Ten-Acre Wines Ltd is an independent wine merchant specialising in everyday value from around the world, en primeur and fine wines. We find exciting new, hand-picked wines which offer the sort of quality and value not easily found elsewhere.
QUALITY THROUGH COOPERATION Probably nowhere in the world has the Cooperative movement played such an important role in the economy as in Italy. Enthusiastically embraced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was widely, and often brutally, suppressed by the Fascists in the 1920s and 1930s, only to re-emerge even stronger than before […]
In the Pink! We’ve been getting increasingly frustrated by pale pink imitations of wine, while this summer, thus far, is offering few opportunities for just sitting in the garden we still feel that the best rosés will enhance any summer meal, whether lunch, dinner, BBQ or even a traditional picnic (weather permitting). The rosés below […]
Kumeu River Vineyards The magnificent 2022 wines from Kumeu River have been released and we’re very pleased to be able to offer a selection below. Are there better value Chardonnays from anywhere? I don’t think so. The Estate wines are such good value and the Village wines are rediculously inexpensive given their quality. Kumeu River […]
Gilles and Nathalie Fèvre, Fontenay-Près-Chablis Back in the 1980s, I once bought a parcel of 1967 Hunter River ‘Chablis’, Lindemans if I recall correctly, which I think was mainly Chenin Blanc with Verdelho and it was very enjoyable although not, absolutely not, Chablis. There is nothing quite like a good Chablis, it is unique. It […]
The notion that Champagne can be a fine wine and drunk as such is often forgotten amid the sound of popping corks. Although it is, quite rightly, associated with celebration, fine Champagne should also be enjoyed with food and treated as you would, say, a fine White Burgundy, and that is especially true of Pol […]
Domaine de la Vieille Julienne, Le Grès, Orange Jean-Paul Daumen has taken this fabulous estate from very humble beginnings to its current position firmly planted amongst the very top tier of elite Rhône producers and beyond. Situated in the northern sector of the appellation, in the area known Le Grès, Jean-Paul owns and runs 32 […]
Champagne Veuve Fourny Most of you will know by now that I am an enormous fan of the Champagnes of Veuve Fourny et Fils. They make fabulous wines of exceptional quality and depth and regularly receive rave reviews from both the domestic and international press. And now, they have just revealed a very well-kept secret […]
Buying Burgundy It’s not always evident to the casual observer passing through its often sleepy villages, but there’s a lot going on in Burgundy nowadays. Change is being driven by the increasingly high prices demanded by, and paid for, producers whose wines, even a few years ago, represented reasonable value but now force one to […]
Casanovi di Neri is one of the foremost and most sought-after producers in all of Tuscany. Famed for their Brunello, they have rarely been rated below 95 points by the Wine Advocate or James Suckling since before 2010. Stylistically, their wines are characterised by ripe, opulent fruit and velvety tannins, but in no way do […]
Benanti, Etna, Sicily – Pre-Shipping Offer Small-scale, domestic wine-making had been in the Benanti family for generations, but it wasn’t until 1988 that Dr. Giuseppe Benanti, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur from Catania, decided to turn his long-time interest from a hobby into a business. He started with an extensive and selective study of the Etna soils […]
New arrival! We are very pleased to announce that the wines from one of Languedoc’s most dynamic wineries, the Domaine de L’Oustal Blanc, are now available to purchase. The story of L’Oustal Blanc is largely that of its owner, Isabel Cardoso-Fonquerle, a woman of undoubted character and determination. A native of Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, she […]
Gambero Rosso is the world’s foremost guide to things Italian and, especially, so far as we’re concerned, wine, and it has a rather different set-up to most professional wine review magazines: for a wine to be awarded one, two or three glasses it has to have first been tasted by a panel of experts local […]
A new release from the Produttori del Barbaresco is always something to look forward to: meticulous vineyard management, thoughtful and precise winemaking combined with extremely fair pricing make their wines irresistible. This vintage was slightly unusual, so all the best vineyards are going into one ‘super’ cuvee of their signature Barbaresco; fill your boots would be my advice. The […]
