Working only with family-owned and independent producers, Wanderlust Wine is fast becoming known for offering a mix of well-known, iconic producers like Famille Perrin and Castello di Ama, alongside smaller, less well known estates that I was keen to discover at the London tasting: family-run projects like Domaine Patrick Baudouin in the Loire; exciting young producers like Quinta da Carolina; and innovative offerings like NON, which is a brand of Australian non-alcoholic beverages.
Mark Haisma - dedicated following
There is much in the range to get buyers excited about, from producers with long-established reputations like Champagne Bruno Paillard, to those with a dedicated following like Mark Haisma in Burgundy, to boutique wineries like Alpamanta in Argentina. While organic viticulture may be the minimum requirement for inclusion, ultimately Wanderlust looks for quality, sustainable wines from around the world.
Here are eight of my standout producers at the tasting:
Newly-acquired library stocks
Famille Perrin needs no real introduction. Now under the management of the fifth generation, the family wine business was founded at the beginning of the twentieth century with the acquisition of legendary Château de Beaucastel in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which has been farmed biodynamically since the 1970s.
Their table at the tasting was busy with buyers looking to try Wanderlust’s newly acquired library stocks, including the concentrated Gigondas Pre-Phylloxera L’Argnée 2018 from very old vines planted on sandy soils; Clos des Tourelles Gigondas 2012 rich with deep dark fruit and silky tannins; and Château de Beaucastel’s Châteauneuf-du-Pape Rouge 2012, a beautifully spiced, intense wine with plenty more years to age, although it was drinking well now.
The wines from Tillingham, near Rye in East Sussex, under new winemaker Salvatore Leone who took over in 2023, are now made in a cleaner style while retaining their appeal to natural wine lovers. Tillingham is a great example of the modern UK winemaking scene – a biodynamic producer with a sustainable outlook, a winery offering tours, a trendy small plates restaurant, and a working farm (I was told the Mangalitza pigs I admired on my last visit may soon turn up at said restaurant in charcuterie form).
The wine range is smaller and more focused than it was under the previous winemaker, with mainly still wines produced from both classic French varieties and German crosses. Made biodynamically, from the 2024 vintage all wines are also produced from estate-grown fruit (so if like me you’re a fan of the textured Pinot Blanc 2023 from Crouch Valley vineyards, snap it up now).
The popular Col Fondo 2023 is an aromatic blend of Bacchus, Ortega and Müller Thurgau, with balanced acidity and floral and pear notes. The tank sample I tried of the Pinot Noir Précoce 2023 was showing lovely bright red fruit and rounded acidity after 18 months in old Burgundy barrels.
Winemaker Dermot Sugrue with two of his finest
Multi award-winning winemaker Dermot Sugrue’s second label Bee Tree by Sugrue focuses on Pinot Noir and Meunier from The Bee Tree single vineyard on clay soils near Haywards Heath, West Sussex. Bee Tree Vineyard Blanc de Noirs 2021 is 70% Pinot Noir and 30% Meunier with delicate blossom on the nose and an explosion of red apple and biscuit on the palate.
The limited production still wine, aptly named Bonkers Chardonnay MV from chalk vineyards on the South Downs was matured on its lees in vats which weren’t completely filled, in order to give some controlled oxidation, before it was blended with some of the 2023 vintage, starting a solera system for future bottlings. Full of caramel baked apple with a slightly nutty oxidative note and a hint of salinity, this is layered and complex now and will become even more interesting with age.
Champagne Bruno Paillard & Château des Sarrins
Romain Plat commercial director Bruno Paillard
Champagne Bruno Paillard was added to the Wanderlust portfolio last year, and the whole breadth of its cuvées, both vintage and non-vintage are now available, alongside its Provence estate, Château des Sarrins.
The linear Blanc de Noirs Extra Brut NV is a beautifully lengthy and fine Pinot Noir from four Grand Cru sites; the Assemblage 2015 with majority Pinot Noir from mainly north-facing sites in the Montagne de Reims shows restrained but powerful red fruit. The top of the range N.P.U. “Nec Plus Ultra” 2009, an extra brut which has had 12 years on the lees, is a treat of tension, richness and length.
