Everyone is talking about carbon footprints nowadays, however it hasn’t yet been a topic that’s been seriously addressed by the wine industry. When you think about it, shipping individual bottles of wine is inefficient – glass is heavy and so are the liquids the glass carries, resulting in more fuel consumption.



This has led one Highgate wine merchant to offer his customers the option to get their wine straight from the barrel. At Zelas, customers are able to either bring in an empty bottle or get one in-store and fill it with wine.



Not only that, the wine on offer is natural wine – which is low in sulphites and made without chemical intervention. Costing around £8.50, it’s a nice way to look after the pennies and the environment!

* Already bottled the same wine would cost £13.50



About Natural Wines:

Natural has become the new buzz word in the wine world. As observed by food writer François Simon in Le Figaro last year “The French wine world seems to have been bitten by a bug." The pest in question is a movement devoted to vin naturel - wine made completely without chemical intervention and low in sulphites.



Pioneered in the 1960s by Beaujolais enologist Jules Chauvet, natural wine-making strives for a pure expression of the vintage by banning modern cellar practices like adding laboratory yeasts, chaptalization (adding sugar to increase alcohol content) and filtering.



Natural wines are different from organic wines (a wine is organic if it has been made from organically grown grapes, but it still may be subject to technical manipulation in the winemaking process). A natural wine, on the other hand, is the perfect expression of the soil from where it came. These winemakers make real wine, the way it was made by the monks and the peasants who first built the reputation of French wine.



About Zelas:

Zelas, located on Highgate’s busy Archway Road, is a mecca for wine lovers, and offers one of the largest selections of natural wines in London. Plamen Georgiev, the extremely knowledgeable and genial owner of the shop, is more than happy to chat to his customers about the benefits of natural wines and there are often several bottles open for customers to sample.



An online ordering facility is available, as is delivery throughout the UK and mainland Europe. More information can be found on the website (www.zelas.co.uk).