Marmalade Mad

Tasting marmalades is harder than tasting wines. Spitting out is frowned upon in jam circles. Twenty four teaspoonfuls of marmalade and I was feeling quite queasy.

Dalemain Marmalade Festival at Dalemain House between Penrith and Ullswater drew big crowds this year and raised a lot of money for the local Hospice. Chris Evans on Radio 2 certainly helped. And, unusually, it didn't rain.

I had to present our prize to the winner - Christine Waters from Taunton - of the 'Merry Marmalade' category for the whisky-laced pots. I didn't, sadly, get to taste these but was on the panel judging the 'Marmal..Ashes': a special competition between Australian and English.

We avoided an early England collapse thanks to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's Tawny job, but most of the rest of the team then threw the match with their obsession for putting weird stuff in with their oranges; elderflower, ginger, 5 spice, treacle, chocolate!!!

The Aussies on the other seemed very clear that Marmalade is made of Citrus fruit and sugar for spreading on your morning toast. Like their wines, Aussie jams are very fruit-driven, they also all set properly and were well turned out in national colours. Man of the match was an incredibly deliciously intense pure Lime job … got a perfect score.

It was a whitewash.

The nausea was then helped when a chap came up and offered a bottle of his new Lake District gin … that sedated the stomach nicely.

There were lots of stalls selling local farm foods. John Kemp and Martin Campion pouring some of our wines, the village children singing the marmalade song and it was just Britain at its batty best. B and I loved it all and hope to be invited back. Well done Jane … and thanks.

Down with the ‘Death Buckets’

I just gave my support to this campaign to try and get bars to stop putting wine into those huge 250ml glasses – known as 'Death Buckets'.

This may seem an odd move from someone who has spent a long career encouraging wine drinking.

Well, yes, but I have also spent a long time writing about how to get the best out of wine and gulping down half pints of the stuff, is neither healthy nor a way to get the best out of wine.

The entire motivation of good winemakers (and people like me who really want to be good winemakers but settle for just selling good wine) … is to make their wine more and more delicious. So delicious that it is necessary to sip it sloooowly. So delicious it is just wasteful to swallow it quickly.

250ml buckets are just a way to sell mediocre wine. "Never mind the quality, just sluice the tonsils".

Let me be quite clear; I like big glassware; they are wonderful Flavour Amplifiers. I just don't like the pub habit of filling them to the brim.

The way I was taught. In France. Just a little wine, big swirl, big inhale. Ahhhhh! The dancing flavours … a little blessed spot of our planet's surface, a most remarkable and courageous plant and someone's toil, passion and talent. Life is good at such moments. Why cut it short?

SWS. Sip wine slowly. Live longer.

Thirsty? There's this great stuff called beer. And British beer is getting better and better. Check out your local micro today.

It’s clear that if the Wine Trade doesn't voluntarily abandon the practice of Larging It Up, the Government Will Act. And nobody wants that!

Laithwaites 'Legacy Vision'

Just in case anyone is interested, this is what we debated and argued a bit about last week.

We want to be the Best Wine Merchant in the World. Years ago we were labelled 'The Most Successful Wine Merchant on the Planet' but we'd really prefer 'Best' so that's what we are aiming at. Why not? So what must we do to get there?

1) STAY DEEPLY EMBEDDED … We've decided we'll be alright in 2020 if we remember always we must continue to spend plenty of time in vineyards and cellars – both our own and those of our wine producers. It’s always been our way since the 'one man and his van days' and it must always be so. A wine importer can just sit in an office and buy all the wine they need on the phone. I could've done that. But we actually go to the vineyards – always have, always will. The more we know, the better we can do our job. It makes a difference … that you can always taste. So, even more travels.


2) SHARE MORE OF THE EXCITEMENT … We do think we should do more to share the excitement of our vineyard visits – new vintages, new wines etc – with our customers. Wine is much more than a nice taste or a pretty bottle on a shelf; we need to be an all-singing, all-dancing wine circus sort of Company: putting on terrific wine events and experiences; introducing wine producers to wine drinkers; making wine really come alive. So … more shows, more events in more places.

3) KEEP ON WINNING THE TRUST … Of course, it goes without saying that we have to keep up – even improve on – our reputation with our customers. You must see that we always play straight, and that we treasure the long-lasting relationships we enjoy with you. This business only really works if it's 'for life'. We should do even more special stuff for those customers who have been with us for years.

4) EARN MORE RESPECT … This should mean we'll then earn more respect, not only from customers and suppliers, but from the whole wine world. Even journalists. No-one beats us for our expertise, knowledge and hard work. But more people need to know this. Means I must talk to journalists. Start today!

5) STAY FREE … We want – intend – to stay free and independent … to remain totally owned by the family, more or less debt-free – and beholden to none.

6) BE STRONGER … We could always be stronger … tough, resilient, and independent. We must never stop growing healthily and sustainably in interesting ways. Keep on attracting more of the sort of talented young people we have been getting lots of lately. Aim to be the Wine Company talented people would most like to work for.

7) PASS THE BATON CAREFULLY … Finally, nobody here being immortal, we must ensure the baton gets passed on smoothly. Ensure today that the next generation is keen and equipped to take over tomorrow.

8) STAY UP TO DATE … (which is getting beyond some of us already!)

That's it. Blueprint for the next eight years. What d'ya think, then? Any suggestions?

Barbara in the Vineyard

Stopped writing today. A cry for help. Have come to help B in her vineyard. She's finished all the pruning. Now the job is to pull the cuttings off the wire and burn them in the Brouette de Taille. This is an old oil drum, cut open, and fixed to a wheelbarrow chassis. It’s a mobile bonfire. The heat it gives off is most welcome today. But the work!!!!

