#France

Mar 23

WINE OF THE WEEK: Les Argelières Pinot Noir Grande Cuvée 2021, Pays d'Oc, France

£9.49, House of Townend I thought that naming this Grande Cuvée might be a bit over the top, but it turns out to be an impressive French Pinot Noir showing textbook varietal character and charm at rather less than you would expect to pay for a wine of similar quality from the southern hemisphere. It's an appetising mid-ruby colour – not the paler side of Pinot – with immaculate floral aromas and succulent black cherry and rosehip fruit, all cushioned by polished, toasty oak a

Mar 20

2020, Another Extraordinary Vintage at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti

The magnificent La Tâche 2020 is conspicuous by its absence in this line-up of empty bottles, but it was definitely in the tasting (see notes and collage below) It was hot, it was dry, it was early. That's no guarantee of a high quality vintage in Vosne-Romanée or anywhere else in Burgundy, but when it's also disease-free and yields are no more than average, then it begins to look as if it might be special. It was and it is. There's no questioning the opulence of the 2020 Dom

Mar 16

WINE OF THE WEEK: Katie Jones Les Vignes Cachées 2021, Vin de France

£15.99, Naked Wines Another winner from the inspiring, indomitable saviour of unloved and old vines, Katie Jones of Domaine Jones in the south of France. No wonder she was voted Winemaker of the Year 2022 by well over 40,000 Naked Wines customers. She's better known for her sumptuous, dry red wines, but makes equally brilliant dry whites. This one, a blend of Grenache Blanc and Grenache Gris (64:36), combines a delicate fragrance of fresh and dried flowers with a substantial,

Mar 9

WINE OF THE WEEK: L'Arène des Anges Costières de Nîmes 2021, Rhône, France

£8.49, Waitrose This is just the kind of comfortingly generous, young Southern French red to put a spring in your step, especially when the weather is being decidedly un-spring like. It's a Grenache/Syrah blend (60/40) from Costières de Nîmes, the Rhône's most southerly wine region; a bright, warming mouthful of ripe red and black berries, peppery spice, sun-warmed garrigue herbs and gentle tannins. A good match for bean and chorizo or other sausage casseroles, slow-roast por

Feb 16

WINE OF THE WEEK: Arbousset Tavel 2021, Rhône, France

£12, Tesco Tavel in the southern Rhône is France's only appellation (AOC) to produce rosé exclusively and it's never afraid to be bold in flavour and truly pink in colour. I loved Julie Rouffignac's Arbousset last summer, recommending it in one of my rosé roundups, and have tasted it twice since, most recently in January, and can confirm that it's lost nothing of its zip, character and all-round appeal. It's a classic Tavel blend of Grenache (60%) with Syrah and Cinsault and

Feb 2

WINE OF THE WEEK: Lions de Suduiraut Blanc Sec 2021, Bordeaux, France

£19.95, Cambridge Wine Merchants White Bordeaux has never really established an identity that’s captured hearts and minds like white Burgundy or red Bordeaux, but when it's good it’s a delight: a dry white with its own style and individuality. Lions de Suduiraut is just such a wine – and one that niftily sidesteps the identity issue with the simple description ‘Blanc Sec’. It’s one of a trio of new dry wines from Sauternes’ illustrious Château Suduiraut, although Lions Sec is

Jan 26

WINE OF THE WEEK: Domaine des Marrans Fleurie Lieu-dit 'Champagne', Fleurie, France

£19.50, Tanners; £21.11, Quality Wines Somerset Fleurie is supposed to be the most perfumed of the 10 Beaujolais Crus and this wine couldn't be a better illustration. Fragrant roses and violets gives way to wonderfully pure, fresh, transparent fruit on the palate – all wild strawberries, raspberries and darker berries – shaped and wrapped by tannins of gossamer finesse. The ethereal touch belies the intensity of flavour, which comes from 50-year-old vines, the terroir, sustai

Dec 1, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Jacques Boncoeur Brut Réserve Champagne, France

£22 (on offer), Bon Coeur Fine Wines A timely reminder that in the season of the cheery Champagne deal supermarkets are not the only places to shop. Bon Coeur Fine Wines’ own brand Champagne is good value at its usual price of £28.60 and cracking value at £22, the offer price until the end of the year. And just like its price, it’s a really cheery Champagne – properly aged and with pretty fruit – so one with wide appeal, a useful attribute at this time of year, when you never

Nov 17, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Olivier Coste Rare Carignan Blanc 2021, Vin de France

£13, Vino Gusto, Wine and the Vine, Strictly Wine, Great Wines Direct, Corking Wines and other independents* I’ve been waiting to feature this wine and even now I’m going ahead before all the, necessarily small, number of stockists has moved on to the 2021 vintage. Necessarily small because Carignan Blanc is so rare. Olivier Coste, 9th generation of his family at Domaine Montrose in Languedoc, believes there are only 250 hectares of Carignan Blanc left in the world, but I’m r

Nov 10, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Gérard Bertrand Orange Gold 2020, Vin de France

£15, Ocado; Vinatis UK, All About Wine It's only four weeks and three intervening red wines since this slot was last occupied by an orange wine, but I can't resist this, not least because it's a very different expression. from the fragrant, hazy pink Greek Moschofilero. It's an amber-gold organic wine produced by Gérard Bertrand, a former rugby international who has built up an empire of 16 biodynamically farmed estates in the South of France since taking over the family doma

