With so many wines to choose from, how do you select the wines you sell at Bedales?
I aim to promote delicious, tasty, unmediated wines; diversity of style and indigenous grape varieties; the endeavours of small independent growers; and the importance of sustainable, organic viticulture. I always work from the point of view of understanding the wine by trying to understand the country, the region, the microclimate, the vineyard and the grower. Every wine tells a story.
The future, we believe, lies in reacquainting ourselves with "real wines", seeking out and preserving the unusual, the distinctive and the avowedly individual. I therefore applaud growers and estates who work the land and harvest by hand, those who apply sensitive organic sustainable solutions and achieve biodiversity whatever the struggle.
What is your favourite wine?
In the last couple of years I have assembled a selection of "Italian dreamers", a group of growers dedicated to producing wines of purity and individuality, who are not only perfectionists and passionate about their own wines but also fine ambassadors for their respective regions. My idea was to represent growers from both Italy's classic and lesser-seen regions. From the Alpine valleys of Valle d'Aosta to its baking southern Mediterranean coast Italy is many countries with a fascinating diversity of cultures, climates and winestyles. It is our intention to demonstrate the Italian wines can match the French for regional diversity and sensitivity to soil. But if I had to choose one it would be, LA MONACESCA, ALDO CIFOLA, MATELICA, Marche.
The Matelica zone is inland and at higher altitude (450 metres above sea level) than the better-known and larger Castelli de Jesi. La Monacesca (Italian for monastery) was established by Casimiro Cifola in 1966 and is now run by his son Aldo. For many years the estate has been producing a range of high quality white wines, and the Cifolas are now considered by some among the best white wine producers in the whole of Italy, not just the Marche. Their estate is located in the largely inaccessible region of Matelica, in the Marche region of central Italy. On the cru the bouquet bequeaths subtle scents of acacia flowers, apples, sun-dried fruit and hazelnut and even notes of melon and citrus. The length of the wine is amazing. The Mirum, meanwhile, is an extraordinarily complex, rich dry wine. It is produced from late-harvest grapes, from old vines, which remain on its lees for a total of 18 months, easily confusable with top Chablis, sharing excellent structure and power yet elegance of fruit. La Monacesca's wine represents outstanding value for money.
"It is time to reclaim wine as something individual, pleasurable and occasionally extraordinary"
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