Jane Anson’s report highlighted the fact that this exclusive label has been awarded to us for free, and that we’re celebrating ten years as the house wine at his restaurants.

‘Gordon Ramsay’s Selection’ includes two whites, a red and our rosé, all of which are served at his restaurants. All are currently available direct from our website, including a super mixed dozen.

On friday, the same day that the Decanter.com news item was published, we delivered a few cases to the Ramsay household for their post-London Marathon party today. Perhaps our new strapline should be ‘So good, Gordon drinks it at home’.

“I strongly urge you to take advantage of the revolution in white winemaking in Bordeaux. I know I have said the same about Rhone wines but that doesn’t make it any less true of Bordeaux. If only there were a similar revolution in Burgundy…”

Strong stuff, but as a vinespotter in Bordeaux and not Burgundy, I’m not rushing to complain. Days earlier, Eric Asimov, the New York Times’ wine critic, posted this equally positive piece, entitled ‘A Bordeaux of a different color’, on his excellent blog, The Pour. ‘For good white Bordeaux, 2007 is a superb vintage’.

Earlier in July, we sent out our first carte postale email to a few friends and customers, urging them to consider our Bordeaux Blanc Sec 2007 this summer. Naturally, we got more replies saying ‘we love the postcard’ than actual orders, but bit by bit the message is getting through. There are some really good wines made with sauvignon blanc and/or sémillon from this part of the world, especially from the 2006 and 2007 vintages.  And for around £20 on the wine list, I still think ours is the best value wine at restaurant Gordon Ramsay, London’s only three Michelin star restaurant. 

If you’d like to be on the mailing list for these carte postales, and they’ll all be short, sweet and infrequent, do sign up on our www.bauduc.com site or email me. You can unsubscribe at any time once you get bored of them. The sign-up form is on the bottom of every page of the Bauduc site, which can also be found by clicking the big red blob in the top right hand corner of this blog. Apologies if, as an old friend or customer, you should have received one.

Plug over.

I had a brief chat with Rick, who was fully immersed in filming a one-off Christmas show and another series for the BBC with his old sparring partner, director David Pritchard.  They’ve worked together for donkey’s years, and I first met the affable, Rumpole-like David when they were filming Rick’s French Odyssey series during their Bordeaux pitstop in 2004.  He calls me Greg, for some reason, but, in his defence, he does meet a lot of people on their travels together.  Rick and Dave’s third BBC series exploring food and cooking outside Britain, having covered South West France and then the Mediterranean, will be set around Asia.

The day before our dinner at the Seafood, Jill Stein kindly came to see me while I was with Rupert Wilson, the General Manager, who generously gave up half a morning to show me around.  Jill is the creative force behind the recent refurbishment and, like Rick whenever he’s in town, has always made a point of saying hello whenever we’ve been over, which is nice.  She has a lower profile than her ex-husband, of course, although she now has a page on Rick Stein.com, promoting her interior design work.  There can’t be many celebrity ex’s who have a prominent entry on their former spouse’s website (at least, not in a positive sense) but this is a hugely successful partnership, and Jill plays a key role in the enterprise.  An extraordinary enterprise it is too: most people know that there are umpteen establishments in the Stein empire within this small seaside town – restaurants, a cookery school, a deli, a bakery, a café, and so on – but even the most observant visitor might not realise that they have 40 beautifully decorated rooms around the town, and over 280 staff. 

On my guided tour behind the scenes it was clear that no expense has been spared on getting things right.  ’Jill’s got great taste’, I said to Rupert. ‘Very expensive taste’, he muttered as we glanced around another new bathroom, with the air of a man with targets to hit.

Rumour has it, and don’t quote me on this, that the refit of the Seafood Restaurant, most of which was completed in just four weeks in January 2008, cost upwards of £2 million.  The walk-in fridges alone must have soaked up a tidy sum and it was an eye-opener to witness the colossal investment behind the scenes. It certainly feels good to be involved as a supplier, safe in the knowledge that the fruits of our labour are being showcased in the best possible taste.

But what of the new look restaurant as returning customers?  We’ve had scores of great meals at The Seafood with family and friends over the last 20 odd years, so I was a touch apprehensive that a complete makeover might have washed away some of the charm of this famous quayside diner.

