It was with great pleasure that I opened an email two weeks ago inviting
me to the first official Vivino meet up. I had been to an unofficial
one last year with nine other members which I documented in my previous
blog. This time 25 of us were invited and it was held at London Cru in SW London. I
had visited there before to look at potential wines to add on to the
Buster Mantis wine list (I chose the Bacchus and you can buy it for £25
in Buster Mantis now) but I was impressed with the general quality of
the wines. The concept for me is a bit crazy, going hundreds, if not
thousands of miles to pick grapes and then transport them back in a
refrigerated truck to produce the wine in London, but they have a very
savvy wine maker Gavin Monery and to me the Bacchus makes real sense as
the grapes are grown in Kent and then the wine made at London Cru. The
novelty of this enough would be a selling point but their Bacchus really is one
of the best I have tried. See my Vivino review
here.
On the right, is my favourite, the Bacchus. The Barbera was also a lovely fruity
well balanced wine, and trying the Albarino (middle, looks like apple juice)
mid-fermentation was fun, I could actually happily drink it like that but am
excited to try it when it has fully fermented.
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Where the magic happens!
The press
Some old and new oak barrels, some red and the Chardonnay is oaked.
Here are some of their other wines:
And another of the standout wines was their older Syrah, it was really getting some bottle aging depth.
It was fun to go back, but I unfortunately had to miss the first part as I was working, but catching up with my fellow Vivino users was great and meeting Adrian Smith our UK Ambassador was a pleasure and I have a new Vivino corkscrew!
Some of us popped to the pub across the road after and we were greatly amused by The Fairview Wine Estate wine "Goats do Roam" (Côtes du Rhône, geddit?!). Is a very pleasant wine too!
I had heard about their French region play-on-words-wines that they developed following the success of Goats do Roam in the export market. The goat theme isn't entirely random, they have a farm that produces goats' cheese. They now currently have 'Goats in Villages', 'Goat-Roti', 'Goat Door' and my new favourite (name, as haven't tried the wine) 'Bored Doe'. Fair play Fairview!
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