Wine is like football. There are different levels of interest and involvement. Firstly you get your armchair viewer, who will have the occasional kick about in the park. These are the most numerous of all the supporters and the wine equivalent would be someone who likes to watch the occasional foodie type programme on the telly and buy’s 3 bottles for a tenner from Asda. Nothing wrong with that, if that’s your thing you’re in popular company and if you enjoy it, it’s the cheapest way to enjoy wine. Then you get your Sunday league player, maybe even going to your favourite team’s matches. The wine equivalent of this would be someone who does a little reading on the subject, will go to specialist outlets to shop for their wine and can distinguish between some of their favourites, possibly even having a favourite region for a particular grape as opposed to just the grape itself. Then you have your professional footballer. Someone paid to play the game whose skills and ability goes to a whole new level. In wine terms this could be many people, from a grower to a critic, a retailer or a collector.

The problem is, just like football, there’s allot of crap talked about wine, at every level. So what’s good and what’s not and how do we know. Allow me to explain where I fit in my own categories. I like so many others am an armchair fan, with aspirations of becoming a Sunday leaguer. The thing is, I have recently come across some people who can help me on my way.

Tickled Pink Boxes is a corporate gifting company whose speciality is very much wine. Not just any wine though, the wine they provide all comes exclusively from their partner company, Winehunters. Winehunters is owned and run by Alan Hunter, a French trained chef with qualifications from the wines and spirits education trust and over 35 years experience in the wine and food industry having worked with some of the top names from both. The wines they provide are all old world wines produced by small but very professional, not to mention passionate producers. They pride themselves on their originality and authenticity. Many of the estates are passed down from generation to generation and the locals are very protective of each area within their region. Currently, many of the wines supplied by Winehunters come from the Languedoc region of southern France. This region has a history of more than 2000 years of wine production and is widely considered the worlds premier vineyard as well as considered the next ‘Grand Crus’ region of France.

The wines supplied by Winehunters are what Alan calls real wine. That is they are not from an industrialised production system. In fact much of the wine Alan supplies simply can not be bought anywhere else in the UK, never mind on your local supermarket shelf. There are 2 reasons for this. The first is that many of the estates have very limited production and secondly, many of the producers have actually said that they would rather go out of business than see any of their wine on a supermarket shelf. In fact Alan told me of a story about one producer who had sold some of his wine to a dealer and a few weeks later found out from a friend that it was being sold at a small supermarket some distance away. A few phone calls later and the wine was removed from the shelves the same day.

There are also some fantastic stories to tell about some of the producers in the region, which you usually only get when people are so passionate about a subject and one in particular that Alan told me when we met was both heart warming and sad. I’ll let Alan explain it in his own words.

“Alain Quenehen, frustrated with the pressures of working in the fashion business in Paris, had a burning ambition to be a wine producer of note, despite being disabled from birth and confined to a wheelchair he was determined to fulfil this dream. One day, in the course of his work, fate took a hand in the guise of a crossed telephone connection.

Alain experienced an immediate rapport with the person at the other end of the line, Natacha Villiers, and over time they conversed regularly, developing a romantic relationship. They shared many interests, particularly their love of wine and a mutual strong desire to become owners of heir own vineyard. With the backing of 33 of their joint friends they successfully secured the purchase of Chateau Prieure Borde-Rouge in Corbieres and so began a new journey of creation and discovery.

Alain always referred to Natacha as his ‘Angel’ and one of his top creations was named after her, cuvee ‘Ange’. This wine was featured in a prestige wine trade tasting in Brussels in 2001 where 4,000 wines were tasted, 1300 were French and only 18 medals given. Cuvee Ange received the highest award, the Medaille d’Or Concours Mondial. Sadly Alain died in 2005 but his legacy lives on with his vineyard manager, Olivier Fouquet working with the new owners to continue with his passion and style.”

Winehunters or Tickled Pink Boxes are the only places where you can now buy this wine in the UK and production is extremely limited. A rare gem indeed.

So what’s the difference in buying for example a chardonnay from a mass producer to getting one from a small estate that produces ‘real wine’? Well think of it this way, Mc Donalds go to great lengths in order to maintain consistency in their products. So theoretically, you can go into any Mc Donalds restaurant anywhere and get a Big Mac and it will be the same. You know before you walk through the door what it will be like and how it will taste. Now imagine going to a Michelin star restaurant and ordering an Aberdeen Angus fillet steak. You would be able to ask the waiter where your steak came from, which will no doubt be a farm that takes that bit extra care of their cattle, rearing them in a natural an environment as possible, they may even know the type of grazing the cattle had and it’s overall care during it’s lifetime. When you order this steak you don’t know what it will look like, or even exactly how it will taste, although you would have high expectations for both. Now both your Big Mac and your fillet steak are actually going to do the same thing; stop you being hungry and if that was your only goal, then you would most likely plumb for the cheaper Big Mac, but if your looking for something more, for something that you know is of better quality and when you eat it, an experience that you will savour, then perhaps you would choose the fillet steak. The difference in price from your burger to your fillet steak may be 50 fold, but not so with your wine from Winehunters or Tickled Pink Boxes. They give you the best possible quality wines for the best possible price. So what you end up with is the best possible product for only a little more money than you would pay for an averagely priced supermarket wine.

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