I hadn't planned to do a Pinot Noir post to coincide with International Pinot Noir Day today, but it's a good opportunity to spread the love, not least because I was bowled over by the two Akitu wines below, especially the A1 2018, and by the latest Craggy Range Aroha. There's also an amphora-fermented Pinot from Shropshire, which is a revelation and a triumph. Who knew England could do this? And there are two Burgundies I wanted to highlight, although the delightful, mature

£8.50–£9.99, Lekker Wines, The Solent Cellar, Twisted Cellar, Noble Green Wines and others* The eye-catching label is a word-free zone, so I've given the name the producer Philip Cox of Cramele Recas uses, but the back label calls it Solara Glou Glou Natural Red. A glou glou in Romania is a fruity, young wine to drink chilled, like a French vin de soif, and this is exactly that: a bundle of bouncy, fruity, unoaked freshness that cries out to be lightly chilled. But there's a

£11/£9.90, The Daily Drinker This jewel-like, fruity red is a great way to embark on a Blaufränkisch journey if you haven’t tasted the grape variety before, and an equally good way to continue if you have. It's a high quality variety, essentially of Central and Eastern Europe. There's not actually much of it in Romania (where it's called Burgund Mare) – Hungary and Austria have far more – but it’s very much at home in the warm Minis region in the far west near the Hungarian b

If you know where to look, there are plenty of wines with modest alcohol but bags of character and flavour Prompted by the UK government's new alcohol guidelines, I've looked through my recent tasting notes for wines that have low to moderate levels of alcohol, but which certainly don't fall short in the flavour and character stakes. The dry whites I'm recommending are all 12% abv, or lower, and the reds are 12.5% abv or lower, but bear in mind that EU labelling laws allow a