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German wine harvest hits 15-year low

Rheinhessen alone is down 23% thanks partly to autumn rains
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IRREGULAR THOUGHTS

Cold callers make David Perry hot under the collar
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SCAMMERS TARGET WINE RETAILERS

CNP payment option leaves retailers vulnerable
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PROFILE: CRUSHED & CURED, SOUTHSEA

George Bovill’s pivot from pure retail to hybrid has paid off
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Cape Winemakers Guild Auction raises record £746,000

Around 18% of rare wines on offer were bought by UK bidders
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English wine pioneer Peter Hall dies

Charismatic Breaky Bottom owner was a self-proclaimed hermit
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Critic’s Choice: DeFine Food & Wine, Sandiway

Matt Walls is wowed by a great wine range and an unbeatable brunch
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The data day life of David Dodd

Most decisions at Tivoli Wines in Cheltenham are based on analysis
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From the Marne to the Midlands

Champagne native Pierre Hourlier has made a career selling French wines from his base in…
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Bright Ideas: Salut, Manchester

Bob McDonald helps customers with everything they wanted to know about wine but were afraid…
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New faces at Vino Vero

Jaime and Holly Fernandez take over from Sam and Charlotte Brown in Leigh on Sea
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Let’s hear it for the co-operatives

David Williams argues that European wine co-ops are invariably forces for good
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Spaced out

Charles Wharton had just relocated Ellis Wharton Wines to a retail park warehouse when lockdown…
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English vintage report 2020

English wine producers are taking stock of a 2020 vintage ravaged by May frosts
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Container is home for Essex indie

Christine Longden and husband Lee opened The Twisted Cork in Tiptree last month
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Renegade of the Rhône

John Gauntley will be missed for his humour and enthusiasm as well as his style…
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Online sales beyond lockdown

Web sales will be a fact of life for indies well beyond Covid-19
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Act natural

Do organic and natural wines need certificates and badges to impress eco-conscious consumers?
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The risks and rewards of reopening my shop

Cat Brandwood of Toscanaccio in Winchester discusses the dliemmas of June 2020
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David Williams on the Languedoc

Cheerful varietals have been joined by serious cru wines with a true sense of terroir
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Our entry-level wines aren’t cheap options

The average price of a bottle of wine is £5.93. In independent specialists, it’s £13.71
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Why Covid-19 could go ballistic at wine tastings

Trade gatherings have the potential to become superspreader events for coronavirus
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It’s feeling more like normal

Merchants need to decide how to protect staff and their customers as lockdown eases
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Rioja recognises need for change

Wines of terroir and new white styles are just part of the mix
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Issue 150 (September 2025)
Issue 149 (August 2025)
Issue 148 (July 2025)
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Issue 151 of The Wine Merchant is here. What's i Issue 151 of The Wine Merchant is here. 

What's inside? Nasty scammers, majestic hawks, repurposed wine bottles, guilt pangs, bleeding cocoa nibs, Sting (the singer), stings (from bees), 10,000 wine louts, people who lie about chocolate, hedonistic vermouth, Torres v Walkers, hairdresser puns, Lennon and McCartney in the northern Rhône, sesquiterpene rotundone, Leicester City and a small cheese sandwich. 

See if you can spot them all!
So sorry to hear of the passing of Peter Hall, pio So sorry to hear of the passing of Peter Hall, pioneer of English sparkling wine, self-proclaimed hermit and a wonderful raconteur who was generous with his time. Anyone with a bottle of Breaky Bottom in their collection will be toasting the memory this week of a lovely man.

Report on the Wine Merchant website, where you can also read the Q&A we did with Peter in 2022. It was the best article we ran that year – and perhaps in any year. RIP.
We used to be the only wine magazine in the world We used to be the only wine magazine in the world to publish album reviews. Now we're the only one with a psychotherapy column.

Plus: a horrible quiz, a stupid cartoon, in-store opera, people covered in treacle, the black hole of wine retailing, disappointing Belgian cuisine, and David Perry's plums.

Open your copy now while it's still got that strangely intoxicating aroma.
The 149th edition of The Wine Merchant is out ther The 149th edition of The Wine Merchant is out there in the wild. A huge milestone. We enjoyed putting it together for you and yesterday we celebrated its publication by tasting so much vermouth that parts of our mouths are jammed into unfamiliar positions and we’re talking in Dutch accents. Other than that, all good thanks 🤜
Loads of new openings, relocations and expansions Loads of new openings, relocations and expansions to read about in the latest edition of The Wine Merchant. But no closures. 

As Kate Goodman of Reserve Wines tells us in her interview, it's "probably as hard as it's ever been" for indies to keep going. But that's exactly what they're doing – and store numbers continue to rise.
We're delighted to confirm that your repeat prescr We're delighted to confirm that your repeat prescription for The Wine Merchant magazine is ready. If we haven't delivered it to your door, visit the website and follow the links to the digital version. 

The Wine Merchant has no known side-effects. And not only are you able to operate heavy machinery after consumption, it's something that we actively encourage.

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