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Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had the pleasure of sampling this absolute gem of a wine from winemaker Sébastien Vaillant.

Sébastien is one half of arguably the smallest cooperative in France, Vignerons de Valençay – given that the other half is his friend Damien Boisseur, a cooperative of two must surely be the smallest in the world, for any smaller and you are simply flying solo

Case Offer: 12 bottles and a free cheese £168

I rarely write up Sauvignon Blanc these days – ubiquitous, often overblown new world styles, dominated by gooseberry, elderflower and superlatives, or lean and unmemorable European styles which the growers have been forced to plant because everyone wants a Sauvignon on their list.

That is, except in the Loire valley. Here they produce some of the best sauvignon in the world. Grown of Silex soils (Flint) – see what Flint Vineyard have done here, with their Bacchus Fumé and Silex wines 😉 – Vignerons de Valençay comprises 40 hectares of vines planted on the hillsides surrounding the Cher River. Silex is greatly prized within the Loire and produces some of the region’s finest and most mineral wines, with the most renowned coming from Sancerre.

However – Have you tried to buy a Sancerre for under £30 recently? I have, and they are very underwhelming, and at over £30, they are not exactly bang-for-you-buck.

So enter Vignerons de Valençay – From £14 per bottle this is BANG-for-your-buck Sauvignon from the best soils. Take a step back Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc – This is the Loire, spiritual home of sauvignon.

Valençay has held official AOC status since the 2002 vintage. It was the first French region to receive AOC classification for both wine and cheese, with its distinctive pyramid-shaped goat’s cheese.

What grows together, goes together. Making it the perfect pairing with Valençay white wines.

The cheese allegedly gets its truncated shape from an incident involving Napoleon, a sword and a tantrum – whatever, there is no mistaking the blue-grey, chopped-pyramid shape. Its rind with a velvety texture; woody aroma; fresh nutty flavour with a delicate mousse like feel, that melts in the mouth.

The wine: Light lemon yellow in colour with aromas of citrus, gooseberry and white peach on the nose. On the palate there is an attractive depth of flavour, with notes of lemon, green apple and white peach offset by a charming mineral tone throughout. A crisp acidity carries the wine to a refreshing and elegant finish.

YOU ARE  INVITED!

Wine List Take Over at The Quarter Bar

This month, Fredricks will be supplying a selection of seasonal wines by the glass alongside some specials bottles and rarities. 

FULL WINE LIST

SPARKLING

GAMBELLARA, DURRELLO | VENETO, ITALY |

Before Prosecco there was Durella, an ancient and indigenous variety grown in the volcanic soils of Lessinia in the Veneto.

LANGHAM, CORALLION CLASSIC CUVEE | DORSET, ENGLAND |

Tommy Grimshaw is not your traditional winemaker – breaking new ground by becoming the UK’s youngest head winemaker, working his way up from labelling wine when he left school.
Still only 28yrs old he continually strives to be creative in his winemaking, his focus is on a low intervention approach, and the results he achieves are outstanding – winning the coveted Best Sparkling Wine Producer at the International Wine and Spirit Competition in 2020, beating some of the best French champagne houses and sparkling wines from around the world.

ROSE

FAMILLE PERRIN, LUBERON, ROSE | PROVENCE | FRANCE |

A rosé by any other name would smell as sweet.’ The fruit is from the Perrin family vineyards that straddle Avignon and Aix-en-Provence. A beautiful pale provencale rosé in everything but name.

LIGHTER WHITES

VIGNERONS DE VALENCAY | LOIRE VALLEY FRANCE |

Sauvignon Blanc from its spiritual home in the Loire valley – fresh, zippy, herbacious and probably the best match for goat cheese – especially if it also comes from Valencay.

GAMBELLARA, CLASSICO | VENETO, ITALY |

100% Garganega, this is essentially declassified Soave, from fruit grown halfway between Vicenza and Verona. Try this if you like your Pinot Grigio to have some gusto!

BADASSIER, PICPOUL | LANGUEDOC | FRANCE

Picpoul the wine of choice for those seeking freshness. Perfectly chilled crisp and dry, it’s the perfect aperitif – oysters anyone!

RICHER WHITES

CIRCULADE, VERMENTINO | PAYS D’OC | FRANCE |

A wine made by winemakers, no fuss or marketing, just a clean, bright and aromatic wine, full of the aromas of peach, mango, pineapple and pear. Definitely a ‘where did that bottle go, wine.’

PIPOLI, BIANCO | BASILICATA | ITALY |

Low yielding old vines from two ancient grape varieties, one is greco or Greek, (southern Italy was Hellenic before the Romans arrived) and the other fiano.
The wine however is made by a super-modern outfit, they have lifted this into proper word-class status. Aromatic, it smells like green melon and elderflower, light, no oak, pure, snappy. A triumph that would be great with a peach and burrata salad.

