5 Reasons to try The Fresh Sauce Co

In the first of our 5 reasons food posts Mark Robinson and Victoria Monaghan of The Fresh Sauce Co explain how their chilled sauces can turn basic ingredients into a restaurant quality meal (see my comment below on the one I've tried)

• We’re Victoria and Mark and we’ve been making a range of fresh sauces from our dedicated kitchen in Suffolk for 3 years. We started the business following a trip around Italy, wanting to recreate the delicious pesto we tried when we got back home
• We quickly worked out that using the best and freshest ingredients gave us the best tasting sauces. We’ve now expanded our repertoire to include Asian dishes such as Jalfrezi, Korma, Satay, Laksa as well classic Italian favourites like green and red pesto and Bolognese.
• In the last year, we’ve been focusing on online sales, which happens to be very timely! We deliver in environmentally-friendly insulated packaging, by courier, so that the product remains chilled while in transit to reach you in perfect condition. You can even specify the day of delivery.
• Our sauces can transform simple store cupboard ingredients into delicious meals from around the world in minutes with options for vegans, vegetarians and carnivores!
• We have a Limited Edition sauce each month - this month (April 2020) it's a classic sweet and sour sauce made with pineapple juice tamari and rice vinegar - so you can make your own Chinese takeaway at home!

To read more about the range visit our website thefreshsauceco.

Fiona's view

I don't normally ask to taste the food and drink that's featured in this section but was offered a range of sauces to try and was quite intrigued by the idea that you could use them to jazz up basic meat, fish and veggies you might have in the fridge or freezer, particularly when the ingredients you might need to make more adventurous recipes could be hard to source at the moment.

So far I've tried the satay sauce which was absolutely delicious and really tasted as if you had spent hours in the kitchen. It was also dead easy - it cooked while I was making the rice to go with it - though I found you needed to add a bit more water than the 100ml they suggested. The sachets are ideal - and not expensive - for two but at £3.95 a pop might be a bit pricey for a family though obviously not in comparison with a takeaway.

They'd be ideal to order for an elderly relative or anyone else who is currently living on their own and unable to get to the shops - you could freeze half of what what you had made.

Disclaimer: I was sent a set of sauces as a free sample.

5 Reasons is a free platform for small food and drink producers, importers and retailers to talk about what they do. See What is 5 Reasons all about? for a fuller explanation.

What is 5 reasons all about?

I’ve been wondering how best to help drinks businesses who have been hit by the Coronavirus crisis (i.e. pretty well all of you). Initially I just thought of reviewing more wines and other drinks in the Best Buys section - and I will do that - but it’s difficult and expensive to get wines delivered at the moment, a hit smaller companies could do without.

So I’ve come up with the idea of creating an 'open mic' platform for YOU to tell potential customers what you do and why people should buy from or support you.

I’ve called it ‘5 reasons' to give it some structure and keep it short and punchy. Basically it will appear as 5 reasons to … say, buy your range of Spanish wines or whateverthenameis gin. Actually I can think of a LOT more than five reasons to drink gin at the moment

So it will be in your own words (I’ll tidy up typos and query anything that’s unclear) and can link to a wine, a beer or your website - whatever). No more than 200 words I suggest which need not just be about the product but about you and your business. And a call to action. What people should do next - how they can buy from or otherwise support you.

We’ll also need a high res image which shows the product or service, the place you’re making or selling it or - best of all - you, the team behind it. (You don’t need a fancy camera - I normally just upload photos from my iPhone but the dimensions need to be 1312 x 840px so take a horizontal shot.)

Although I initially thought of it as a platform for the drinks trade it could of course equally well apply to food so if you’re a small grower, maker or farmer and still trying to sell what you produce feel free to take advantage of it too. Or if you’re a charity, wanting people to support you at this difficult time. The space is yours. And it costs nothing.

I’m sure the idea will need refining as time goes on - do feel free to suggest improvements - but let’s give it a go. Contact me at fiona AT matchingfoodandwine DOT com with your suggestions or message me on my @winematcher Twitter account or at @food_writer on instagram.

