The Association of Small Direct Wine Merchants

We supply, and specialise in, wines from Beaujolais (the major part of our range), the Mâconnais and the Côte Chalonnaise areas in east-central France, within the southern part of Burgundy, between the city of Lyon to the south, the historic wine town of Beaune and the vineyards of the Côte d'Or to the north, and the Alps and the Swiss border to the east.

We also sell a small but excellent range of German wines from some world-class producers in the Mosel, Nahe, Rheingau and Rheinhessen regions; these are principally Riesling.

We are also one of a handful of suppliers in the UK selling Swiss wines - these are fascinating and unusual, have a distinct character, and are extremely rare here.

Our final range is Austrian wines - we have probably the most comprehensive range of white Austrian Rieslings and Grüner Veltliners in the UK, and it does not stop there - we shall shortly be adding a comprehensive range of botrytis sweet wines and chunky reds from Burgenland and Thermenregion, and in particular from the areas around the Neusiedlersee - one of the world's most amazing places for sweet wines.

We are passionate about these beautiful regions and their superb wines, and have travelled there extensively for almost 20 years, during which time we have tasted many hundreds of wines and come to know the regions, the wines, and some of our suppliers well. We are confident that the knowledge we have gained enables us to reliably select wines of high quality. Whilst we are, and intend to remain, specialists in these areas, we will occasionally introduce to our range wines from other areas, which we feel to be of excellent quality and represent good value for money. We deal in virtually all cases directly with the winemakers, and arrange the transport and importation of the wines to the UK ourselves, using the same professional freight forwarding companies as are used by major UK supermarket groups. Wines are then stored in secure local commercial premises, which are temperature-controlled to ensure a stable safe environment in which the wines will not suffer in any way. Our prices are highly competitive; this we achieve by keeping our own costs down, by using the internet as a cost-effective marketing tool, by avoiding the overheads normally involved in the operation of retail premises, and by sourcing wines directly, cutting out the middleman.

The Range of Wines - Our Philosophy

The fine Beaujolais wines we offer are truly superb products - real gems, hand-crafted with flair by some of the best small-scale producers in the region, many known to us for many years, and all passionate about their wines, which have great character and charm. Many of these vins de propriété are produced only in small quantities, usually insufficient to satisfy the demands of supermarkets or major retail chains, whose operations are geared around much larger volumes. Most of the Beaujolais wines we offer are consumed primarily in France and rarely reach the UK; indeed wines such as these are not comparable to what is typically found on a UK high-street, where négociant or co-operative wines predominate. The wines we offer from the Mâconnais and the Côte Chalonnaise, although our range from these areas is smaller, are also carefully selected from winemakers known to us for many years, and the same guiding principles apply as with our choice of Beaujolais wines. The same basic philosophy applies also in the other areas we represent - Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. In all these areas, our philosophy is to source wines primarily from small-scale producers, although we in some instances offer wines from better, usually smaller co-operatives, where we feel that quality is acceptable. We will not buy from any producer where we lack confidence of commitment to quality. Many of the wines we offer have been awarded accolades such as medals in wine competitions, or listings in one or more of the industry guides (such as Hachette, or Gault Millau). This is true of many of our wines, but not all - as just as important for us as a test of a wine is our own assessment of it.