#red

Aug 4, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Running With Bulls Tempranillo 2020, South Australia

£8–£9, Tesco, Co-op, This Australian Tempranillo has to be one of the best value reds around. Check: best value wines of any hue and style. The 2014 was my Wine of the Week in September 2017. Five years on, the current vintage, the 2020, more than deserves the Wine of the Week slot. And can you believe it, you can still buy it at the same price? I’ve got another question: why aren’t more Australians growing Tempranillo? Plantings are rising, but they were still only 0.5% of t

Jul 14, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Quinta do Mouro Zagalos Reserva 2017, Alentejano, Portugal

£20, The Wine Society In view of the weather, I almost changed to a white wine this week, the intense, fragrant, beautifully chiselled old-vine Vinho Verde Soalheiro Primeiras Vinhas Alvarinho 2020 (see below), but I was drawn back to the red Zagalos Reserva because, although it's undeniably full-bodied, freshness courses through the rich redcurrant and black fruit, the green herb and graphite notes and the tannins are effortlessly smooth – so much so, that it works well drun

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 24, 2022

Celebrating English Wines

My picks for the second weekend of English Wine Week celebrations. Not that they're only for English Wine Week. English wines are for every week of the year. Sparkling rosés come first, because I tasted quite a few, followed by white fizz, then still wines– red, rosé and orange. All the fizz is made by the classic method. Hambledon Classic Cuvée Rosé Fabulous pink fizz from England's oldest commercial vineyard. Strawberries and toasted brioche with a dash of cream and orange

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 9, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Albert Road Pinot Noir by Savage & Louw, Western Cape

£9.49, Waitrose Finding inexpensive Pinot Noir isn’t the challenge it once was, but even so this is a spectacularly good-value example – and it’s only £7.12 in any 6 or more bottles of wine or Champagne until June 14. Bargain. It has a lovely Pinot Noir fragrance of roses and fraises des bois and a palate that frames the fruit with dried herbs, gently smouldering oak and spice, a gossamer texture, lithe, medium-light structure and juicy freshness. And the medium-pale ruby-gar

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

May 19, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Tringario Ludopata Marselan 2020, Colchagua Valley, Chile

£17.50–£17.99, Grape Expectations, Novel Wines If you fancy an unusual, high quality, yet effortlessly approachable red, this rare Chilean Marselan is the wine. It's deep in colour, choc full of dark fruit – blackberry, raspberry, black cherry – and brushed with smoky pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg and a streak of savoury black olive. There are tannins, but so smooth and supple no tannin-phobe could possibly object. Having risked what is a very unusual grape variety in Chile, Jose

Apr 14, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Adnams Barolo del Commune di Serralunga d'Alba 2015, Italy

£24.99, Adnams If you're wedded to Rioja or red Bordeaux for Easter, don't let me stop you, but if you want something different, yet still classic, let me put forward this eloquent Barolo from a top commune in a very good vintage – perfect for partnering rosemary-spiced roast lamb or a porcini dish. With its fragrance of dried cherries, red berries, dried herbs, sweet tobacco and a gentle, woody earth undertow, it's a Barolo in which the signature structure of Serralunga d'Al

Mar 31, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Domaines Lupier El Terroir 2015, Navarra, Spain

£19.99, Marlo Wine The old Garnacha vines that produce this fragrant, concentrated red date back to 1903 and come from up to 27 individual small plots of Garnacha that Elise and Enrique of Domaines Lupier bought parcel by parcel. From the 27 –certified organic and farmed biodynamically – they make just two red wines, El Terroir and La Dama. In the 2015 vintage, they made 26,315 bottles of El Terroir. It's not a lot. All the vineyards are at altitudes of 400 to 750m and it’s t

Mar 10, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Ringbolt Cabernet Sauvignon 2020, Margaret River, Western Australia

£10, Tesco There aren't many areas that produce really distinctive regional Cabernet Sauvignon – pure Cabernet Sauvignon, rather than Bordeaux-style blends with Merlot and so on – but Australia has two of them, Coonwarra in South Australia and, thousands of kilometres to the west, the much more recently planted Margaret River in Western Australia, where the first vines went into the ground in 1967. I've written more about the differences between the two here, so let's go stra

Feb 24, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Colpasso Appassimento Nero d'Avola 2020 Sicilia, Italy

