March 2010

News from Henri’s

First of all thank you to everyone who has been supporting us recently – we hope you are pleased with what we are doing and are always happy to receive suggestions for anything we could do or could do better! We had a successful Christmas period and no sooner was that over than we started planning for the year ahead...

Michael recently held a successful tasting evening with Rose Murray-Brown MW, chief wine critic for The Scotsman, at the Whisky Society on Queen Street. The theme of the event was charcuterie and wine although of course our cheeses also had a look in as well! One of the most popular matches of the night was our Jambon de Corse (peppered Corsican air-dried ham) with rosé. The new vintage of rosé from the Cave des Vignerons de Pegairolles will be arriving in April so look out for this and try it for yourself! Rose will be using our cheese and wine at more of her tasting events, more information on which can be found at www.rosemurraybrown.com.
 
Another event coming up is a Cheese Tasting with the New Town Cookery School on Queen Street on Wednesday 31st March. We shall be showing a selection of our cheeses and trying to match them with all sorts of drinks (for example have you ever tried a strong blue cheese with an Islay malt?). Hopefully we shall explode some cheese and wine myths by highlighting some new and perhaps unusual combinations.

The Spring of course heralds the arrival of new vintages of wine, and over the next few months we shall be receiving new and exclusive wines from France including new vintages from Les Vignerons de Pégairolles and new red wines (a Grenache and a Syrah) from Vella Frontera right down in the south western corner of France in Maury. These are fabulous and we are sure they will be a hit! We have also been appointed the agent for Scotland of Champagne Boizel. We are proud to be representing them both in the shop and in the restaurant trade – this is high quality Champagne with a big following in France which has not been represented here before. Why not pop in to the shop and treat yourself to a bottle?!

A forthcoming buying trip to France will also hopefully yield some new goodies (don’t say we don’t try!) and we also have new deliveries direct from the producers of olive oil from Olidoc, chutneys, jams and conserves from Epicurien and more fabulous chocolates and Babas au Rum from Savour Baba. The giftware from Orval Creations proved so popular that we have more of that arriving too. We shall continue to work hard this year to bring you products unavailable anywhere else and have several buying trips planned – do keep coming in to the shop to see what we have in stock!

Finally our website continues to grow in popularity and we are sending hampers, gift boxes, wine and cheese all over the UK. If you need to send a present to someone out of Edinburgh (or even in Edinburgh) why not try our efficient delivery service? Go on-line at www.henrisofedinburgh.co.uk or phone the shop on 447 8877.

We are also supplying more and more restaurants, including two of Edinburgh’s best Michelin-starred ones, and if you have not been to the shop you may have unwittingly eaten our cheese or tasted our wine on an evening out! We hope to see you in the shop soon or look after you on the web.

A bientôt!

Simon Lloyd

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June 2009

Our last buying trip found us in the south of France...

Our first stop was Nice. My French business partner Yvonne’s niece lives in Nice and she had prepared for us an extensive itinerary of visits to local producers, in particular olive oil producers. Our most memorable visit was to the Moulin de la Brague where we tasted their fine olive oils, olives and tapenades (the delicious olive spread which is wonderful on toast, brioche or even oatcakes). We have been looking for new olive oil for some time and this one might just be it!

The next day we left Nice at 7am for the 400km drive to our next appointment, another olive oil producer but this time in the Hérault, just north of Montpellier. Our friend Jean-Michel Gauffre who owns La Garrigue on Jeffrey Street, and is from the Hérault, had recommended we visit the Huilerie Coopérative of Clermont l’Hérault. They make great quality oil and are noted for their use of the “Lucques” variety of green olive. It has a crescent shape and the most wonderful, delicate taste - one of the finest olives you will ever eat. Hopefully we shall be importing some of these along with their excellent olive oils which we tasted. In addition they make soaps and shower gels from olive oil which should find their way to the shop.

