JamieOliver.com

Mon 27 Jul 2009 @ 15:44
Danny McCubbin

Jamie Oliver has launched his own group on Naked Wines to make great quality wine available at affordable prices. Jamie's posted his favorite wines on the on the Naked Wine site and also he's paired wines with some of his favorite recipes.

Rowan Gormley, founder of Naked Wines, shares with us his views on the wine industry and also the exciting new venture here on Jamieoliver.com.


Once being called the Naked Chef Jamie was known for stripping back any notion of complexity around cooking – is this the same idea for Naked Wines?
Absolutely. The wine industry loves to cover mediocre wines with emperor's clothes...which you can't taste and all add to the cost. The end result is that a typical bottle of supermarket wine only has 30p of wine in it, so while it may be cheap it is TERRIBLE value. By cutting out the crap in the middle, we can afford to charge customers less and pay winemakers more

What made you decide to work with Jamie?
So much about wine is either stuffy OR dumbed down. Jamie's approach to food inspired us to launch Naked Wines, by showing that you could be casual (as opposed to stuffy) AND professional. And as food and wine go together like Valentine's Day and chocolate body paint, Jamie Oliver was always the chef we wanted to work with above all others

Food and wine definitely go hand in hand – are you a foodie yourself? Do you like to cook?
I am a typical bloke cook. Huge quantities, no recipes, loads of mess and a dietician's nightmare! I grow my own vegetables, so my idea of a good meal is fresh stuff from the garden, cooked over a charcoal barbecue, washed down with a delicious bottle of wine. Until I grew my own, I never knew how good fresh stuff tasted

Can you tell us your top tips for tasting wine?
- The right kind of glass is important. A large one.
- Don't bother trying to identify what the wine is, or where it is from. Leave that to the party bores.
- Do use your nose. Most wines taste the same. The only difference is the smell.
- Don't look at the label and the price beforehand. Just trust your taste buds, and you will find some wines that are delicious...and cost peanuts

Have you always been into wine?
I love the stuff, I do find it fascinating, but I hate all the "Oooh I can taste tobacco, bicycle saddles and pork scratching bollocks". The thing I love about the business is that it is one of the few products where the best makers are still unknown...there are so many great winemakers who nobody has ever heard of, and I love doing my bit to bring these winemakers to the attention of a wider audience.

You have a very interesting career path making the transition from finance to wine – how did this happen?
I have always loved wine, but did not know much about it. So I tended to do what everyone else does...pick the pretty label and hope for the best! Then I first used Amazon's "If you like A you will love B" functionality, it struck me that this could work for wine in the same way that it works for books and music. I pitched the idea to Richard Branson, who turned it down, so we did it anyway and called it Orgasmic Wines. Then when Richard saw the business take off he changed his mind, invested and we renamed it Virgin Wines

What is your favourite wine?
How long have you got? There is one for every occasion, from drinking rough wine from a carafe on a table in rural Spain, surrounded by tasty bits of boar, to sharing a winemakers trophy collection of ancient bottles their granddad made 50 years ago. The wine my mates are wolfing down right now is a rose called Tafalla. It is cheap as chips, tastes delicious, and is perfect summer time drinking...salads, bbqs, picnics, festivals, just generally lazing about...perfect

Why do you think that there has been such a stigma attached to the wine industry in general? The general impression that I get is that you have to learn how to appreciate wine – is this true?
It beats me why the wine industry insist on carrying on like there is some great mystery about wine that you have to be part of a secret society to understand. And it beats me why wine drinkers allow themselves to be treated like sheep. They are your taste buds for heavens sake, the only wine region that counts is the inside of your mouth and the only wine critic that counts is the one you see in the mirror. Trust your taste buds, don't get sucked in by the marketing and don't feel pressured into paying too much money for crap wine.

Has the economic downturn affected the wine industry?
In a good way. I think that conspicuous consumption is now as fashionable as flares, and people are much more interested in getting something that tastes great (as opposed to looks great), that genuinely costs less, and that helps another human being along the way.

Can you tell me about the ethos behind Naked Wines?
We wanted to create a farmer's market for winemakers, where small farmers can get there wines to wine lovers without having to waste their time and money on marketing, wine lovers can get a better wine for less money because they don't have to pay to be sold to. On the softer side, wine drinkers can talk to wine makers, so they know that these wines are authentic, and the winemakers get feedback from real people.

What sets Naked Wines apart from other online wine retailers?
2 things :
1. We are naked. You know the wines you are getting from us are authentic, because you can speak to the winemaker. You can ask other customers what they think.
2. We deliver 6 bottles or more, next day for £4.99. Most others deliver a minimum of 12 bottles, in about a week, for £6.99

How do you find your wine suppliers?
Through the grapevine (sorry!). The people we are looking for are winemakers who are very good at making wine, but very bad at selling it. So by definition they are hard to find. Sometimes it is their bank manager that sends them to us, we work hard with the wine trade organizations, who are delighted for once to be dealing with someone who is not looking for the next wine mega-brand, our customers have recommended several, and often they just find us, because their neighbor/cousin/friend is selling to us.

What is the criteria for finding them?
Our customers have to love the wine. When we get approached by a winemaker, we ask them for samples which we send to customers and ask them to vote. The winners get in, the losers don't. We found that this is very reliable, because customers drinking wine at home with friends are much better at picking the winners than a wine buyer in a white coat in a lab.

Finally is you could have dinner with 5 people of your choice (with paired wines of course!) who would they be?
- Nelson Mandela – I am south african, he was jailed the day I was born and his release changed south africa's future for the better
- The whole of Kings of Leon...to provide the entertainment
- Dominique Grangeon, one of our winemakers, to bring her Châteauneuf
- David Mitchell, the comedian. Seems to be genuinely funny, not just good at repeating other people's jokes
- Jamie of course...someone has to do the cooking and it better not be me!

Join Jamie's group on Naked Wines

See Jamie's top wine recommendations