Stellenbosch SA 2014
23rd October 2020 “The connoisseur does not drink wine but tastes its secrets.’’ Salvador Dali was certainly a surreal fellow, but he knew a thing or two about good wine. We suspect the his quote was intended in a rather romantic sense but today it feels all the more poignant for the modern wine drinker. On the whole, wine has arguably never tasted as consistently palatable as it does today and thanks to the many practices winemakers can choose to adopt in the vineyard and winery, good vintages can be made great, bad vintages can be salvaged and faulty wine is rare. But to hark back to Salvador’s words, the more alluring secrets of the winemaker’s art can be far harder to put your finger on these days. Modern winemaking can sometimes lead to wine without a sense of place, or discernible characteristics and well... it can taste a bit generic. Our main philosophy when we created Chilled & Tannin was to stop buying “meh” wines and to set up an authentic wine business with a conscience. After all, the worst case scenario is we end up drinking it all ourselves! The majority of our wines can be enjoyed by those who appreciate an ethical or sustainable approach to what they eat and drink. Most of them are vegan and vegetarian too, even if you do end up serving them with a rare steak. Many of our wines are organic or involve less intervention by the winemakers – so they certainly won’t taste like the generic plonk you’ll get in the supermarkets. But rest assured we’re not some militant ‘terroirist’ movement... some of our wines are still made rather conventionally, taste great and are super expressions of exciting grapes or the places they are made. And we’re cool with that, as long as they’re a delight to quaff. And you can truly rejoice in the enjoyment of guilt free wine as we offer carbon offset nationwide delivery as standard and zero emissions local delivery to Cardiff postcodes in Rhod’s electric van. So whether you’re buying a few bottles, filling your cellar or signing up for one of our regular hassle free wine subscriptions, pop into our Cardiff pop-up at Little Man Coffee, log on at www.chilledandtannin.com and be sure to follow us for all the enriching secrets on our social channels.