Followers of Kumeu River will remember that we all got very excited by the exceptional 2019 vintage, which produced some of the Brajkovich’s best wines yet, but it looks like 2020 is going to be even better, with their flagship wine, Maté’s Vineyard, being awarded a perfect 100 pts, while Michael Brajkovich feels that the […]
I first visited Sergio Germano two decades ago when he was a (even more) youthful, ambitious and, clearly, highly skilled winemaker. Some of his wines were already excellent, others were still finding their feet but the potential was obvious. Since then, I have made another couple of visits and followed his progress with a keen […]
2019 Chateau Routas, Coteaux Varois en Provence Rosé At a time when the phrase ‘pale imitation’ seems to have been coined with rosés specifically in mind, to find a wine of this intensity and freshness at a price that doesn’t make you wince is very good news indeed. It is the cooling combination of altitude […]
I am never happier than when I have a source of excellent and affordable Bourgogne to hand, so I was very pleased when a sample turned up from the Santenay Girardins, and even more pleased when it turned out to be so good. It is such a rare pleasure to find something that is better […]
2019 Port Vintage Summary The 2019 Port vintage was notable for the extremely drawn-out harvest. The year began with a dry winter and spring, and little rain was seen during the rest of the growing season. However, the saving grace – preventing conditions from falling into full-on drought – was the cooler than average summer, […]
Sauvignon Blanc, I feel, is taken for granted these days. Like pale rosé, it is associated with quantity rather than quality, and that’s a shame as it is responsible for some truly exceptional wines. It is grown in most wine producing countries (although I wish it wasn’t in some cases …) and it does particularly […]
There has been something of a slow revolution in German winemaking over the last thirty to forty years with increasing interest in both dry whites and, particularly, domestically produced red wines. Production of Pinot Noir, known locally as Spätburgunder, has gained a lot of traction recently as people discover how much has changed, qualitatively speaking, over […]
Until such a time as Gonduanaland gets its own AOC, there is only one undiscovered fine wine region in the world – Portugal. It will be discovered, because the wines are so good, individual and interesting that it is only a matter of time before journalists realize that they don’t have to work hard to […]
Latest, and quite brilliant, Releases. These two wines are must buys for anyone seeking a proper introduction to Barbaresco or simply looking for top-quality wines at very reasonable prices. For those new to the area, the main difference between Barbaresco and its more famous neighbour, Barolo, lies in the soil: the richer soils of Barolo produce […]
Alongside wineries such as Rocca di Montegrossi, Castillo di Ama and Isole e Olena, Fontodi is one of Tuscany’s finest estates, consistently producing wines of exceptional quality, year in, year out. Their organic, 130-hectare estate, of which 70 hectares are under vine, is located in the hills south of the town of Panzano, right in […]
Outstanding Value Rioja There are times when one just wants to sit down and enjoy a wine for its own sake, without having to think too much about it. It is, however, a lot harder than it sounds. The wine has to give pleasure, which means it has to be well made, of the right […]
The Maranges area, given its own classification in 1988, grows mainly Pinot Noir (plus some Chardonnay, of course) and is confusingly, and in typically French fashion, classed as part of the Côte de Beaune, yet not part of the larger Côte d’Or (which contains the Côte de Beaune). Departmentally speaking, they are now Saône-et-Loire. Driving […]
A Rare Opportunity to buy from a vintage already talked about in hushed tones. Pablo Franco, director of the Control Chamber of the Denomination, has been quoted as saying a “Unique Vintage” and “Although it is still early to look at the results, we have high hopes that this vintage will be recorded as a […]
I’m down to the last few cases of the marvellous 2018 Chateau Routas, which is drinking so well now, this news is mitigated by the knowledge that the 2019 vinetage will be arriving in June. Given the weather forecast, it is definitely time to top up with some top-quality, food friendly and genuine Provence Rosé.
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In simple terms, ‘En Primeur’ means wine sold before it has been bottled and made physically available to customers (if it were oil or pork bellies, it would be called ‘futures’).