“Jasper Morris, as master of wine and a buyer for the merchant Berry Bros. & Rudd, is as keen on tea as he is on Bordeaux and Burgundy. He keeps his wine in a cellar, but his tea is stashed in his wardrobe behind his winter jumpers where it remains warm and dry. He particularly enjoys Pu Erh, which is sold in dried-out cakes; a good vintage can, much like wine, can be aged for over a decade, becoming increasingly complex in flavour the longer it is kept. Such fine tea does not come cheap. Jasper once spent HK$3,800 on a small amount of Pu Erh. How much, I asked him, would that be in Sterling? ‘About the same price as a case of Chasse-Spleen’*, he explained breezily, leaving me not very much the wiser. ‘There are twelve bottles in a case and I have about enough tea to make twelve pots, so that seemed about right’. This is probably not the sort of thing you would neck with fried eggs and bacon at breakfast; Jasper drinks his fine tea with his wife in the afternoon when they want to reward themselves and have time to appreciate it…”

*Or about £320 at current exchange rates at the time of writing

We spoke to Jasper in a bit more detail about his love of tea and here’s what he had to say:

Victoria was disappointed when I said that I did not actually keep my cakes of tea in the cellar alongside my bottles of wine, but unfortunately the humidity which is desirable for the wine would soon turn the tea mouldy. Instead the young teas are living in a cupboard at room temperature.

I have a few packets of older vintage dated teas, including some 1953 of Vietnamese provenance and an amazing 1975 Pu Erh kept for very special occasions. The extraordinary thing about these teas is that you can infuse the same leaves up to a dozen times, being careful to pour off all the water each time, and every infusion gives you a different range of aromas and flavours. Early infusions are tarry and with quite a rough texture but then more fruit appears, with sweeter notes, then they might become more flowery and deliciously subtle – and so it continues until eventually the first signs of dilution appear and it is time to move on.

Click here to buy How To Drink and here to learn more.

My love of food was really the thing that opened my eyes to wine. I used to work in marketing and I’d be entertained in very good restaurants and put in front of really good wines – it was during this time that I realised that wine takes food to the next level. Then I started to take advice from wine merchants and I began to understand what I actually like, rather than what I thought I should like, which was quite a surprise! I realised that these were things like Rhône wines, which are affordable and go far better with everyday food than some blockbuster Bordeauxs, which you’ve really got to be pretty careful what you eat with them.

My first memories of wine were from when we used to go on holiday to France.  I remember visiting Ch. Monbazillac one year, on the way back from a family camping holiday – the car was already bulging under the strain of all our camping stuff, but Dad was determined to take a case of it home. Five or six years later he gave me a glass of the same wine at the end of a Sunday dinner. That was when I began to understand why Dad (in the picture above with me) was so interested in wine.

Despite having a passion for matching food and wine, I also buy to drink and to invest. About four years ago I put a nominal sum into a Cellar Plan and I’ve done very well out of it. I’ve been buying ever since, building an investment portfolio on one side and what I intend to drink on the other. Now that my Dad’s finally set up a Cellar Plan too, after me nagging him for years, we go to the tastings and go round together marking the wines – I personally get a lot of satisfaction in finding wines that are brilliant value and stand up to what are deemed the numero uno of that region. And then I keep it to myself!

Whether you are investing in wine for pleasure or for investment purposes it remains one of the most interesting commodities around.  I set about looking for an investment some years ago…wine investment seemed to offer “all” the personal benefits from consumption and intellectual stimulation in terms of reading up on what you have purchased and keeping abreast of the vintages and their offerings; and last but not least financial gain. I still believe that you can invest in the “blue chip” wines -Latour, Margaux, Lafite, or even secondary houses such as Lynch Bages, Cos d’Estournel or Palmer, and benefit in such a way that would enable you to sell some wine off through the years to support your own personal drinking of cheaper, but excellent, wines for now or years to come…your personal cellar!
 
