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10 wines that tell the Avery story No.4


4. Beaulieu Vineyard Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
The next of our ‘10 wines that tell the Averys story’ is Beaulieu Vineyard Georges de Latour Private Reserve, America’s first ‘cult’ Cabernet Sauvignon.
In 1964, aged 22, John Avery spent a summer touring the USA, whilst taking a break from his studies at Oxford. There he visited the University of California Davis and met Professor Maynard Amerine and winemaker Andre Tchelistcheff, two of the most influential figures in America’s wine history.
Amerine was head of the wine faculty at Davis and is still to this day considered the USA’s most significant wine scientist. Tchelistcheff had been winemaker at Beaulieu Vineyard since the 1930s and his Georges de Latour Cabernet Sauvignon was considered the benchmark Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.
They had a lasting impact on the young John Avery and helped introduce him to some of California’s finest wines. Shortly after John’s return to the UK, Averys become the first UK wine merchant to import Beaulieu wines and the sole UK agent. However, Californian fine wines were unheard of in the UK and Bordeaux-loving Averys customers needed a little persuasion!

So in 1965, John organised a comparative tasting of Beaulieu with French wines at The Connaught, predating the famous Judgement of Paris tasting by a decade. He billed the match as “Old World vs New World” in what is thought to be the first time that wines from outside Europe were so described.

Of course, John didn’t stop there. He went on to become the first UK wine merchant to import some of California’s most famous names, including Heitz, Sterling and Ridge. And in 1976, together with Harry Waugh and Hugh Johnson, he founded the Zinfandel Club to ship fine Californian wines which previously had only been available in America.

“John Avery was the real pioneer in importing these wines” Steven Spurrier, Where is the New World? Decanter.

The introduction of Beaulieu Vineyards and other Californian wines was just the start of John’s exploration of ‘New World’ wines. He pioneered many wines which, like Beaulieu, were hardly known outside their own borders but have since become household names.

Look out for the next wine in our ’10 wines’ series for what was perhaps John’s biggest New World discovery of all!

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