Wine Club

At one past midnight on the third Thursday of each November, over a million cases of Beaujolais Nouveau begin their journey through a sleeping France to Paris for immediate shipment to all parts of the world. Banners proclaim the good news: Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé! "The New Beaujolais has arrived!" One of the most frivolous and animated rituals in the wine world has begun. By the time it is over, over 65 million bottles, nearly half of the region's total annual production, will be distributed and drunk around the world. It has become a worldwide race to be the first to serve this new wine of the harvest. In doing so, it has been carried by motorcycle, balloon, truck, helicopter, Concorde jet, elephant, runners and rickshaws to get it to its final destination. It is amazing to realise that just weeks before this wine was a cluster of grapes in a growers vineyard. But by an expeditious harvest, a rapid fermentation, and a speedy bottling, all is ready at the midnight hour. A limited number of bottles of Chateau de Belleverne Beaujolais-Villages Nouveau 2025 are now in stock. Order yours now Written by Yannick Loué.

When the demand of a wine exceeds the supply, vineyards sell by an 'allocation' system, and we're amongst the lucky few to have an allocation with the famous Felton Road in New Zealand. Felton Road farms four properties in the Bannockburn sub-region of Central Otago, their 118,400 vines all receive individual, careful attention by hand. The wines are named after the vineyards the grapes have originated from, and are vegan, organic, biodynamic & low in sulphites. The wines labelled Bannockburn are a blend from the four vineyards; Cornish Point, Calvert, MacMuir and The Elms. The Cornish Point vineyard enjoys a unique mesoclimate from being in close proximity to water. The bouquet is particularly intense from this vineyard, wines display dense and dark fruit, with warm and inviting textures from usually softer acidities and rounded, well-formed tannins. The soils at Calvert are deep heavy silts with a thin layer of loess topsoil. The wines have excellent texture and mouthfeel with floral aromatics and ripe dark fruits. The tannins are fine and focused with a distinct minerality. The even soil distribution in the MacMuir vineyard minimises variation within the blocks ensuring consistency of fruit quality and character. The wines exhibit a decadent texture with floral aromatics and ripe dark fruits. The tannins are fine and focused with a distinct minerality in a similar fashion to Calvert. The Elms vineyard has a variation in soil, slope, elevation and aspect; fruit is very varied in personality so is separated into blocks.- Block 3 has a deep bench of silt soil with calcarious seams, these wines show power & complexity.- Block 5 soils vary up the slope from heavy loess to gravels, this generates a unique finesse and depth to the wine. Written by Ele Braund.