BENEVENTANO, FALANGHINA | CAMPANIA | ITALY |

The Irpinian hills of Campania are known as the ‘Switzerland of the South’ and one of Italy’s most exciting wine producing areas thanks to its distinctive microclimate. A constant cool breeze that blows off the Bay of Naples that over the centuries has deposited volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius. How to describe Falanghina – it’s like all the best bits of Chardonnay.

LIGHTER REDS

LA ROCHE LA CHEVALIERE, PINOT NOIR | PAYS D’OC | FRANCE |

Red Burgundy at Languedoc prices – hand harvested and minimal intervention in the cellar all go to achieving a refined and ultimately delicious wine.

NIZZA, BARBERA D’ASTI | PIEDMONT | ITALY |

Barbera from Nizza Monferrato in Asti, Piedmont. The Barbera grape is to Asti what nebbiolo is to Barolo. Fruit forward, full bodied and harmonious with subtle smooth tannins.

RICHER REDS

FAMILLE PERRIN, VENTOUX ROUGE | SOUTHERN RHONE | FRANCE |

From the Perrin Family, owners of the renowned Château de Beaucastel, and Miraval Rosé, this is a supple red from the Ventoux mountains in Provence. A lighter but luscious red, Grenache, Syrah, Carignan, Cinsault blend.

PIPOLI, AGLIANICO | BASILICATA | ITALY |

The aglianico grape, is the jewel in the southern italian crown. Sunshine ripens the fruit perfectly and produces a real crowd pleasing wine, both rich and delicate – sounds too good to be true.
Pipoli Aglianico

PACHECO PEREDA, ESTRIPE CABERNET FRANC | MENDOZA | ARGENTINA |

Wine with Altitude, 1200 meters above sea level. This wine retains all the freshness and aromas of red pepper, raspberry, currant leaves and fruit, whilst tasting full bodied with velvety finish.

DANDELION, SHIRAZ | BAROSSA | AUSTRALIA |

Benchmark Barossan Shiraz – a full bodied powerhouse that retains its purity of fruit.

It’s your lucky day

The Back Story

Georgia’s UNESCO listed wine culture dates back some 8,000 years – the welcoming and benevolent nature of the people is a joy for all who have had the privilege of experiencing it – the inclusive and eclectic nation at the junction between East, West, North and South. European, Persian, Arabian, Anatolian and Far Eastern cultures have influenced Georgia’s own identity, resulting in one of the most hospitable countries in the world.

In honour of this, Bedoba was created, a collaboration between Georgian winemaker Nugzar Ksovreli from the Kakheti wine company and Swiss wine entrepreneur Thierry Fontannaz.’

Thierry’s fascination with qvevri and the utmost respect for Georgia’s ancient winemaking techniques guided his decisions when creating Bedoba. The fruit is sourced from Nugzar’s saperavi vines from the winery belonging to the Konchoshvili family which dates back to 1533 to produce wines for Kakhetian King Teimuraz II.

In Georgian Bedoba means, ‘day of luck.’  – a salutation to manifest good intentions and happiness in homes and establishments.

Our most popular wine at the Christmas showcase, Bedoba highlights the heritage of Georgian winemaking, the saperavi is partially aged in traditional qvevri* this gives a deftness to the wine, think black pepper notes associated with Northern Rhone syrah, but with the richness of the warmer southern regions of the Rhone and the Languedoc.

With a lovely late Easter this year, we are all hoping for some decent spring sunshine, perhaps even the chance to dine outside on roast lamb – Bedoba was made for roast lamb and as such we want to invite you grab a case now. Regulars in store know we can’t hold deep levels of stock in our little shop so ordering a case now really is your best chance to guarantee your favourite wine this spring.

SAVE £20 on a case of twelve

So today I wrote something …

Where is Fredricks in 2025 and importantly What is Fredricks?

Fredricks is the culmination of three ‘generations’ of owners – set up in 2006 by Michelin starred chef Freddie Jones as a semi-retirement project. It was Freddie who put in the imposing, full commercial kitchen you all see when you first walk in. He wanted to allow catering students the chance to work alongside him in a professional environment and the open-plan design was absolutely ahead of its time.

Around the same time, John & Juliette were planting 600 vines in Burston and two wine merchants, HarperWells and Envero experiencewine were starting out – supplying Freddie with a selection of wines and hosting one of our first in store tastings. It was rammed, back then Freddie only had the one deli room. From memory the wine room was a shop selling crystals.

As Freddie’s full time retirement came closer, he told me he was putting it up for sale, and that I should buy it. “A wine shop like yours in Diss would thrive” he told me.

Sceptical of the footfall and in absolute terror of taking on a Michelin kitchen I walked away, but John and Juliette took hold of the reigns and artfully repositioned the offering towards a deli with a difference – We continued to supply Fredricks with wines; initially a small shelf in the back room and later the back wall, and then during lockdown into a full wine shop as John & Juliette stepped aside and sold the business to Lisa and I in 2021.