B is finding that pulling the wood away from the wire is exhausting. Me too. Vines are very clingy. They have tendrils everywhere. It’s like being in a fight. For hours. Anyone in need of a serious upper body workout should call us!

2020 … and other visions

It’s been a month of big two-day meetings. Normally not a favourite pastime of mine (I'd usually prefer poking around cellars in France – wouldn't anyone?) but this time they were all excellent.

Post Christmas – especially after a really good one for the Company – is the time to plan ahead. In a relatively quiet month, with the Big Months of the year nicely under our belts, we can make bold plans.

‘Recruit lots of wildly imaginative, clever and energetic young people, scatter them around the globe, then drag them back and cram them together in a small room for a couple of days and see what happens’ seems to be CEO Simon's way of working.

Meeting 1. Having all our overseas Laithwaites companies fly home for a week with tales of how they are making a success (with the odd failure – you're not really trying if you don't have failures) in their often very different markets. We got shown loads more wine ideas than last year. They seem to be ramping up exponentially. It’s like nuclear fission. Ideas bounce off each other and multiply fast.

Also, when you're selling US wines to Americans, Australian wines to Aussies, German wines to Germans, they had better be good wines and great deals. Or else. Many of these we can also acquire for the benefit of our UK customers.

It’s not all one way; they've successfully introduced Americans to English sparkling wine! Must try that in Oz!

Meeting 2. Following this, we finally corralled all our buyers in one room for two days and made them stand up and tell us all their recent 'finds'. Then we had a bit of a free-for-all argument on what the best deals were. There were fights. Our buyers are all accomplished linguists and deeply embedded in and passionate about 'their' countries

But … we now have an 'embarras de richesses'. Don't know how we are going to cram all these deals into our already large catalogues. But we'll try. Wine buying in an uncertain world can be very rewarding for the smart, fleet-of-foot, and well-connected wine buyer.

The only thing is the oversupply situation is coming to an end, generally, as cautious producers cut back production. But then … maybe time to try further afield? Next month we've Turkish, Indian, Greek, lots of Portuguese, and even Bulgarian – not been there since the glory days of Bulgarian Cabernet in the late 1970's when we sold little else! (You can read about that trip in my post from 30 March last year.) Lots more like that to come.

Meeting 3. The last pair of days was spent planning the future. Well, trying to. We are looking at our 2020 Vision. Our sons and our youthful team will be leading the charge but Barbara and I have every intention (God willing) of still being well-involved in our business eight years ahead. So we all need to work out, now, roughly, where they are going.

Lots of paper was produced. Not waffly. Concrete ambitions. Tomorrow, I'll try and provide a short version of Laithwaites’ 2020 Vision.

40 years on; Eddie Kentish returns!

In 1970 or '71, just after I and Barbara had started up our business in Railway Arch 36 under Windsor station, a chap used to call in regularly from somewhere near Chelmsford. He bought quite a lot. Last week the delightful Eddie Kentish sent back three boxes of old, dusty bottles!

It wasn't that he was unhappy with the wine, he assured me, just that he thought I might like to have these examples of my early endeavours.

And indeed I would. I have put them down in my deepest cellar. This is where I rarely go, it’s covered in dust and cobwebs and is kept locked safe from my sons. There's liquid history down there.

Eddie sent a note:
"I had nothing to go by with the wines enclosed as I don’t think you printed a list in those early days so you will have to take pot luck with what you find. I am sure you will find a few old chestnuts to take you down memory lane. So I hope you get as much pleasure going through them as I had packing them. I hope you will accept these as a free gift and make my day. Wishing you, your family and staff a very happy and prosperous New Year."

Made HIS day! Well, you certainly made mine, Eddie.

Writing this, kneeling in the dust to unpack:
Château Bourseau '69 from Jean Bernard in Lalande de Pomerol - he also had Ch. Matras in Saint-Emilion. And a nice daughter.

Château Baudron from Jean Boireau – used to run the co-op cellar in Montagne - and Madiran '71 from the Laplace family … that was a wonderful discovery. I can still see in my mind the whole family; Grandfather, parents and children all in the yard together bottling, labelling and boxing on a fine frosty morning forty years ago.

A Côtes de Duras from the Co-op. No vintage on the label but would have been '69 probably. I was the first to do that appellation … long, long before that village got taken over by British ex-pats. It was a wine to drink young … and cold … they were trying to capture a bit of the Beaujolais market I remember. Mmm. Wonder what it’s like now. Maybe I won't open that one.

Many more Bordeaux châteaux.

But the stars are three magnums of Château d'Arche Cru Sauternes '69 from back when it was still owned by Monsieur Bastit Saint Martin. He was a very 'Vieille France', courteous and kind man. Invited the scruffy English boy in the van to stay for an elegant lunch. He put the magnums in individual wooden boxes and stamped my Company name on the side; 'Bordeaux Direct'. I remember being very proud. I think Eddie bought a whole load.

I have been ferociously busy so far this year … six long days of meetings and the rest – scribble, scribble, scribble. It’s nice but knackering for an old geezer. But today I'm off till a supper with CEO Simon tonight to discuss the future plans … Plans for way ahead when it’s our sons leading the charge. So it’s poignant and timely, this morning, to be down in the dark and damp – just like the old Arch – unpacking bottles I packed forty years ago.

I don't know why Eddie didn't drink them. But I'm glad he didn't and was kind enough to give them back to me. He says he wants nothing in return, but I'm going to send him at least a case of something very nice indeed. But a bit younger.

People who don't know me or my Company sometimes claim I'm some sort of hard businessman … 'mogul' even! And that this diary is written for me by a marketing department.

They simply have no idea. I actually am as soft as I sound. Particularly this morning, thinking of long-gone friends.