Risk is the same for any investment – the bigger the risk the higher the potential return, and with wine the journey and education is certainly worth it. It’s not wrong to say that wine, since the Second World War, has performed up amongst the best investment vehicles out there (property, FTSE – Top 500). From as little as £200 per month you can achieve good growth if you buy the right wines or if you have a lump sum to invest you can have fun building up the cellar that suits you.
 
I am certainly pleased that I took the jump of faith into wine investment and that I have been well advised and guided by BBR’s investment team. I am looking forward to drinking fine wine in the future and the occasional special bottle!!!

If you have any questions or comments for Nick or our team, then let us know.

This time last year was about the time that fear hit the fine wine market.  We had seemed immune from the wider travails of the economy – 10 cases of 2000 Ch. Lafite-Rothschild selling at Christie’s for a shade under £11,000 per case just days after Lehmans filed for bankruptcy protection – but in October and November prices, notably those of the top 2005s, dropped off.  2005 Lafite, which was touching the £10,000 per case mark in the summer of 2008, could be picked up for £6,000 per case in November of that year.  This was clearly an opportunity for the brave – Lafite 2005 is now selling for £7,500 per case and more.
A year on, and things are much brighter for those whose interest is in the price of wines going up.  The supply of the best wines is limited and this fundamental is now kicking in.

So what does next year hold for us?  Investing in wine has become increasingly popular: despite the falls of last year (and the big ones were restricted to a few wines) wine, on reflection, has performed well and is increasingly attractive to those with the long-term view and those who want to put their money into something tangible.  The increased investment in wines is not without its effect: more buyers push prices up in the same way that sellers pull them down and we may well see more ups and downs than we have seen in the past.  The wine market is relatively illiquid when compared to stocks and shares, though it is more tradeable than ever before.

The key driver of all the prices isn’t the investors, though: ask anyone in the Far East.  This relatively new market for fine wine is booming and this is just the beginning.  We may well have customers in the UK whose cellars are full but the cellars in Hong Kong and mainland China need filling and, sadly, one just can’t make any more Mouton, Lafite et al.

Wine investment is the topic on everyone’s lips, just last week we saw a boom in sales of Ch. Mouton-Rothschild, particularly the seemingly undervalued 2008 vintage – this is identical to what we have seen with Ch. Lafite-Rothschild over recent years.

So, please join our discussions as we move on to this exciting topic – share your thoughts, experiences and questions with us and we’ll endeavour to bring you up-to-date information and opinions from those in the know.

The first will be 2007 Mâcon, Les Héretieres du Comte Lafon, Burgundy and in the video below Simon Field MW, buyer at Berrys, takes a moment to talk about how the biodynamic principles used have made this wine so special.

The second wine of the evening will be 2006 Vacqueyras, Garrigues, Domaine Montirius, Rhône. This is a hugely popular red from Montirius, who Wine Matters interviewed recently. In this video Simon talks about why he fell in love with their wines and how the contrast between the wine’s characteristics and the personalities of the producers make for an interesting comparison.

The final wine in the Twitter Taste Live event will be 2006 L’As, Coteaux du Languedoc, Mas Conscience. Be warned, this is a wine which should really be decanted an hour or two beforehand! In the final video Simon tells us about the couple who produce this wine and the area that they call home.

Wine Matters has been delving into the topic of biodynamics over the past couple of months, so be sure to take a look at the posts to refresh your memory, or visit Jamie Goode’s series of articles to really get an idea of what’s involved.

So if you fancy dabbling in a bit of e-tasting you can join Wine Matters on Twitter, along with lots of other wine-lovers, to taste together and talk about what we find. Will the fact that it’s a leaf day make a difference to how the wine tastes?!

Wine Matters will be tasting the wines with a few friends live from the Pickering Cellar beneath Berrys’ historic London shop at 3 St James’s Street, but you can join in the discussions from the comfort of your home.  Why not get a group together?

