Lockdown Wine Diaries Week 1: St John Bread & Wine

Hope you are all keeping well – what strange times we find ourselves in!

As all my upcoming tasting events have been cancelled, I thought it was an opportune moment to dust off my, somewhat underused, blog and post a few reviews of wines I’ve had delivered to my door.  There are a lot of independent wine merchants and restaurants trying to keep afloat by offering wines and food for delivery, so it seems a great time to sample what is on offer.

I don’t know if any of you have visited the amazing St John Bread & Wine, founded by characterful pair, Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver.  Cheerleaders of nose to tail eating, they run several fabulously good restaurants and, as the name implies, they sell excellent bread and wine.  Their original restaurant in Farringdon is certainly on my top 10 list of ‘must re-visit’ when this confinement is eventually over.

Before you all shout “but what about the lovely local indies in the North”, I’m ahead of you there.  My burgeoning wine racks are full to bursting with orders from local merchants too – you’ll have to read my next few blogs.

This isn’t a blow by blow account with detailed tasting notes of each wine.  For a start, I only have one liver and I’ve ordered quite a lot.  This is more of an ‘in a nutshell’ round up and focus on what I liked the best (hoping that you might too).  From the top, in order of preference, with an focus on enjoyment and value for money:

St John Cabernet Syrah 2017 Bag in Box £38 for 3l

To my shame, I don’t buy much bag-in-box wine.   A bit daft really as BIB wines are a more ‘environmentally friendly’ option compared with the manufacture and shipping of wine in traditional glass bottles.  When you can find them at all, most of the actual boxes don’t look very appealing, to be honest.  However, the very jolly St John pig logo on the front of their 3l box of Cabernet, Syrah is an exception to the rule.  Whilst this wine is fruity, easy drinking and quite delicious, it has real signs of quality.  It is produced in the South of France (I think just North of Montpellier).  It was a great match with a number of meaty meals and would be perfect with a mid-week pasta (for those fortunate enough to have pasta in your store cupboard). Anyway, try it for yourself.  It is, surprisingly, my favorite of the haul so far, albeit I’ve not got round to opening the claret yet.

I also bought:

St John Crémant de Limoux 2017 £17.25

Lovely fizz from Limoux (the clue is in the name) made using a blend of Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc.  There is an ongoing argument about which area of France was the first to make sparkling wine and Limoux seems to be claiming that victory.  Some of the wines are made using the Mauzac grape (labelled Blanquette de Limoux).  Crémant is definitely ‘having a moment’ and compared with Champagne, is great value.  This is a brut style, so you might wince if you’ve got a ‘Prosecco’ tooth.  I liked it a lot.

St John Macon Villages 2017 £17.00

A white from Burgundy, but a bit further down from the famous areas such as Meursault etc., so better value for money (yes, really).  Made with Chardonnay of course.

St John Claret 2017 £14.00

A red from Bordeaux, which should be fruity and a great food wine as it is usually dominated by Merlot, but can be blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.  Currently languishing in my wine rack.  I’ll post something on Twitter when I open it.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the newly resurrected blog – it has certainly given me something to do, other than organising my sock drawer.  If you ever need any help, have a burning question about wine or food and wine matching, please do drop me an e-mail.  It would be lovely to hear from you, well, anyone actually.

Take care of yourselves and drink great wine.