The Paillard family bought Château des Sarrins in Côtes de Provence in 1995. Château des Sarrins Rosé Grande Cuvée 2023 perfectly illustrates the “elegance of fruit and minerality” commercial director Romain Plat tells me the Château is looking to show, made without oak to let the intense fruit from low-yielding Grenache, Cinsault, Mourvèdre and Syrah vines speak for itself, resulting in a rosé with depth and complexity.
Castello di Ama's Lorenza Sebasti
Founded in 1978 by four families from Rome, Castello di Ama has become a leading Chianti Classico estate. CEO Lorenza Sebasti, second generation of one of the families, showed me the range of wines including Riservas and a premium, concentrated Merlot.
The Chianti Classico Gran Selezione “San Lorenzo” is the flagship wine, made from only estate-grown fruit, using old vines for complexity. The 2020 shows cherries, berries and spice with ripe tannins, while the 2013 is evolving into more earthy and savoury aromas over the fruit.
Carlos Mazo Gutiérrez from Vinos en Voz Baja
Vinos en Voz Baja, meaning ‘quietly spoken wines’, is a project from husband-and-wife team Carlos Mazo Gutiérrez and Isa Ruiz Marín in Rioja Oriental. They produce an elegant, modern style of Rioja, with nods to tradition with use of rare varieties, field blends and gentle extraction from foot treading. The wines are mainly based on Garnacha, which Mazo believes has a great ability to age.
El Outsider 2023 is so-called for being made with more Tempranillo, a fresh, juicy wine made with whole bunches. Barrio Pastores 2022 is a perfumed, cherry-filled Garnacha with real depth, and Nace La Sierra 2022 is a fantastic, silky blend of Garnacha with rare local varieties Tinta Velasco and Pasera, aged in large foudres.
Luis Pedro Cândido da Silva from Quinta da Carolina
Luis Pedro Cândido da Silva, winemaker for Niepoort, was in London to show the wines from his family winery Quinta da Carolina in the Douro Valley, Portugal, where he took over as winemaker in 2015.
As a sherry lover I couldn’t help but be drawn to Xis 2021, a white field blend (mainly Malvasia Fina) aged under a veil of flor for six months, giving a subtly saline character. Xisto Amarelo 2021, named for the yellow schist soils it is grown on, is a fantastic Touriga Franca showing intense dark fruit, a touch of spice and balanced tannins.
Cândido da Silva was also pouring a wine from ‘NatCool’, the project he founded with Dirk Niepoort to show that natural wines don’t have to be faulty. Niepoort Primata Natcool 2020 is a 1L bottle of an easy drinking red blend perfect for BBQs: “it’s a wine for drinking, not for thinking” Cândido da Silva laughs.
Made from verjus, unfermented grape juice, NON is very clearly not trying to imitate wine, which in my opinion makes for a more interesting non-alcoholic option. Dylan Hayes, brand manager at NON, based in Melbourne, Australia, explains how Semillon grapes from Barossa Valley are picked early, pressed and refrigerated, retaining high acidity. The verjus is then blended with fruit, herbs and spices to create non-alcoholic, non-sweet beverages that can pair well with food.
“We want to think like chefs” Hayes says, “balancing fruit, tannin, acidity and salinity, in the same way chefs think about salt, fat, acid and heat.”
Salinity brings a moreishness to the sparkling rosé NON1 - Salted Raspberry and Chamomile, my favourite of the flavours, while the sparkling orange NON2 – Caramelised Pear, Ginger & Spices is popular with Japanese restaurants, Hayes tells me, for its umami flavours from Japanese seaweed.
In conclusion
The Wanderlust Wine portfolio demonstrates how sustainability and quality can go hand in hand, with a wide range of producers from celebrated classics to exciting discoveries. For trade buyers an added bonus is the flexibility of no minimum order sizes, as well as the guarantee that producers are independent and organic.
For further information contact Wanderlust Wines on 0203 4885258 or through the web https://wanderlustwine.co.uk/
