Who's the best wine supplier?

These notes are culled from a selection of recent London tastings, where I have pitted five different UK suppliers against each other in various generic categories. The unwitting competitors were Virgin, Corney & Barrow, Laithwaites, Edward Parker, and Stone, Vine & Sun.

There is no particular science to the experiment, bit it does represent, I think, the way a lot of people actually shop – to search for the best, most trustworthy portfolio. Disregarding price, then, and only on the basis of scores, the top rank is taken by Edward Parker, with the top score in eight categories, whereas the...