Monthly Archives: June 2011

On Thursday Caviste took to the road to present 18 of our favourite wines for Summer drinking to West Berkshire wine lovers at the Crown & Garter Inn in Inkpen, a stones throw across Hungerford common from the newest of our 3 shops in Hungerford High Street.

Caviste MD Ben Llewelyn was joined by several of the Caviste team and about 50 local residents - such a shame it rained as the beautiful Crown & Garter garden would have been perfect to spill out onto. But rain didn't stop play and a fun, informative and passion-filled evening of wine ensued!

Anyway, as the old adage goes, pictures speak a thousand words, so I'll let Ben tell it from here:

Wine of the Week,  18.06.11: Leirana Albarino Joven 2009 @ £17.95

Rodi Mendez produces a tiny amount of wine in his house above the Galician resort of Sanxenxo in the sub region of Rias BAixas known as Salnes. Rodi, strangely has made his name producing some extraordinary red wines from local varieties (also available at Caviste and recently reviewed in the Guardian), but his Albarino’s are spectacular and we are totally in love with them!

Our wine of the week is the Albarino Joven (he makes a Barrica, single cru and a one using a process involving skin maceration for 6 months!) which has a pure, fresh peach and tropical nose and delicious fruit and acidity on the palate. This is wine that is far greater than the sum of its parts and set to become an icon of the region.

We are hosting our Summer Tasting on the 2^nd of July, 10.30am until 5.30pm, at our Overton shop where we will  be showcasing our latest imports from Burgundy, the Loire, and Australia, as well as our New Wave Spanish range, including a terrific range of every day drinking wines and the following producers, all represented in the UK by our company:

• Forcas del Salnes, Galicia: Famous for his reds, one of which was featured by Fiona Beckitt in the Gaurdian, Rodi Mendez also producers what Tamlin Curren of JancisRobinson.com as one of the best Albarinos she had ever tasted
• Dominio do Bibei, Ribeira Sacra: A firm favourite already boosted by a fabulous write up by Jancis Robinson in the FT, We have the new vintages available and they are as delicious as ever
• Castell d’Encus, Costers del Segre: You may know Susterris, but we will be showing the estate wines which have, in only there second vintage, been given top mark accolades from Tina Atkin MW and Guide Penin and soon to feature in Decanter as one of Steven Spurrier’s spotlight wines.
• Agricola Labastida, Rioja Alavesa: Rioja, but not in the conventional sense, and these wines will arrive in early July, but we feel that the wines that are made by this wonderfully natural, passionate producer will become as sought after as those wines listed above.

Can’t wait to see you there and please, as always, feel free to bring any of your friends who you know appreciate a delicious drop or two!

Caviste has always been known for its great wine range in the shops. Great wines sold by knowledgeable, passionate people that love their wine and delight in sharing those wines with you.

Now we’d like to share that passion, knowledge and even a little fun with even more of you via our new blog. The world of wine is a constantly evolving one, full of interesting, talented people with stories to tell. We’d like to share the Caviste story with you here.

Please do feel free to chip in. We’ve always valued feedback from our customers and never more so than on here. Without your thoughts and comments this is only ever going to be a one way conversation - and that’s no fun at all!

If this blog is the start of a new online adventure then our brand new, all singing all dancing e-commerce enabled web site is the platform that will bring everything about Caviste to life online. The web site went live on the 14^th June. A red letter day for Caviste online!

Our new web site will let you shop online, talk and share info with us online and review the wines you buy and taste online. See and hear what we think of the wines and the people that make them - and what your fellow customers and wine lovers think about them too. There’ll be videos from us and our winemakers and a whole heap of fun and passion for the wines we love. But above all they’ll be lots (and lots!) of superb wines from talented, amazing and very individual winemakers.

You’ll find can find out about all our news first via our blog, Facebook or Twitter.

Our online journey has only just begun and not everything will happen over-night or necessarily at the same time, but we’d most definitely like to have YOUR feedback as we go. Please do follow our journey here, and if you aren’t signed up to our regular newsletter do that right here at the top of the page too. Over the next few months we’ll have plenty to shout about and we want you to be the first to know!

PS
We still have a lot of work to do to produce the web site we want. Our next job is to take some stunning photos of our wines and write more mouth-watering tasting notes to tell you all about them. Right now have a look around and let us know what you think so far…