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Arden Fine Wines

Arden Fine Wines is the award-winning specialist in fine & rare wines and spirits. London–UK–worldwide delivery.

Vintage fine wines for anniversary, birthday, and christening gifts.

23/06/2025

Joseph Phelps Vineyards Insignia 1991… 🍷

Arden Fine Wines doesn’t sell many Californian wines (though we are keen on Dominus Estate).

However, a client asked us for recommendations for the excellent 1991 CA vintage and we came up with Joseph Phelps Insignia.

Construction magnate and home winemaker Joe Phelps established his eponymous Napa winery in 1973, with the first vintage of its flagship red wine “Insignia” made in the great 1974 CA vintage.

The Californian vintage for 1991 was particularly good – especially for Napa – and much better than anywhere in Europe, though some good Vintage Port was made.

Insignia 1991 was made from 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc and 10% Merlot – a great example of this fine American vintage.

(NB the cellophane wrapping was to protect the bottle in transit to and from Arden Fine Wines.)

18/06/2025

1955 Smith Woodhouse Vintage Port 🍷

This Port brand was established in the 19th century by Christopher Smith – MP and Lord Mayor of London – and the Woodhouse brothers, who were wine importers.

Declared by 26 shippers, 1955 was the largest declaration since 1927.

It is the finest Port vintage between 1948 and 1963.

A perfect bottle for a 70th birthday or anniversary.

See Smith Woodhouse and other 1955 Ports at https://ardenfinewines.com/product-category/vintage/1955-vintage-wines-for-sale/

#70

16/06/2025

"Bella Vista Flowers", made entirely with wine labels by my late friend Valentino Monticello.

The flowers include labels from Bellavista Wine.

Learn more about Valentino's life and work at https://ardenfinewines.com/valentino-monticello/

09/06/2025

1975 Château Mouton Rothschild … 🍷

After three very bad vintages in 1972, 1973, and (to my ongoing regret) 1974, 1975 was a good year that restored morale to the Bordeaux wine trade.

The wines were very tannic and built to last.

This 50-year old Mouton – with its label by Andy Warhol – is hard to find these days.

However, Arden Fine Wines can offer the ultimate 50th birthday wine – a 1.5-litre magnum of 1975 Mouton Rothschild.

https://ardenfinewines.com/product/chateau-mouton-rothschild-1975/

#50

04/06/2025

Château Margaux 1991… 🍷

Although not at the level of the great 1990, Margaux 1991 is a very good wine for this unloved Bordeaux vintage.

A frost wiped out a lot of Bordeaux vines on 21-22 April 1991, destroying new shoots.

As if that wasn’t enough to deal with, September rains caused rot.

However, Margaux – in an area where the grapes ripen up to ten days before other parts of the Médoc – picked its grapes quickly and selectively as the rains came.

About 2,500 bottles of wine were made per hectare of vineyards; the usual would be 3,000-4,000+.

It is arguably the best Bordeaux wine of 1991.

https://ardenfinewines.com/product/chateau-margaux-1991/

02/06/2025

How many of these wines have you tasted (or drunk)?

An untitled work by Valentino Monticello (1933–2014) that shows many old fine wine labels, including:

* Château Ausone
* Château Cheval Blanc
* Château Haut-Brion
* Château Latour, Pauillac
* Château Margaux
* Petrus
* Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Échezeaux
* Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Conti
* Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche

Said Valentino: “All of my pictures are composed of shapes carefully cut from wine labels: the people, the flowers, even the lines, are carefully cut from different wine labels. There is no drawing or painting involved at all.”

The vintages are not always apparent or visible but Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1924 – the first Mouton vintage to feature a bespoke label (by Jean Carlu), with the bold announcement that Mouton was now château bottled – can be seen at top left.

Learn more about Valentino's life and work at https://ardenfinewines.com/valentino-monticello/

26/05/2025

Château Latour 1965… 🍷

If you’re 60-years old in 2025 and have a taste for claret – well…

In Bordeaux in 1965, it rained frequently in July.

And August.

And September.

By the time the grapes were harvested in late September and early October, rot had set in.

I have heard stories of mould growing in vats during the 1965 vintage. It was a shocker.

