Diminishing returns?

[Winot]

A group of us are just starting to get into wine.  We have visited the south of France for the last three years (Gigondas; Les Baux de Provence; Minervois) and are heading for Coteaux de Langedoc this year.  All good value stuff.  

From our student days of Bulgarian cab. sauv. at £2.99 we have now progressed to £10-20 bottles and the difference in quality is notable.  We are sceptical however that our palates are sufficiently refined (at least without formal training) to appreciate more expensive stuff.  What we want to do therefore is to line up three bottles at, say, £10, £30 and £60 so that we can taste what the extra money buys us.

Ideally, we would like to go for a taste that we are familiar with (ie syrah/grenache/mourvedre).  The difficulty we are facing is that there seems to be nowhere (in central London) that sells decent stuff of this type that is drinking now.  Suggestions please of places and wines...

[Tonyfinch]

By " places" do you mean wine bars or do you mean wine shops and merchants?

I'd strongly advise you to purchase the wines and carry out your tastings at home.Apart from the much cheaper cost you'll have complete control over atmosphere,timing,what foods to try with the wines etc.

If you really want to do this in a wine bar in Central London I'd suggest a discussion with  Don Hewitson,the owner of The Cork and Bottle in Leicester Square, who is well known for being passionately caring about the wines he serves.

[Winot]

Tony,

Yes -- sorry -- by "places" I meant shops rather than wine bars.  I agree with you that home tasting would be preferable.

I posted this request to the Strat's Place board also and received a very useful reply from their wine expert, Rogov:

http://stratsplace.zeroforum.com/zerothread?id=642

Any other recs gratefully received.

[Tonyfinch]

BBR are good merchants but their wines are nearly always more expensive than the same wines purchased elsewhere.Having said that they are in Central London and you do get that good ol'fashioned personal service,so maybe its worth it to you to pay the extra.In the same street of course is Justerini & Brooks-similar type of merchant.It might be interesting to compare what they have to offer.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Winot-Jamie Goode has a very good list of wine resources in London on his website, Wine Anorak. I'm not sure of the URL but I'm sure you can get it through a Google search. But off the top of my head, good shops for you are Bibendum in Primrose Hill, La Reserve on Walton Street in South Kensington and La Vignerone on Old Brompton Road in South Kensington.