5 reasons to buy from Cambridge Wine Merchants

Hal Wilson, founder of Cambridge Wine Merchants explains how his staff have been going the extra mile - and how his customers have been responding.

"A week ago we were drinks wholesalers and retailers with welcoming wine bars. Today we are none of those things, our business plan swept away on a viral riptide.

Amazingly, though, my exceptional team is refashioning what we are, with the conviction that we can and will reimagine our purpose. Maybe it is the long hours or the large glass of Rosso del Palazzone taking their toll but I am deeply moved by this shared endeavour, in which we all have a role (whether working or furloughed).

1. Existing and new customers are finding our website, reading our emails and posts, sending their orders, their money, their love. Ruth Turner thanked us for being her 'fourth Emergency Service'!

2. Our logistics team is working 16 hour days to deliver cases to strangers’ doorsteps, while maintaining strict social distance.

3. Our sales team has gone into creative overdrive to repurpose our inventory for a new market, a different world. Wines destined to be enjoyed in restaurants now need to grace the isolated dinner table so everyone’s cooking better to be up to scratch!

4. Our buyers extend that sense of solidarity to our growers, with whom we build the path from grape to glass. Winemakers are just as vulnerable to the economic consequences of this outbreak as everyone else and we desperately want to keep working with the likes of Simon and Monica Coulshaw at Domaine des Trinités in Faugeres after this is over. For some it will be one crisis too many to weather, after years of climate change-induced short harvests.

5. Self-employed educators and journalists are also in our thoughts and plans, as we support WSET tutors like Steve Hovington to go online or distribute local magazines like Anne Beamish’s The Indie.

The future may be uncertain but the present is intensely real. And I’m proud to be part of it.

Take a look at what we're doing at www.cambridgewine.com

PS the above image brings back memories of the last time I was as exhausted as I feel now, winning The Ardbeg Peat Football World Cup. It reminds me of our solidarity, of being almost literally in the s**t together!

5 Reasons is a free platform for small food and drink producers, importers and retailers to talk about what they do. See What is 5 Reasons all about? for a fuller explanation.

The pros and cons of buying from Naked Wines

Naked Wines has been controversial since it launched 4 1/2 years ago but there’s no denying its popularity. The company claims to have over 200,000 customers who buy from it regularly, 125,000 of which are ‘angels’.

These are regular subscribers who pay £20 a month into the business which enables them to fund winemaking projects. (A bit like crowdsourcing projects such as Kickstarter.) In return 'angels' get to buy wines (using the money they’ve invested) at preferential prices.

The catch is that those prices are not quite as favourable as Naked Wines claims though it’s hard to compare as most of the wines they stock are made specially for them by the winemakers they subsidise.

They say their angel prices are ‘wholesale’ and 25% to 50% less than retail but that’s quite misleading. In instances where other retailers stock the same wines you can buy them on the open market at a similar price without having to put down your money first. And you can certainly find wines of comparable quality a lot cheaper than the full price that Naked Wines charges for them, hence presumably their ability to give away so many ‘free’ vouchers for £40 and £60 to encourage people to start buying from them.

I also don’t like the heavily loaded rhetoric on the site. “Would you prefer your wine made by salesmen or talented winemakers?”. “Would you prefer to pay more or get more?” Click the obvious answer and bang - you’re suddenly an angel, committing yourself to £20 a month and strongly advised to buy the Naked Customers Favourites Case,costing £112.88 which ‘saves’ you £82.99. Hmmmm.

Even though you can apparently get your money back at any time, the chances are that if you’ve got £80 of contributions sitting in their account you’re going to spend it with them. It’s all just a bit too slick and high-pressured for me.

That said, they do genuinely help to get winemaking projects off the ground and create a market for the wines that they make. And rescue winemakers in distress. All credit to them for helping a friend of mine, Katie Jones (right), who lost her much admired 2012 white wine when vandals broke into her winery in the south of France and opened the tanks.

When they heard about the incident Naked Wines created a ‘rescue case’ of Languedoc wines which Katie selected from other producers she admired which sold at the rate of a case every 2 seconds when it came out in May. She obviously has nothing but praise for them.

