BudBurst

On a recent tasting trip my friend and colleague Julie Campbell, a sommelier, and I decided to do an experiment. We had been challenged by a group of friends & acquaintances to find some wines for them which were not necessarily available in the UK, from small producers showing off local terroir. Something to prove what we're always banging on about re commercial, international styles versus individual, interesting and regional styles.

Our mission was to pick a region, find 6 outstanding producers that were unknown in this market and come back to them with an irresistible case offer. Hmmm...

The Loire was an obvious choice to us. We both love the wines, they aren't nearly as appreciated or well known as they could be among the group of people we were shopping for and, most importantly, who ever would stand up and count Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc as two favourite varietals given the bog standard searingly acidic and green versions usually offered to us by the larger retailers?

But in order to find producers which were as unknown to us as to the British public we were going to rely on local tip offs. We had a rough idea of what we were looking for and after picking up the rental car - we booked a little clio but were presented with a Citroen C8, a vehicle which dwarfed even the people carriers on the road and was unlikely to endear us to anybody driving around tiny vineyard lanes - we headed for Saumur.

Our first stop, at the Maison du Vin, put paid to the idea that all the locals would be thrilled to speak to us as a haughty lady, who was even employed to be helpful, handed us some maps with routes which bore virtually no resemblance to any roads on our map and turned her back on us. We then went for a recovery drink at a little bar down the road garnering quite a bit of attention - I was the only visible Indian the entire trip and Julie is a very blond American - only to be served two corked glasses of wine.

After much agonised "could we just get it down and not worry about it?" rolling of eyes, I finally took them inside to be told with a Gallic shrug "they could well be corked I never taste the filthy stuff." It wasn't looking promising and with faltering enthusiasm we set off along the route des vins.

I won't go into all the details here but the trip improved immensely from there as we were directed to the most gorgeous little b&b and then chased after producers with local reputations across Turquant, Puy Notre Dame, the Vendomois, Jasnieres and Vouvray. We would have liked to have made it across many of the other appellations but we ran badly out of time. We consoled ourselves that we were sure we would be sent back for more once the wines had reached their audience. TruClos is born.

We are immensely proud of the outstanding quality we found amongst many ordinary examples and are confident that our new clients are going to appreciate our crusade for individuality in wine. Next month we will pick another region and do it all again. If you would like details of our Loire case or to be put on the mailing list you can email me at aka.ashika@gmail.com