Wine List of the Week: Duchy
Douglas Blyde finds a list of alpine poise and quiet daring at Shoreditch’s Duchy, where wines shaped by altitude pour with precision and charm.
Duchy opened in Shoreditch to the sort of applause usually reserved for a returning messiah. “An almighty comeback,” declared Brummell’s Georgie Young. Her sentiment was echoed by Google reviewer, David Annez de Taboada, who offered something approaching a parable: “Sometimes a once great establishment has to pave way for an ever-better spot. This is it really.” Hot Dinners noted that while “Duchy happens to be co-owned by two former Leroy alumni – Alex Grant, who runs front of house and chef Simon Shand”, the food “has shifted quite a bit”, with Shand, a Worthing-born alumnus of Wild Honey, and Arbutus and The Corner Room (both RIP), now “exploring the Duchy of Savoy region for influence.”
But not all critics raised their glasses. The Guardian’s Grace Dent brutally described her spaghetti with sage as being “as memorable as the chorus of Britain’s last Eurovision entry” and found herself “truly puzzled” by the signature dish of “very damp smoked trout on a bowl of vivid green spätzle… cooked until mushy.”
Drinks
The result of some nineteen tastings, the list at Duchy is overseen by head sommelier, writer on electronica, and dog devotee, Matt Garratt. His sourcing leans on such suppliers as Les Caves de Pyrenne, whose director, Doug Wregg is a regular, Claire Thevenot MS’s Vins Clairs, and Luca Dusi’s Passione Vino. Garratt joined the project in April, having worked at Sessions Arts Club, The 10 Cases, whose team were in for lunch during our visit, Brat, Chapel Market Kitchen, and Hawksmoor Seven Dials. It was at the latter that this “waiter down from Manchester” met sommelier and mentor, Martina Larnach (now of Brat and Mountain). “I want to do a party for the hundreds of people she has taken under her wing,” he says.
Given his love for “Alpine acid-led wines,” Garratt focuses on producers “within 300kms of Mont Blanc.” Judging by the aftermath – “devastated last night,” he noted – it’s clearly working. A through-line of Alpine intent, with Savoie, Jura and the Valle d’Aosta front and centre, favouring altitude over attitude. Jacquère, Gringet and Roussette jostle with chisel-nosed clarity and barely-there alcohol – wines shaped by altitude and austerity, with clarity and grip rather than gloss. It’s not just regional – it’s topographic. Shand may cook from the Duchy of Savoy, but the list drinks it.
Discreetly buried at the back is a chapter titled “Old Leroy Stock”, offering a reward for those who read lists backwards. These are forgotten friends and underloved bottles from the Leroy era: five-year-old Greco di Tufo from Viticoltori De Conciliis in Campania (£37), Pietradolce’s Carricante from Etna (£50), and a Georgian Tsolikouri bottled by Iago Bitarishvili for iGavi (£50) – oddities with charm, priced to move. There’s grandeur, too: Cos d’Estournel 1988 (£350), and Château Latour’s second wine, Les Forts de Latour 1996 (£300). Some of the stock was held to ransom by a brave fishmonger in the hiatus between Leroy closing and Duchy opening, though the full story is, alas, unprintable. “We will be listing the fishmonger as a wine supplier, however,” confirmed Garratt.
From the core list, the most affordable bottles clock in at £35: Dettori’s wild Sardinian Vermentino/Moscato blend, or San Lorenzo’s Verdicchio from the Marche. For the more committed wallet, £350 buys you Domaine Roulot’s Meursault Clos des Bouchères or that same 1988 Cos d’Estournel. There’s even a serendipitous nod to the site’s past in 2018 Maison Leroy Bourgogne (£350).
But back to the beating heart of the list: wine grown on mountain soil. From Belluard’s Gringet Monsieur Gringet (£120) to Domaine des Ardoisières’ sulphur-sensitive “Schiste” blend of Jacquère, Roussette, Malvoisie and Mondeuse (£120), this is a programme of deliberate obscurity. The wines come from places with vertical slopes and diagonal names, and they drink like cold steel in candlelight. Few lists in London have this much altitude and nerve – fewer still wear it so lightly. Duchy isn’t showing off; it’s just showing you what it likes.
In time, expect Sauvignon Blanc from both Piedmont and Saint-Bris in Burgundy. Garratt is also quietly building a library of older Domaine Tempier – a diplomatic gesture for Claret drinkers, once the Bordeaux is gone and not coming back.
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Dishes
“I’m particularly passionate about wine people can afford in restaurants,” said Garratt, reaching for a Digestives-scented, traditional-method sparkler from the Jura’s neighbouring region, Franche-Comté. “Nothing I serve you is more than £65 a bottle.” That wine, Flute Enchantée, is accompanied by excellent, airy panisse. Garratt noted it hails from one of France’s oldest vine nurseries – early adopters of grafting onto American rootstocks.
Next came handsome Chevassu-Fassenet Chardonnay 2022, raised under flor by Jura winemaker, Marie-Pierre Chevassu-Fassenet, who brings New World experience to her classically Jura wines. “She made my wine of the year in 2020.” The wine lent salinity and edge to textbook brown crab arancini which held their temperature remarkably well.
A lively, engaging, deeply hued Tavel rosé foregrounding three Grenache grapes – Postérité Soixante-Dix by Gaël Petit – was poured into a precision Spiegelau Definition glass next. It coalesced unpredictably well with a chilled almond soup with melon.
We also tried Garratt’s “house wine” – Le Rétour, Atelier des Sources Cinsault – the work of Simon Tyrrell, who studied at Plumpton College before acquiring, with Irish colleagues, three hectares of old vines in the southern Rhône. This is one of his newest releases – a refreshing, finely tuned departure from bigger, blowsier reds linked with the region. Light on its feet, but not without depth, it’s what one might call a “session Cinsaut”. Though the landscape can get so hot, “the vines shut down entirely,” noted Garratt.
Then came the polarising red Les Grangeons de l’Albarine Mondouze le Château 2022 – intense, fruity, yet farmyard, bone-dry, and just 10% ABV – followed by a selection of two goats cheeses and one from a cow: Tomme de chèvre, Clacbitou, and Meule des Alpes. With them: the dagger-sharp Savagnin Cuvée des Archevêques 2015 from Vignoble Guillaume – another Vin de France, which is actually Vin Jaune in all but name and, intriguingly, format. It arrived in a 750ml bottle rather than the traditional 620ml clavelin – the distinctive squat vessel designed to represent what remains from each litre of Savagnin after six years of ageing under a veil of flor.
Last sip
Given the number of fallen-soldier bottles facing the handsome counter and deep windowsills – including beside, and almost encroaching onto, our table, making it look as though we’d already had a hard lunch before we’d even begun – this is very much a wine trade-friendly place. It also has the easy confidence of a neighbourhood restaurant any neighbourhood should be lucky to have. We feel the Josper-style grill, vented towards the end of service like an irate volcano, could, in time, be put to greater use – perhaps for some proper chops to stand up to all those often-mountainous reds. There’s a sense, as you leave, of having dropped in on something still finding its shape, then – but already sure of its soul.
Best for
- Wines with altitude
- A lunch which turns into dinner
- Trade-friendly drinking without the schmooze
Value: 97, Size: 93, Range: 93, Originality: 96, Experience: 95; Total: 94.8
Duchy 18 Phipp Street, Shoreditch, EC2A 4NU; 07874 310612; duchyrestaurant.com
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