From Hérault to Hull

We really have been to Hull and back this week. A couple of days on the road and by rail visiting suppliers up and down the country swirling, sniffing and spitting our way to finding some excellent new wines for you to enjoy this year.

At our suppliers in Yorkshire it was great to come face to face with the man behind so many of our best selling wines. ‘Monsieur Beltie’, or Frédéric Garrabou to give him his real name, is the man who makes the two Big Beltie wines as well as Coquille de Fleur among other great wines from the South of France. 

His company, LGI, produces a number of styles of wines from across France’s biggest wine producing region, the Languedoc-Roussillon, both in terms of volume of wine made there and its vast surface area. A region that produces different styles of wines from all sorts of different grape varieties, it could be said the Languedoc-Roussillon is something of a blank canvas for producers, unrestricted, in the most part, as to what and how they make their wines.

LGI’s portfolio boasts an excellent selection of wines from across this region typifying just that. 

Fred himself comes from a family of winemakers and growing up in Limoux helping out in the vineyards as a youngster he followed in both his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps. His role at the company is as one of three head winemakers using his knowledge and expertise to create brilliant wines. An affable gentleman, it was a pleasure to spend some time in his company and talk shop with him as well as sampling some of his wines.

With Fred, we tasted the new vintage of Coquille de Fleur, our best selling rosé, and it is as delicious as previous years; light, fresh and full of fabulous fruity notes of raspberries and strawberries. We are looking forward to bringing that to you soon, meanwhile, the current 2024 vintage is as marvellous as ever. We’ve seen a few flashes of favourable weather this week, so how about celebrating early Spring’s arrival with a drop of bottled sunshine?