Ripe grapes
I like wines that make a statement. They may be delicate or big and brooding, dry or intensely sweet, fine and elegant or fruitily simple, but they must be balanced and say something. These wines are made from carefully tended and above all ripe grapes, hence the name of this site. Mass production is generally antithetical to such wines so I look to the small producer, one who knows and works with their land. Value for money is also an important criterion, because I believe that wine should be an everyday pleasure, not a rare treat. So I look for the great craftsman not the star in the limelight.

I have personally chosen all the wines you can buy here. I know where they come from, who makes them, why they work and what I enjoy about them. Consider me as your guide and quality controller. So that you can see how I come to choose a particular wine and what shapes my judgement, I have put up my tasting notes in another section while here you can read about my vineyard visits and my answers to your queries.

Price no barrier
Good wine doesn’t necessarily mean high prices. For instance all the wines I have on offer sell for between four and fifteen pounds. I dislike wines that are a sorry example of their region, made to a price and entirely lacking concentration or character. I also tend to prefer red wine to white, but this is partly because I overwhelmingly see wine as an accompaniment to food.

The areas I cover
I am a tremendous believer in the inherent quality of the Midi. The climate and generally poor soils result in a potential for wines with ripeness and above all great natural balance; they neither need sugar to bolster body (as in Burgundy, or even Bordeaux), nor acidification to make them fresh (as in the warmer parts of Australia and California), nor irrigation to survive (as in most of Chile).

I also admire and enjoy the wines of the central Loire, and in particular the underrated Chenin Blanc grape which is capable of some of the most extraordinary wines of the world. I don’t feel that I have to cover all or any particular area, but I choose wines for what they say to me and if I think that they are good value for money. The range is small but growing. Above all I really like the wines.

I am open to wines from any area, but find that some areas are making wines that either do not excite me or that are too expensive for what they are. Bordeaux, outside of the very top wines, is not an area that I can enthuse about at present.
Piedmont and Tuscany are fantastic, but I find the prices generally just too high. Areas much further afield present difficulties in shipping the smaller quantities that small producers make.