Australian sunshine

This is no ordinary wine shop. Mike and Chrissy Perry don't just bring Australian wines to Yorkshire customers; they are also pretty good at bringing customers from around the country to Pateley Bridge too. Sometimes these customers visit just to buy wine and admire the stunning scenery. But often they come to sit down and enjoy them with good Yorkshire food in fine Yorkshire locations.

At the latest of their winemaker dinners, held in the grand surroundings of Ripley Castle, guests from as far afield as Brighton and Aberdeen enjoyed roast beef and Yorkshire pudding accompanied by a rare set of wines from the Barossa Valley. This was the 10th birthday celebration dinner for Nidderdale Fine Wine and Andrew Wigan, chief winemaker at Peter Lehmann lead a tasting of his wines, including three vintages of the famous Stonewell.

This was a great opportunity to taste this limited edition wine, made from grapes grown in the toughest areas of the Barossa where the vines have to struggle to survive. These old vines, some planted back in 1885, produce small qualities of tiny black grapes, packed with concentrated flavours.

The 1989 vintage of Stonewell, poured from magnums, was the star of the night, still full of life, packed with deep plummy fruit and showing delicious aged complexity, with leathery, cigar box tones. If you ever thought that Australian wines can't age, then this is one wine that disproves the theory.

Sadly the 1989 Stonewell is no longer commercially available, nor is the 1998 vintage (minty, polo wrappers with damsons, liquorice and just a hint of Benylin). But limited stocks of the 2004 (vibrant with fruit, intense and still muscular with tannin, but with enormous ageing potential, 34.99) are sitting on a shelf in Pateley Bridge. And that is the key with this shop. When most are selling the big Australian brands, many of which are not capable of ageing, this one has stocks of hard to find, limited edition Australian wines that many wine shops in Adelaide would love to get their hands on.

The reason the wines end up in Nidderdale is because of Mike Perry's long-term connections with Australia. During his long wine trade career, mainly in the London area, Mike was introduced to Australian wine and managed, even in the early days of Aussie wines, to get to know the range and depth of their flavours.

Several visits to Australia followed, and Mike built up personal contacts with growers and producers, mainly in South Australia, the powerhouse of Australian wine. At the time he had a sales patch which covered all points west of London, right down to Cornwall, so the attraction of Yorkshire, where he and his wife Chrissy had spent several holidays proved too tempting.

"I had always wanted my own retail business and the right premises just off the High Street in Pateley Bridge became available so we snapped it up."

A brief period as a general wine shop, even selling wine gifts followed, but one day Mike decided to clear out the gifts and rack out half the shop with wines from South Australia. It was a great move because the range is now extraordinary, bringing together top wines from Henschke, Yalumba, Hollick, Grant Burge and others. There are old vintages from Keis Estate, the delicious Cordon Cut sweetie from Mount Horrocks and an astonishing Gewurztraminer from Skillogalee.

Not all the wines are rare and expensive though. At the everyday, affordable end of the range wines such as Grant Burge's fruit-driven, spice-edged Cabernet Shiraz 2008 GB 51 is a very competitive 6.99 while d'Arenberg's Stump Jump 2008 provides ripe, juicy blackberry fruit drinking for 8.50.

It is hardly surprising that the range has been short-listed for several national awards. Despite the obvious attractions of Pateley Bridge, not all of Mike's customers manage to visit. He has a website and also has a "cellar door to your door" scheme.

"People visiting some wineries in Australia may want to buy the wines but they can't take them on the plane.

"But through this scheme they can order the wines in Australia, direct from the winery, and I send them to arrive just when they arrive home. It is a great souvenir of the trip, without the hassle of shipping bottles."

So with a fantastic, dynamic and in many cases, exclusive range, a wide customer base and regular wine events, this looks like it will remain as a key feature on Pateley Bridge High Street. The programme of events and tastings will continue. Previous speakers have included Oz Clarke, Matthew Jukes, Stephen and Prue Henschke, Chester Osborne and Ian Hollick and there are several new events at the planning stage.

Tickets for these tastings sell out fast and established customers get first pick of the places at these usually small events so it is worth getting your name down for the mailshots.

But even if you are just driving through the area and don't know what you want to drink with dinner it is worth calling into this little shop. "One of the things we really like to do is suggest the right wine to go with food, so if someone is having lamb for dinner they can come in the shop and we will advise them on the best wine to accompany the dish.

"The economic climate means that more people are drinking good wine at home instead of going out to restaurants so we can help them match the wine to the food."

Not all the wines are Australian – there is a reasonable selection from France, Italy, Spain and the rest of the world, but my choice would be to try an Aussie wine.

Nidderdale Fine Wine 01423 711703

www.southaustralianwines.com

YP MAG 19/6/10