Other winemakers, a number of whom were working for other wineries but wanted to do their own thing, will tell you that but for Naked Wines they wouldn’t have been able to set up their own business.

Their customers seem to like them too, witness the 400 plus people who turned out to the tasting I attended in Bristol on Monday night (above), part of a week-long road show. And the almost cult-like following the company has fostered. Post anything mildly critical of them, as I did in the Guardian a year or so ago, and 'angels' will pile in to defend them.

They also have some good wines though I wouldn’t generally pay more than the 'angel’s' price for them. Here are seven I’d recommend - and three to look out for in the coming months:

Domaine O Vineyards Trah-la- lah (14%) Full price £12.99, Angel’s price £8.99

Imagine Bordeaux on steroids. This is a gorgeous gutsy Merlot-Cabernet blend with a dash of Carignan from an American-run winery in the Cabardes region, north of Carcassonne

Villebois Prestige Sauvignon Blanc 2012 (12.5%) Full price @11.99, Angel’s price £8.99

A rich lush sauvignon made from old vines in the Touraine region of the Loire - so effectively a Sauvignon de Touraine, albeit a good one. More New World in style than French.

Villebois Pouilly Fumé 2012 Full price £17.99 Angel’s price £12.99

The 'angel's' price is roughly what supermarkets are charging for own label Pouilly Fumé right now so this is a very good deal for an intense wine with a crisp mineral character and lovely wisp of smoke. Better than the same producer’s Sancerre.

Lay of the Land Destination Sauvignon Blanc 2012 Full price £13.49, Angel’s price £9.49

Definitely a cut above your average Kiwi Sauv Blanc with some lush ripe tropical fruit offsetting the usual gooseberry-and-asparagus character. (Look out too for winemaker Mike Paterson’s Pinot Noir which is coming through in August - see below)

Raats Dolomite Cabernet Franc 2011 Full price £11.99, Angel’s price £8.99

If you like Cabernet Franc you’ll love this deliciously fragrant example from ebulliient South African wine maker Bruno Raats. £8.99 is a good price for it but bear in mind that another online retailer the Fine Wine Company sells it for not a lot more for £54.89 a case of six or £9.19 a bottle.

Mauricio Lorca Lirico Malbec 2011 14.5% Full price £11.99 Angel’s price £8.49

A touch on the soft side for me but if you’re an Argie Malbec fan you’ll love it. One for your summer barbecues.

Oscar’s Douro 2010 14% Full price: £9.99, Angel’s price £7.49

I visited Oscar’s port house, one of the smallest in the region, when I was in Oporto last December and here’s his rich dark Douro red, a blend of the indigenous grape varieties that are used to make port. A real winter wine - if you buy some save it for long slow braises and casseroles.

And three that are on their way:

If you're a Naked Wines angel already you should definitely look out for these:

Richard’s Chardonnay (should arrive early autumn)

Made by British-born Richard Kershaw, South Africa’s first Master of Wine and the former winemaker at Mulderbosch: a really gorgeous lush, creamy chardonnay with pitch-perfect acidity - on a par with top burgundy. Likely to be over £20.

Lie of the Land Pinot Noir

A simply stunning New Zealand pinot noir - gorgeously fruity without being jammy. Should be available in August. Price unknown

Sam Plunkett 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon (though probably under a different label)

A very grown-up dark, rich, dusky Cabernet from central Victoria's Strathbogie Ranges with much less obvious jammy fruit than many Aussie Cabs. Naked helped Sam, who used to make the Plunkett Fowles Ladies who Shoot their Lunch wines, buy the grapes and the barrels to make it so he’s a big fan of their business model.

Verdict: If you’re someone who wants to buy reliably drinkable wine, is not too fussy what they pay for it and wants to be spared the hassle of thinking too much about it Naked Wines could well suit you. If you sign up for the 'angel' scheme you’ll get them at a reasonable price and get a warm fuzzy feeling at helping a winemaker into the bargain. Just be aware you could get similar wines elsewhere at a comparable or even cheaper price.