Took a quick trip down to Berry Bros. & Rudd (BBR) today. Lucy needed to 
drop off a shirt for one of her clients in St James’s so a good excuse for me to visit the grandest wine store in London.
BBR is Britain’s oldest wine merchant and they have a great back-story. The company was established in 1698 by the Widow Bourne at 3 St James’s Street in London (opposite St James’s Palace) and they’ve been there ever since. On the outside they may seem like the most traditional of traditional Wine Merchants – after all these are the fellas that have been supplying the big house at the end of the Mall since 1903 and currently hold two Royal Warrants for The Queen and The Prince of Wales. However, they are also innovators and are the undisputed Kings of wine on-line in the UK.
When I found myself immersed in the daily grind of development hell at The Wine Society, I often wistfully looked over at BBR with a huge dollop of green envy. They were well ahead of the curve when it came to the web (launching in 1994) and they continued to embrace on-line advances with podcasks (OK lets forgive them the pun) interactive content, and brilliant blogging. Check out their “wine pronunciation” guide if you want to sound like Gordon Kaye.
BBR definitely exist in fine wine terroir and, although much of their offering may be out of the price range of regular drinkers, it’s the place to go if you’re looking for something a bit special either for yourself or as a gift. I received a Gevrey-Chambertin AOC Vielles Vignes, Dugat-PY 2004 as a wedding gift from my work colleagues from Liberty this summer and the wooden box it was packaged in will remain lodged my wine rack for a good few years yet.
For me Berry’s is the place I go to when I’m in the market for Ridge Geyserville or Lytton Springs and it’s also the place for Chateau Batailley – always dominant in their tag cloud and it feels like they stock every vintage from the past 20 years.
Today I plumped for California – a Frogs Leap Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 from the Napa Valley. I think I’ll take it down to Dorset this weekend and take it round to share with the best man, and a review will follow.