£7 on offer (normally £9), Morrisons This Sicilian red is new to the UK and a snip at the introductory price of £7 until 15 March. Even at £9 it's good value – dark, ripe and super-smooth with a tumble of black cherry, plum, kirsch and toasted vanilla flavours, gentle grip and a streak of Italianate agrodolce. It's made from hand-picked Nero d'Avola grapes, a proportion of which are dried, some of them left on the vines to dry, others dried on racks for about 15 days to lose

Feb 10, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: The Blind Spot Pinot Meunier 2021, Yarra Valley, Australia

£12.95, The Wine Society It's no exaggeration to say I've never had a wine quite like this. Usually I can say a wine reminds me of so-and-so, or it's a bit like something else, but this Pinot Meunier, which hardly knows whether it's red or pink, is entirely itself – low in alcohol, big on personality and absolutely delicious. The Wine Society lists it as a red wine, but it's deep pink and makes an excellent aperitif, served lightly chilled, if not colder. Mind you, it also go

Feb 8, 2022

You Have to Go Back to 1865 at Domaine de la Romanée Conti to Meet a Vintage Like 2019...

Perrine Fenal and Aubert de Villaine, co-directors of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, at Corney & Barrow's offices in London. The photo of Perrine was taken at the tasting on 3 February, and the photo of Aubert, her uncle, was taken at the previous tasting, pre-pandemic, on 29 January 2020. (I didn't catch him in time last week.) Domaine de la Romanée Conti releases its wines en primeur a year after the rest of Burgundy, so the estate's 2019 wines got their first UK showing last

Feb 3, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Gaia Organic Malbec 2019, Gualtallary, Mendoza, Argentina

£11.99 on offer (normally £16.99), Waitrose Named after the Greek earth goddess Gaia, Domaine Bousquet's stylish Malbec is rich and succulent with polished tannins and seamless structure. Woodsmoke, rosemary and a hint of liquorice add layers to the glossy, dark, plum and elderberry fruit and long mineral-edged finish. I've written about this pioneering French-founded estate before here, but, briefly, it was established in remote virgin territory in Alta Gualtallary in the la

Jan 28, 2022

New Year, New Wines, New approach: the Blind Spot Australian range gets a makeover

Wines made by Mac Forbes with grapes paid for upfront by The Wine Society. The one-off exception is the Dolcetto, which was made with a purchased parcel of wine, as all the range used to be The Wine Society's Blind Spot Australian range has been a fixture for about a decade, but the latest arrivals mark a change in direction. And we're not just talking about labels here, dramatically different though they are. Instead of being parcels of wine that winemaker Mac Forbes picked

Jan 20, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Angeline Vineyards Russian River Valley Pinot Noir 2018, California, US

£15.99–£18.50, Flagship Wines, Stroud Wine, Shaftesbury Wines, St Andrews Wine Company This is astonishingly good value for a smart Russian River Pinot Noir and I'm happy to be able to update this post with the news that the importer, Daniel Lambert Wines, still has plenty of stock. Even so, I would move fast if you want some (and why wouldn't you?), because who knows what the price of the follow-on vintage will be in the current volatile situation? I first tasted the 2018 in

Jan 6, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Santa Tresa Cerasuolo di Vittoria 2018, Sicily, Italy

£10.99–£14.89, Costco, The Wine Society, Ocado, Vintage Roots, Cheers, Amazon A delicious, distinctive and original red wine seems a positive way to start the new year. That Santa Tresa's organic Cerasuolo di Vittoria is outstandingly good value and a magician when it comes to matching food only adds to its lustre. Cerasuolo di Vittoria, Sicily's only DOCG (the top tier in Italy's wine classification system), is a small but varied region – topographically, geologically and cl

Dec 23, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: Vergelegen Premium Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2018, Stellenbosch, South Africa

£10, Tesco For those people who still need a red wine for the Christmas Day feast, I've picked this Cape Cabernet Merlot because it's versatile enough to go with most of the main Christmas options and should appeal to a wide audience. It's a full-bodied, poised and balanced blend of just over 60% Cabernet Sauvignon with Merlot, Cabernet Franc and a smidgen of Malbec, bringing together cassis fruitiness, currant-leaf freshness, smooth dark chocolate and savoury black tapenade

Dec 9, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: Finca Moncloa 2017, Vino de la Tierra de Cádiz, Andalusia, Spain

£16.99, Ocado This fascinating red wine is a Vino de la Tierra de Cádiz. In other words, it's from sherry country, where there was an old tradition of making red wines that had largely lapsed. A small-scale revival has got underway this century, helped along by the granting of the Vino de la Tierra designation in 2005. Moncloa is produced by the González family of González Byass and Tio Pepe sherry fame from their own vineyards and is a blend that includes what they say is an