed a Merseguera at Yarza Restaurant in Valencia and wanted to see if this variety is good in general or only in the case of that bottle. El Enhebro's Merseguera might have been blended with Verdil. It was not the same. 'Good enough but not enough good' as they say in Russia. 

As for the Ruche, on opening the bottle we thought we were getting the 'Ruche not OK' confirmation so tannic and unlovely was the impression. However, by the next evening a transformation had taken place and the wine was simply gorgeous. Never have we experienced such a transformation thanks to a little bit of oxygen. It just shows.

Back in the low countries

 

Note the hour glass in Death's hand. He doesn't seem interested in the smoker.

In the exhibition of women artists at the MSK,  Ghent ('Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam 1600 - 1750) we discovered Judith Leyster (1609 - 1660) and many others who were outstanding painters. This cautionary image was painted in 1629. 

Interestingly glass wine bottles only became common at exactly this time. The squat shape is also typical of the era. The smoker has a tankard.

 

A more modern masterpiece was de Linie's blend of Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Gewuertztraminer and Pinot Blanc at the Hemmelse Modder Restaurant in Amsterdam. The restaurant's name translates as 'Heavenly Mud.' In this case it was a matter of Hemmelse Wijn.

De Line is in Brabant, North Holland. It was founded by Marius van Stokkom in 1977. He was one of the first modern winemakers in the Netherlands. In the beginning he selected 7 suitable varieties from a total of 40. Between 1980s and 2010s, De Linie grew into a professional winery with approximately 4,500 vines and a production of 5,000–7,000 bottles per year. Marius' white wine was the first Dutch wine served in KLM's business class.

 

The jolly drinker also by Judith Leyster.