I may be biased, but the new design is, quite simply, brilliant, with slick replacing hick in all the right ways. The grander entrance is now on the left and the extension for this was excavated from the rock that holds up the old, grey Metropole hotel on the hillside above. From the impressive new reception with it’s amazing, huge all-white fish chandelier, there’s still the option of having a swift sharpener in the conservatory at the front as you browse through the menu, or the wine list.  This seating area next to the quayside is largely unaltered, and once inside the restaurant, the same paintings as before carry over some of the ambience of the old place, along with a splash of colour and drama.  Aside from the pictures, though, the visual impact is dramatically different once you step inside. The new layout and interior is stunning.  A stylish central bar area, where the full menu is served to those seated all around it (no prior reservation needed if you want to chance it), provides a new focal point for the far more spacious dining room.  Pale beechwood floors and ceilings mix with white walls and light wood tongue-and-groove panelling, beautifully set-off under carefully orchestrated lighting, and the tall, elegant banquette seats around the outside walls face the comfortable, creamy leather, wooden-backed chairs.  We were immediately converted – it’s elegant, spacious, modern, comfortable and original – and has one of the best atmospheres for enjoying good, fresh food and a chilled glass of wine that you could wish for. My vote would be to go as a group of six or eight and ask for one of the round tables. 

There’s so much that’s new and different that it was re-assuring to see some of the old favourites on the menu: the classic warm shellfish starter, roast troncon of turbot with hollandaise, and many others.  There are plenty of recent creations too – a couple of delicious sounding fish curries and a tasting menu – and we’ll no doubt see more Asian influences once the BBC series begins.  I chose the warm shellfish to start, and the two Mrs Quinneys and I all went for the lobster for mains, grilled with fines herbes. Both courses were absolutely delicious, with the lobster timed to perfection under the grill.

Choosing the same main course may be unadventurous (and a real treat as far as the price is concerned) but it makes the wine selection easier, and this where our friend Roni comes into the picture. Roni Arnold, who many people don’t realise is Jill’s sister, has been the head sommelier at the Seafood for as long as I (or she) can remember, and it was to her that I took my first bottle of white wine eight years ago.  After all, I’d worked my way through much of the wine list as a customer in the fifteen years before that, so it seemed only fair for Roni and Rick to taste it.  (The man from Del Monte said no to our first vintage, the 99, but gave the thumbs up to the white from our first full season the following year, after he had come to Bordeaux and looked around the vineyard).

Roni has stayed at Bauduc and it was really good to catch up on all the news, although we probably distracted her from her duties, leaving second-in-command Jason to run around even more than usual.  We drank Pieropan’s Soave Classico 2006 with the starters – my suggestion at £26 – and although it was sound and dry, we found it a bit limp and unexciting.  The 2006 Chardonnay from Hamilton Russell, a vineyard in Walker Bay, near Hermanus in South Africa, where I visited years ago, was a much more enjoyable affair and perfect for the lobster.  For a reasonable £41, it had the right balance of richness and racy acidity to cut through the creamy flesh and butteriness, without being cloying or overpowering. 

One of the next door tables was drinking Chateau Bauduc Bordeaux Blanc, but I didn’t have the nerve to ask them if they were enjoying it, or to triumphantly claim that I had grown the grapes and made the stuff.  Perhaps I should have done – it can’t happen that often – but they seemed to be having a good time without any need for interruptions.

Our wine would certainly work with many of the dishes at The Seafood Restaurant- but not the curries – and for £19.50 (come in Wine Number 3), it’s a bit of a steal in one of Britain’s greatest restaurants.  But, then again, I would say that.

Times are tough for the UK wine trade. The pound has slumped against the euro, the cost of wine at source and fuel prices have shot up, and consumers face the credit crunch.  

If that wasn’t enough, the anti-alcohol lobby is winning the media battle, with middle-class binge-drinkers being portrayed as a drain on the nation’s resources.  So the same government that brought in 24-hour drinking (for health reasons?) softened the way for the assault on responsible wine lovers.

Britain now boasts the highest rate of duty on wine in Europe.  The Chancellor of the Exchequer slapped a record 14p on a bottle of wine in the Spring budget and pledged to increase duty above the rate of inflation over the next four years. 

