Harrogate Fine Wine Journal

New Germans

We have just took an exciting range of new German wines, they are rather top end but for the quality they are still pretty well priced.

Von Kasselstatt Josephshofer Kabinett 2006 £14.99
JJ Prum Bernkasteler Badstube feinherb Spatlese 2005 £24.99
Maximin Grunhauser Abtsberg Kabinett 2006 £18.99
Egon Muller Scharzhofberger Kabinett 2004 £27.99
Egon Muller Scharzhofberger Kabinett 1997 £28.99

The Muller 2004 is still a tad young for us and will be better in another couple of years.

The Muller 1997 is outstanding.

Don’t hang around if you fancy any of the above as they may not be around for long, they seem to have a habit of finding there way home with us.

Gigondas, Les Pallieres...

Yesterday we had a visit from Daniel Brunier from the great Gigondas estate of Les Pallieres and we were fortunate to taste through a selection of his recent vintages.

We started off with the 2005 (£17.99) very youthful fruit with more than a touch of tannin, very young at the moment. Dig in, in another 3 years or so and will easily last for 10 years plus.

The we tasted the 2004 (£17.99) this was just showing the first signs of losing its youthful fruit, still has the strong tannins but was showing very well. Still needs a bit of time or a good couple of hours in jug. Pretty much text book stuff.

Finally we tasted the 2003 (£17.99), this was a very warm summer with no rain at all. The vines here are over 60 years of age and this clearly helped. The wine it bigger more concentrated, with little riper fruit and some big tannins. This is certainly a powerful wine.

The 2004 shaded it for us but the 2003 or 2005 will be available by the case if anybody was especially after one of them.

The 2004 should be with us early May.

Reidel Glasses



We have just had confirmation of the price increases from Reidel. Again the strong Euro has had an effect.

The Vinum range is going to see a £2 per glass increase, Bordeaux are going to be £16.95 each and Chablis are going to be £14.95.

We have an order coming in over the next week or so, which will be at the old price.

So if you had planned on getting some in the near future then pop in before the end of April to take advantage of the old price.