Next it was a quick lunch before the short drive to our next appointment. This was with the jam and conserve producer Epicurien. We have just started selling some of their products so it was good to meet them face to face and discuss the possibility of using more. The owner started life with a delicatessen in Paris, but his homemade jams proved so popular that he returned to his native region and now does it full time with around 100 different varieties of jams and savoury conserves.

After a few mouthfuls of Bernard’s chocolate and orange spread (perfect for crepes!) we headed to the wine co-op in the beautiful village of Pégairolle-de-l’Escalette, the smallest co-op in the Hérault with only 58 members. The vineyards are on terraces on the surrounding hills and are all worked by hand. David Reverbel, the 36 year-old winemaker met us to show us around and give us a tasting of his wines. He is doing a great job. The wines have a real sense of place (what the French call “terroir”), and the reds and roses in particular were delicious. We left with several samples to bring home so we can decide which wines to import!
 
Having driven to Carcassonne for the night, first thing the next morning we left to go to Argelès-sur-Mer for our final appointment to see Stéphane Morin of Domaine Léonine and his partner Isabelle Frère of Le Scarabée. They both produce wines in as natural a way as possible, what the French call “vins nature”. This is real organic viticulture – no pesticides of any kind are used and there is no mechanisation in the vineyard. All work  is done by hand or with the help of “Filling” the horse! Depending on the wine, no sulphur dioxide or almost no sulphur dioxide is used and the wines have a wonderful purity to them. Unexpectedly we were invited to stay for lunch and feasted on oysters and fine pork from the surrounding Pyrenees, accompanied by some of their delicious wines. A one hour appointment quickly turned in to a 4 hour stay!

After 900 kilometres in two days this was a great end to our trip...the fruits of which will be in the shop soon.

Simon Lloyd

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February 2009

Our Latest Buying Trip!

One of the perks of my job is visiting France from time to time to see suppliers of food and wine and find new ones! A quick trip to Paris in the New Year found me and my French business partner Yvonne at Europe’s largest food market – Rungis on the outskirts of Paris. Three days of tasting cheese, charcuterie and other delicacies as well as meeting wine producers and enjoying the fruits of their labours is genuinely hard work – trust me!

The main food market used to be at Les Halles in the centre of Paris which many of you will know as a big shopping centre! However it outgrew this area and moved out to a windy industrial estate a long way from its original home. Just getting there involves a 6am start and a long journey! In its many buildings are companies big and small selling everything you can imagine and many things you probably can’t – wandering through the halls you are likely to see boxes full of pigs trotters, shelves of horse meat, wonderful rare breed chickens and regional specialities as well as artisanal cheese and charcuterie and exquisite fruit and vegetables, all of which we import (well, apart perhaps from the trotters and horse meat!).

We at Henri’s pride ourselves as being the primary French cheese supplier in Scotland and we spent a merry couple of hours with our cheese supplier Ludovic discussing new cheeses. He also supplies the top cheesemonger in Paris, and it is always reassuring to know that you are in good company! We have come back with lots of gems from small producers, many of which have never been seen in Britain before and normally only grace the tables of the best restaurants in France.

Next stop was our charcuterie and meat supplier, looking at new saucissons and hams as well as olive oils, jams and chutneys and much else besides. The butcher’s section has row upon row of quails, rabbits, chickens, guinea fowl, suckling pigs and so on. Standing there in the cold discussing all this with Hervé the butcher (which required my full concentration as it is all done in French!) was initially very pleasant,  but soon the cold took over and I wished I had been wearing my Scottish winter climbing kit instead of my best business suit! In a slightly warmer room we had a look at some new olive oils which will soon be making their way to Henri’s and all sorts of other goodies.

Finally, you have to eat somewhere and Yvonne and I found an excellent wine bar in Paris specialising in organic wines made in tiny quantities by dedicated growers. We made a few very useful contacts and spoke to a couple of wine producers who were keen to see their wines represented in the UK. Some of these wines may well also find their way to the shop later in the year to add to our increasing selection of French wines exclusive to us in Scotland.

We look forward to welcoming you to the shop soon! We are already planning our next trip to France...probably to the south west in a couple of months time...some of us have to do it!

Simon Lloyd