This selection is a distillation of what is now more than 50 years experience of travel and tasting in most of the world’s wine regions, both the well trodden and the more obscure. The very name, Savage Selection, is intended to suggest that the wines selected are the result of rigorous scrutiny with regard to the three principal criteria that we apply when assessing a wine, those of balance, vitality and originality. To offer wines that may be considered as yardsticks of quality within their given appellations is not enough and we work closely with growers who have higher aspirations, not content with the merely satisfactory but wishing to use their intelligence, expertise and intuition to get the very best out of their vineyards. Just as so much writing is pedestrian, so too is much, perhaps most wine, but if words can make music, then so surely can wine grapes when they benefit from a favourable location and the ‘savoir faire’ of a sympathetic hand. I sometimes summarise this with another trilogism: latitude, altitude, and attitude. To make a vineyard sing with the authentic voice of its own ‘genius loci’ or spirit of place, it requires deep sensitivity in collaboration with the forces of nature. It is with this in mind that we select our winegrowers.
“The wine merchant’s wine merchant” Jancis Robinson MW
“The wine merchant’s wine merchant” Steven Spurrier
We do not buy wines by virtue simply of their grape variety since I see that element in the equation as the means to the end, the best tool with which to translate the voice of any given ‘terroir’. Nor am I likely to be much impressed by new toys or tricks in the cellar, since for us the gardening matters much more than the cooking in our wish to hear the whispered voice of the actual vineyard rather than any loud noises from the cellar. The tasting note that we look for is delicacy, as opposed to density, and it is a more difficult target to hit, but a more satisfying one if you are looking, as we are, for refinement and refreshment. It will be obvious that we do our best to avoid the phenomenon of the designer blockbuster, a child of the current and unhealthy obsession with high scores from professional wine critics. We are not interested in numbers, but in flavours, as may be clear from this catalogue where numbers are conspicuous by their absence, be it with regard, to vintages, prices or ratings. The quantification of taste seems to me to be a patent absurdity. We do not apply it to art, literature or music, so why do we do so with wine? The culprit I fear is marketing. We should not forget that concentration is the enemy of finesse. You will therefore understand that we select on the basis of our own conviction.
“If you want the purest demonstration of wines with irresistible taste of their place, Savage Selection offers a thrilling range” Oz Clarke
I often think that my job consists largely of being able to identify potential, both in respect of a vineyard and an individual wine, but also with regard to the human individuals who are responsible for realising the potential of their land. If our list of producers is better today than it was 20 years ago that is because we continually try to identify those that are compatible in terms of size, psychology and philosophy. While I am endlessly impressed by their sheer expertise, I am also often struck by their humility. My own responsibility is to be useful to them by bringing their unique wines to the attention of a discriminating clientele. We are fortunate to have a band of a brilliant growers and loyal customers to whom we are equally indebted. It is the support of those customers which will ensure the survival of the great individuals and the sustainable vineyards that we do our best to assist.
“I don’t think Mark Savage could buy a dull wine if he tried” Oz Clarke