You don’t need the wines to take part – there will be a prize given to someone who joins in the discussion without having the wines in front of them.  But if you want to taste as well, then the three wines are included in the biodynamic case, which you can buy from bbr.com - we’ve even waived the normal minimum delivery threshold to allow you to try the wines.  Make sure you order by 4th September to ensure delivery in time for the tasting.

How to do it:

• You’ll need to have a Twitter account set up.  It only takes a few seconds and it’s free
• Make sure that you ‘follow’ @WineMatters and @thirstforwine for updates
• Register at Taste Live
• At 7pm on 7th September log on to Taste Live and join in the tasting!

Ps. Make sure you add ‘#TTL’ to the end of your tweets so they get included in the right discussion!

Wine Matters interviews Rhône producer Christine Saurel from Montirius, about deciding to become biodynamic and what it means to them
 
WM: What attracted you to follow biodynamic production methods?

CS: When our oldest daughter Justine fell ill we started using homeopathic medicine and found it to be an effective treatment.  This discovery brought important changes to the way we treated illnesses, our eating habits and our general way of thinking.  We starting questioning the methods we used to grow grapes and work the land and began looking at how to make the transition from conventional viticulture to biodynamic production.

We felt it made sense for us to start following biodynamic farming methods as it mirrored, in principle, the way we successfully treated our daughter’s illness, by administering homeopathic doses of natural products to the vine according to the phases of the moon and sun. 

WM: How did you make the transition from conventional viticulture to being awarded organic and biodynamic certification?

CS: Achieving biodynamic accreditation was not an easy process, we had to follow stringent stipulations over several years before we could label our wines biodynamic and organic. 

The first steps we made were to stop using chemical fertilisers on our vineyard.  We replaced these pesticides by using natural yeast and bacteria to control disease and insects.  In November 1996 we made the decision to officially convert our estate to a biodynamic way of farming following a meeting with François Bouchet who had been practicing biodynamics for 50 years on his own estate in the Loire Valley.  He convinced us that biodynamic production was the best way to improve the health of the vineyards and farm in harmony with the land, ultimately producing the best wine possible.

To get official certification, Ecocert (an organic certification organization mandated by the government), had to come to the farm each year for four years to check we were following organic standards.  During the first year we were not allowed announce we were following organic production methods, in the second and the third year we let buyers know that we were making the conversion to become organically certified and by the fourth year, we officially received organic certification from Ecocert.

At the same time as following organic standards, we started following the Biodyvin’s biodynamic rules.  Biodyvin is an organisation similar to Demeter but provide biodynamic certification standards solely for French wine growers.  On their visits Ecocert also checked we were following the Biodyvin rules and reported back to Biodyvin.

After four years of following Biodyvin’s biodynamic standards we were awarded biodynamic certification.  The criteria is so rigorous that even if Biodyvin is satisfied that you are following biodynamic farming methods, your wine has to tasted by the Biodyvin committee before you can they can label it biodynamic.
  
WM: Do you think that being biodynamic and organic improves the taste of your wine?

CS: We have found that biodynamic production methods, given the stringent attention to detail required, results in better quality. The end result is that the wines have a stronger, clearer taste and are more vibrant and balanced.

WM: Have you noticed demand for biodynamic wine has increased in the last 10 years? Yes.  With increasing concern about how the food and drink we consume affects our health we have noticed that many of our customers, particularly those who have had health problems in the past, choosing biodynamic wine.  In addition, buyers, whose number one priority is offering customers the very best wine, are realising that there are many top quality biodynamic wines available.
 
WM: What else have you done to make your wine production more ethical?CS: We have an innovative water treatment station that cleans water without using machines. The unique system uses plants such as phragmites (reeds) water irises, lilies, nettles and algae to treat the water.

For more information about Montirius you can visit their website or to see which wines are sold through Berrys, visit the producer profile on our website.