Oct 27, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Big Beltie Cabernet Sauvignon 2021, Pays d'Oc, France

£9–£10.95, House of Townend, Lush Wines, The Grape & The Good, The Whalley Wine Shop, South Downs Cellars, Richardsons of Whitehaven I'll come to the name and the label in a moment but, in case you're jumping to conclusions, this isn't a big belter of a wine. It's medium-full and pulsing with Cabernet Sauvignon energy and rich, sunny fruit. Think plum and cassis lightly brushed with aromatic, woody herbs, supple tannins discreetly wrapped in oak, and a flourish of bay-leaf sp

Oct 6, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: La Cendrillon Nuance 2020, Vin de France

£13.20, Tanners Wines Wines rarely feature in this slot twice, but the 2018 vintage of La Cendrillon Nuance was my Wine of the Week in August 2019. I’m making an exception because when I tasted this 2020 last month I was as bowled over by its originality and deliciousness as I was by the earlier vintage. It’s richly textural and has some weight, but it's streaked with zesty, chiselled acidity – the energy and richness playing against each other perfectly. Flavours range from

Sep 15, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Domaine Garrigue Grande 2020, Coteaux de la Cabrerisse, Languedoc, France

£7.99, in any 12 bottle mix Laithwaites I think this is a first for me – and likely to be for most wine drinkers – a Coteaux de la Cabrerisse. It’s the only wine sold in the UK from this tiny IGP (formerly Vin de Pays) and Domaine Garrigue Grande is one of only two producers using the designation (Château de Caraguilhes is the other). The producers are Anne and Xavier Volontat, the seventh generation to run their family wine estate, Château Les Palais, based in a 12th-century

Aug 10, 2022

Prime Time for Pink: Summer Rosé Round-up 2022 Part 2: Provence and the South

This second rosé round-up of the summer is devoted to Provence, plus five wines from the south of France. Why hive off Provence from the rest of the world’s rosés? In a large part it’s to make the two articles more digestible: there are 17 pinks reviewed below (a selection of the wines I tasted). But it’s also because Provence is in a league of its own, commercially as well as in the way it has set standards, benchmarks and a model for rosé worldwide. The vineyards, which str

Aug 3, 2022

Penfolds French-ish Launches, the New Grange, the Fabled Bin 60A and More

When Penfolds launches its 2022 collection tomorrow, Thursday 4 August, it will include two French, or French-ish, still wines for the first time. Not Penfolds’ first French wines, because it launched three vintage Champagnes in partnership with Thiénot in 2019, and not its first northern hemisphere still wines, because it launched a Napa-Australian red blend last year, but the first wines from Bordeaux. Or more or less Bordeaux. Clarification in a moment. The two wines are P

Jul 21, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Taste the Difference Coteaux du Giennois Sauvignon Blanc 2020, France

£11, Sainsbury's If you fancy an alternative to Sancerre or Pouilly-Fumé that's close in both style and origin, this refreshing dry white from brothers Clément and Florian Berthier is spot on. Coteaux du Giennois not only makes its white wines from Sauvignon Blanc like Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé but practically rubs shoulders with both appellations on the banks of the Loire. Yet, while they’re two of France’s best known white wines, Coteaux du Giennois is little seen, despite

Jul 19, 2022

Prime Time for Pink: Summer 2022 Rosé Round-up Part 1

Update, August 12 I've just added two more wines to this, so it's now 12 appetite-whetting rosés. The additions, Ramón Bilbao Rosado and Señorio de Sarría Viñedo Cinco are both Spanish, from the neighbouring regions of Rioja and Navarra, and both are based on Garnacha, but they couldn't be more different in style. I haven't yet found a UK stockist of the 2021 vintage of the Señorio de Sarría, but look out for it if you're in Spain. Scroll down. Ten appetite-whetting rosés rou

Jul 7, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Petite Immortelle 2018, Côtes du Roussillon Villages, France

£10.90–£12, Gorey Wine Cellar, lovewhatyoueat, Bath Road Beers, Beckford Bottle Shop, Cork of the North, SW Bottle Shop, Red & White An approachable, fruity red that's just right for the season. That's not to say it wouldn't go down well in winter too, it's just that it's really refreshing drunk lightly chilled on a warm evening. In terms of flavour, think sun-dappled raspberries plucked straight from the bush, mulberries, peppery spice and a whiff of garrigue herbs. The blen

Jun 23, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Pierre Jaurant Saint-Chinian 2020, Languedoc, France

£5.99, Aldi Saint-Chinian is an appellation I look out for in restaurants. The wines – white and rosé as well as the more abundant reds – are usually better value than more familiar names. More than that, it’s a region where quality-focused estates are doing interesting things and in both the appellation’s soil types, the higher altitude schists in the north and west and the limestone and clay in lower areas to the south. And it's one of the regions I look to in supermarkets

Jun 2, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Château des Fougères La Raison 2012, Graves, France

£16, Tesco I was planning to choose something that shouted summer more obviously this week, but along came a timely reminder that you don’t have to pay a fortune to get good, mature red Bordeaux. Where else do you get impeccable 10-year-old red wine at this sort of price? In fact, if you can get a delivery slot by June 6 and buy six on-line, you’ll get it at £10.50 a bottle, or £14 by the bottle for delivery by June 13. As far as summer goes, far from being a heavy red, La Ra