It is probably the poorest vintage of the 1960s, though 1963 is also a contender.

If you must have a 1965 Bordeaux wine, we suggest Château Latour.

https://ardenfinewines.com/product/chateau-latour-1965/

19/05/2025

“Wine Library” by my late friend Valentino Monticello used wine labels from Biondi Santi, Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia, Penfolds, and Il Molino di Grace (among others).

Said Valentino: “All of my pictures are composed of shapes carefully cut from wine labels: the people, the flowers, even the lines, are carefully cut from different wine labels. There is no drawing or painting involved at all.”

Learn more about Valentino's life and work at https://ardenfinewines.com/valentino-monticello/

12/05/2025

1965 Kopke Colheita… 🍷

In his novel “Todos os Nomes” (“All The Names”), the Nobel Prize-winner José Saramago wrote, “even though the clock would like to convince us otherwise, time is not the same for everyone.”

A Colheita Port is a wine from a single year that has been aged in wood for at least seven years – essentially a vintage-dated Tawny.

But most Colheitas are aged for much longer than this.

Like Tawny Ports, Colheitas do not evolve in the bottle. However, different years of bottling mean different wines.

This 1965 Kopke Colheita was bottled in 2024 – old wine in a new bottle.

Two bottles left at https://ardenfinewines.com/product/kopke-colheita-port-1965/

05/05/2025

“Europa riconosciuta” depicted by Valentino Monticello with wine labels.

“Europa riconosciuta” (“Europa revealed” or “Europa recognised”) is an opera in two acts by Antonio Salieri, set to an Italian libretto by Mattia Verazi.

It was first performed on 3rd August 1778 at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the proscenium of which is depicted here by Valentino.

The labels include Château Mouton Rothschild, Château Cheval Blanc, Château Haut-Brion, Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia, and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

28/04/2025

Arden Fine Wines is a registered organisation with Friends Against Scams.

Friends Against Scams is a National Trading Standards Scams Team initiative which aims to protect and prevent people from becoming victims of scams.

To register, Arden Fine Wines had had to demonstrate pro-active work that we were already undertaking on scams prevention; demonstrate our trading history; and to pass company & director checks.

On an ongoing basis we have to deal with invoice fraud (attempting to charge us for goods or services that have not been properly ordered or supplied) and VAT fraud (telling us that goods will be exported in due course after delivery to a UK address and therefore no VAT is due).

For example, recently we received an email (at 4-5am, so presumably overseas) from “David Mcbride” saying that “We would like to buy some wine from you as supply for my mother-in law's birthday do you receive payment via bank transfer?”

“Mr McBride’s” email domain address was yandex.com – which is a Russian tech company…

Upon further investigation, this was an attempt at an overpayment scam, whereby the client “accidentally” overpays and asks for an immediate refund of the difference, leveraging the time-lag between payment and clearance.

It simply won’t work at Arden Fine Wines – our systems and processes flush out nonsense like this very quickly.

But our work against scams mostly involves exposing counterfeit bottles of fine wine.

By exposing them, it removes them from the market and prevents anybody from unknowingly purchasing a fake.

23/04/2025

Champagne Challiol & Charmetant from Arden Fine Wines.

We are working with our good friends and colleagues the Singhal family to offer their excellent Champagne to UK customers.

The Singhals bought vineyards in the Marne Valley in 2018.

They are the first Indian owners of a Champagne vineyard and created this brand.

The Challiol & Charmetant label dates to 1883, when it was presented at the Calcutta International Exhibition in honour of Queen Victoria, Empress of India.

The label shows “the Memsahib’s Afternoon Ride” – a British woman on an elephant's back.

“Champagne Challiol & Charmetant” is also written on the label in Devanagari.

Challiol & Charmetant is available only in 1.5-litre magnum bottles, sealed with a string & wax “ancienne” closure.

To ensure traceability and to guarantee quality and authenticity, each magnum of Challiol & Charmetant has an etched serial number on it.

Available online at https://ardenfinewines.com/product/champagne-challiol-charmetant-magnum/

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Tuesday	08:00 - 18:00
Wednesday	08:00 - 18:00
Thursday	08:00 - 18:00
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https://www.ardenfinewines.com/

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