Anthony Byrne Fine Wines was established in 1976 by Anthony and Rae Byrne to supply the United Kingdom market with high quality wine. We import distinctive, enjoyable wines from France, Spain, Italy and exciting New World growers, from South Africa, Australia, Argentina, Chile and New Zealand.
As UK wine merchants we supply restaurants, hotels, local and national retailers, pubs and bars. We deliver to the on-trade regularly throughout Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, London and the home counties, Norfolk and the south of England.
We offer an interesting selection of wines for home delivery within 40 miles of our Cambridgeshire warehouse.
When a long-standing customer asks for assistance with a Charity project, it is great to assist, which took our team to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge on Saturday 25th March for dinner. We were exceedingly fortunate to have Pablo Barros, chief winemaker of Chilean winery Apaltagua visiting ABFW at the time, so we were happy to arrange a tutored tasting by him for the 120 guests present, and to donate the wine for the event. Pablo is pictured right with ABFW Director Rae Byrne.
Each course of the elaborate menu was cooked by a different head chief and team, drawn from local and regional restaurants and catering colleges. We paired the menu with a full range of Apaltagua wines, which were very much enjoyed. In total, the evening raised £10,500 for the NSPCC.
ABFW just returned from ProWein 2017, hosted in Dusseldorf. We make this trip annually to meet as many of our distant suppliers as we can all in one place, as it has proven both efficient and a great way to maintain relationships in the industry.
As ever, a trade fair does not replace the importance of visiting growers in their place of work, as so much can be judged from the condition of the vineyards and cellars at different times in the year. For our own customers we continue our program of grower visits, where we host growers in the United Kingdom and they then present their wines in person to ABFW customers at our regular Trade Tastings (Oxford, Cambridge, London).
If your business shares our passion for sourcing the best wines, please contact sales@abfw.co.uk and lets see if we can bring something special to your wine list for your customers.
ABFW attended the 13th edition of Vinisud at Montpellier's Parc Expo and was pleased to see some excellent quality wines showing good value. The event, as always, allows us to meet our existing growers from the Mediterranean regions as well as establish new contacts.
We tasted some excellent wines from longstanding ABFW grower Domaine des Hauts Châssis and were particularly pleased to sample new wines from Franck's colleagues in Ambiance Rhône Terroirs, a union of eight families making quality wines throughout the Rhône Valley. We will be bringing these to the UK soon!
The ABFW team visited some key Loire Valley growers (including Domaine Naudet and Pierre Marchand) in December to taste the 2016 vintage. Production volumes have decreased marginally compared with 2015, but the quality remains excellent.
The team tasted samples from all the growers' tanks, with the harvest segregated by soil type. Final blending will take place in March and April, to be released between April and August.
In September ABFW visited Jean-Yves Larochette of Domaine des Perelles, Burgundy, a high quality 11-hectare domaine in the appellations of Macon Blanc Villages, St Veran and Pouilly Fuisse. The 2015 vintage has been particularly successful in this domaine, producing wines typical of each appellation. Well balanced with good acidity. Drink 2017-2022.
A fantastic round of October tastings was opened by Florence Bauchet of Champagne Bauchet presenting her three cuvées (Brut, Signature and Rosé) produced with her cousin and winemaker Bruno Bauchet in Bisseuil. Winemaker Pablo Barro of Apaltagua then presented wines principally from his vineyards in the San Antonio and Curico Valley regions of Chile. We completed the selection with a preview of an modern, upcoming New Zealand winery Misty Cove, and finished with a fine selection of sweet wines from Coteaux Du Layon of the Loire Valley.
As usual our Autumn tastings were held in Oxford (Brasserie Blanc, Wednesday 5th October), Cambridge (Restaurant Alimentum, Thursday 6th October), and London (Fish Restaurant, Borough Market, Friday 7th October).
Invitations to our tastings are emailed to customers by the sales team 2-4 weeks in advance, and we rotate venues to give all customers a chance to attend. Please speak with sales@abfw.co.uk to open a trade account for your business.
We are delighted to showcase the work of two French growers, visiting in person this month for our early summer trade tastings held in Cambridge (Côte Brasserie, Wednesday 6th July), Oxford (The Anchor, Tuesday 5th July) and London (L'Autre Pied, Friday 8th July). We will be exploring the wines of Loire winemaker Auguste Bonhomme and, joined by Corinne Ehrhart and her daughter Margot, those of the husband and wife team at Domaine Saint Remy, Alsace.
Invitations to our tastings are emailed to customers by the sales team 2-4 weeks in advance, and we rotate venues to give all customers a chance to attend. Please speak with sales@abfw.co.uk to open a trade account for your business.
The company would like to thank customers old and new that helped celebrate our fortieth year of trading, especially those able to join the celebratory lunches held at Restaurant Alimentum (Cambridge), Brasserie Blanc (Oxford) and the Royal China Restaurant (London, Canary Wharf).
In London, customers joined us for a high speed boat trip down the Thames followed by lunch at one of our longstanding customers, Royal China Canary Wharf. Spirits were high and guests enjoyed Anthony Byrne recounting the changes in the UK wine consumers' market from the 1970s to the present day (remember Mateus Rosé?), accompanied by his favourite wines discovered after four decades of research!
The sales team were thanked for their hard work and the strengths of remaining an independent family business, as seen through the decades, were reiterated.
We look forward to continuing the supply of distinctive and enjoyable wines to our customers for the next 40 years.
We're delighted to announce that two new Prosecco wines are now in stock, both from our new grower Ca’ di Rajo. We first tried these back in late January 2016, when we met brothers Marino & Simone Cecchetto, a trip during which we were specially looking to explore the mid-to-high range of the market. This is reflected in the price, coming in slightly more expensive than our house Prosecco. We will be featuring both proseccos at our spring & early summer trade tastings; please contact your sales manager if you are reviewing your lists and want to try them sooner.
This update comes to you from the cool, crisp hills of Traviso in January, as the buying team visit several as-yet-unnamed growers looking to bolster our range of Prosecco wines in anticipation of the coming summer.
We then visited Stephano, Tiziano and Allessandre Accordini of Corte Alta, and found the cellar busy with bottling in progress. We were fortunate to taste the 2015 Valpolichelo Classico, having just been released from maturation in tanks. We tasted the Ripasso, Amarone and of course the fabulous Recioto sweet wine, of 100% air-dried grapes. Tiziano talked of the need to balance volumes of Aberone with Ripasso as he needs one old barrel of Aberone from a previous year to make two barrels of Ripasso the next.
Finally we called to visit the Portinari Family, meeting Maria and Silvo to taste the 2014 vintage Soave Classico Ronchetto (DOC) and Soave Albare (DOC) of the same year. We then tried the Soave Albare and Santo Stefano of previous years, tasted generously with home-made Salami Portinari!
Arrivederci!
Looking for more information? Explore our portfolio of wine, read the services we offer trade customers, and the company history. Here are our contact details and the team will be delighted to assist you.
Anthony Byrne Fine Wines Ltd. Registered in England and Wales with company number 01713692.
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Registered office: Ramsey Business Park, Stocking Fen Road, Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, PE26 2UR.