Juliette’s vines had been left as nature intended over their six year tenure of the Deli, but in 2021 we hatched a plan, harvested the grapes and by chance got Chris Wilson to make our first vintage, and his first harvest at his new urban winery Gutter & Stars in Cambridge.

Borrowing fruit, borrowing tanks, borrowing expertise; nod to Dan Kirby MW student and now GM over a Flint Vineyard – we made a couple of experimental cuvée as we rejuvenated the vineyard. 2023 was a great season, 2024 was the polar-opposite. 

BRIT-NAT – A project by another wine buddy, Tim Wildman MW was taking shape when twenty-or-so English producers got together to taste their pet-nat, col fondo and ancestral method wines.

Tim was on a mission to preserve Englands ‘lost vineyards’ most likely planted over the decades by eccentrics for home brew, he now sources this fruit for his own Frolic pet-nat. A couple of email exchanges with Tim and we hosted our first post-lockdown tasting at the Deli, showcasing Frolic alongside our pouch of wine and similarly eccentric bottles.

The Wine Room opened like a bottle of unfiltered pet-nat on a summers day (unpredictable, effervescent and with a disregard for the mundane)

By BRIT-NAT 2 in 2024 Tim got 33 producers to show 53 wines. The UK wine scene is one the most exciting countries producing wine at the moment and our little wine shop has hosted 27 events, entertaining over 700 guests.

Long term customers may have seen this tagline experiencewine used in our social media or to describe our wine tastings. I started this post by asking What is Fredricks?

experiencewine sums our philosophy that has been at our core since 2004. We want you to experience wine, we don’t want to tell you what to taste or how to taste. There are hundreds of tutors offering WSET style courses, prescriptively telling you how to and what to taste.

Not all wine tastes the same for all people and not all people like the same wine – so our tastings are about putting loads of different wine styles in front of you, telling the stories of the people, geography and culture behind the label. We want to share our experience with you. Which is why you are more likely to see a carbonic-rioja than Marlborough sauvignon at our tastings – even though we stock Kevin Judd’s (ex-Cloudy Bay) fantastic Sauvignons and Pinot Noirs.

We continue this ethos into the deli, selling and critically using the products in the kitchen. Sauces and dry goods, made by chefs for chefs, imported by specialist regional wholesalers and Michelin chefs; Mitch Tonk, Richard Bainbridge and Andrew Jones, Iberian specialist Brindisa, cheese from Hamish Johnston, fresh fish from Brown and May, sour dough from Black Dog Deli, single origin coffee sourced and roasted by Steven from Symposium in Norwich. 

Our beers come through the Fat Cat, Norwich one of the first brew-pubs in the country and ranked as one of the best pubs in the country.

And of course HarperWells, ranked in the Top50 best independent wine shops for over a decade. 

So Where is Fredricks in 2025?

Arguably in a strong position, we have a loyal customer base, and are well established in town, we are in the enviable position of having customers request to join the mailing list without having to canvas for likes and votes online.

However, the High Street is a very different place to when we started in 2006. There were a handful of decent independents wine shops but the high street was dominated by Oddbins, Victoria Wine, Threshers et al. The internet was inaccessible for most, so mail order wine clubs and private client mailing lists served the enthusiast.

Jump forward to 2025 and there are over 1,000 quality independent wine shops (like ours) you can and should support your local one. Couriering nationally available wines up and down the country is not only environmentally irresponsible but economically unviable on a small independent scale.

The independent shop on the 2025 high street, can no longer trade as a market stall, set out its wares and wait for customers to walk in. I wouldn’t drive to an out of town store and fill by boot with 24 bottles of discounted fizz or exclusive-chilean blanc before trying to navigate road closures on my way home. I’d sit on my sofa and in two or three clicks have them delivered it to my kitchen door the next morning – and whilst I’m online, I’ll just do a quick check to make sure they are the cheapest – someone always is.

The above describes a transaction, arriving at your purchase by cookies and algorithms people who like this, also like this.

…and almost as if this was planned. Fredricks in 2025 is the experience, we’re small, we probably won’t have exactly what you saw on that sponsored post, but we’ll definitely have something you weren’t looking for.

Cheers, see you in store, in the courtyard, on socials – check out the events page for all upcoming events.

Next up Friday 11th April, In Store Pour: Imagine yourself in the Pyrenean hills of Carcassonne and experience the wonderful wines of Domaine Gayda.

Our annual outdoor summer event embraces the idea of Ilfestia!

Inspired by our trip to Vin Itago on the volcanic island of Tenerife, and borrowing the name from the Santorini festival, we welcome people to enjoy the courtyard whilst sipping some amazing volcanic wine. 

We’ll have more tables and chairs, a bigger ice filled wine station, and Fine Foods.