Duty on a bottle of wine is now nearly £1.50, plus VAT on the duty as well as the wine, while there is no duty at all in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria and Germany, while France fleeces its citoyens for all of 2p a bottle.  And yet we manage to remain sober – well, most of the time.

Captain Darling even claimed that wine drinkers are better off under this Government:  ”Alchohol has become more affordable. In 1997, the average bottle of wine bought in a supermarket was £4.45 in today’s prices.  If you go into a supermarket today, the average bottle of wine will cost about £4.00.”  

Perhaps, but what he didn’t say was that the government has trousered 37p more per bottle in duty in that time, before the new rate came into being.  Producers have been forced to cut costs, and two thirds of wine sold in Britain today is on ’special offer’.

50% tax on an average bottle

On a £4.20 bottle on sale in the UK, which is the average price paid for a bottle of wine, £2.10 goes on duty and VAT, then there’s shipping, storage and distribution, plus the agent and the retailer’s margin.  After the bottle, cork, capsule, label and packaging (we spend 50p on all these) that leaves rod all for the wine inside the bottle.

From £1 to £14

And duty doesn’t just affect retail prices.  A wine merchant friend of ours buys a house wine with a nice label from a co-op for £1, adds 50p shipping and delivery costs, then £1.50 duty, and adds a perfectly reasonable 25% margin on top.  So he sells it to restaurants for £4.00 ex-VAT, who need to make a 66% margin.

The wine’s therefore listed at £12 before VAT: £14 including VAT.  Without the duty element, as on the continent, the bottle would cost half that – and the merchant and the restaurant would make the same percentage margin.

(Toot toot – it makes our £8 Chateau Bauduc Bordeaux Blanc Sec, sold direct, look even better value at Rick Stein’s for just £19 on the front page of his list at The Seafood Restaurant, or for £20 chez Gordon Ramsay. If you can get a table, that is).

Britain has a fine tradition of wine merchants offering choice and value, but the increasing cost of importing wine (£1000 in UK duty for a pallet of 56 cases, plus the VAT later) means it will be harder times ahead.  One wine merchant who bought wine from us over a year ago has yet to pay the bill.

Yet with the low pound, there’s hope:  the UK is now a great tourist destination.  If only wine wasn’t so bloody expensive.

It then dawned on me that I had been set up by a chap on the phone, a few weeks back, who was trying to chisel a good price out of me for a new venture. The person ‘posing as a potential buyer’ in the article – he said he was called David – was going to start up a new establishment, and it was clear that he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. (Even the calculations in the article don’t add up.) I felt rather sorry for him when I wished him good luck at the end of the call. As stings go, it was hardly Sven and the fake sheikh.

I said to Rupert that, on the contrary, our wine was too cheap in the restaurant. After all, top restaurants need to make a 66% gross margin. The refurbishment of The Seafood Restaurant earlier this year cost a seven figure sum which didn’t start with the number 1. £19 for a bottle there for a wine that’s sold by the vineyard for £8? ‘No wonder it’s so popular in the restaurant’, I said.  Victoria Moore, the Guardian’s wine correspondent, cited Château Bauduc Bordeaux blanc as being good value for £18.50 at The Seafood more than three years ago. More to the point, try booking a table.

(I see that the trade price quoted in the article for our Bordeaux Blanc equates to 20% off our retail price, ex VAT. So, yes, if a very famous chef who’s on TV approaches us and offers to buy hundreds of cases a year direct from the chateau, we’ll consider a 20% discount. That seems fair, doesn’t it?)

It’s hardly bad press to be mentioned in the context of leading chefs, and it turned out that messrs Ramsay and Stein were not the real culprits after all. That dastardly Raymond Blanc and the naughty Heston Blumenthal were the worst, even if they can boast two and three Michelin stars respectively and each has hosted a successful TV series or two. Even his nibs Jamie Oliver (our Sophie’s pin-up) took an undeserved kicking.

Oddly enough, the chef that Gordon Ramsay once told me was the only one that we could not sell to if we wanted to continue doing business, Anthony Worrall-Thompson, was the cook accusing his fellow restaurateurs of being “greedy”. I may be biased, but of all the places and wines mentioned, Worrall-Thompson’s The Lamb and his Chilean sauvignon for £13 (cost ex-cellars around £1.70, plus UK duty, shipping and merchant’s profit margin), would be the last on my wish-list. Or am I missing something?