#sparkling

Aug 11, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Michele Chiarlo Nivole Moscato d’Asti 2021, Italy

£16.17 (75cl), Great Wines Direct; £9.90–£11.50 (37.5cl), Vinvm, Oddbins, Noble Green Wines, The Whalley Wine Shop, Great Wines Direct Here’s a candidate for the title of perfect anytime wine for a heatwave. It's gently effervescent, feather-light, delicately sweet, as refreshing as summer rain and tastes of rose petals, fresh Muscat grapes and juicy apricots with a drizzle of stem ginger syrup. To cap it all, it’s only 5% alcohol and now comes in a full-size 75cl bottle, as

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, 2021

Picks for English Wine Week 2021

Chardonnay vines in The King's Vineyard, Rochester, Kent, recently planted on the site of the vineyard of the medieval priory. Simpsons Wine Estate, near Canterbury, will be making the wine on behalf of Rochester Cathedral (photo taken on 24 June 2021) I'm limiting this selection to new wines, wines that aren't necessarily new but which I hadn't previously tasted and a pair that I hadn't tasted for a while and was delighted to discover still in fine form. It was the only way

Dec 30, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Balfour Winemaker Collection Saignée Brut, Kent, England

£29.99 (mix six), Majestic; £35, hushheath.com I'm posting early again this week to give you extra time to get this celebration-ready pink fizz in for new year's eve. It's a new wine from the Balfour winery at Hush Heath Estate in Kent and the first to be made there by the saignée method, which means the colour comes from the skins of the red grapes Pinot Noir and Meunier, rather than by the easier method of blending in some red wine to a white wine base. It's a pretty pale p

Nov 18, 2020

Festive Fizz 2020: Anything But Champagne

It may be a festive season unlike any other, but we'll still need wine of all sorts –perhaps more than ever. The first of my 2020 round-ups is, as always, any kind of sparkling wine except Champagne, which gets its own show. This year there's a red, as well as white and rosé, and some pretty unusual wines: a Frappato, an Albariño and a stunning biodynamic wild-ferment English sparkling wine. I don't know what I was expecting when I tasted the English biodynamic natural wine,

Nov 27, 2019

Festive Fizz 2019: anything but Champagne

The first of the season's round-ups of recommendations is sparkling wines, from far and near but not Champagne – that gets its own show soon. Give or take special offers, they're in ascending order of price, except that this year I've given English sparkling wines their own zone (scroll down). Their quality warrants it. I'd like to have included more, but wanted to keep numbers manageable. One wine I intended recommending is out of stock, but it's worth noting for when it's b

Oct 25, 2019

Down in a deep, dark sea... Drappier Champagnes

Encrusted sea-aged Grande Sendrée 2008 and a pristine bottle conventionally matured in Drappier's Champagne cellars in the Aube Why age Champagne in the sea? It became clear when Michel Drappier held the first tasting to compare three of his Champagnes aged off the coast of Brittany with the same three cuvées aged in Drappier's cellars in Champagne. Looking over Champagne Drappier’s record of innovation since it re-introduced Pinot Noir to the Aube in the 1930s and in particu

Oct 17, 2019

WINE OF THE WEEK: Joseph Perrier Cuvée Royale Brut Champagne, France

£34/£27, Tanners Wines I wasn't planning to do Champagne this week, but now is the time to stock up on this Joseph Perrier. The current tempting offer price of £27 when you buy two or more ends in 10 days' time on 28 October. I hadn't tasted Cuvée Royale for a while and was hugely impressed. It's vivacious and elegant yet generous, too, and beautifully balanced, with a floral note on the nose and lemon curd and toast on the palate. It's a more or less equal blend of the three

Sep 5, 2019

WINE OF THE WEEK: Jansz Premium Rosé, Tasmania, Australia

£15.80–£21.99, Frazier's Wine, Slurp, Field & Fawcett, Flagship Wines, Ocado, NY Wines, Amazon, Selfridges I can’t think of a better or better value sparkling wine than this Tasmanian rosé to bridge the yawning gap between Champagne and Prosecco fans that menaces party hosts all year round. And I can't think of a more cheerful bottle to ward off any approaching autumn blues, or simply to celebrate the return to school or the fact that you've got through the week so far. It’s

Apr 5, 2019

English sparkling wine taste-off

You wait ages for a new vintage of an English sparkling Blanc de Blancs, then two come along at once: Nyetimber 2013 and Gusbourne 2014. Taste-off time. It proved to be a more fascinating comparison of two vintages, two provenances and two producers than I’d anticipated. I’ve followed Nyetimber, the first English sparkling wine to be modelled on Champagne, on and off since the debut 1992 Blanc de Blancs was released in 1997 and have tracked it closely in the last decade under

Dec 27, 2018

WINE OF THE WEEK: Graham Beck Brut Chardonnay/Pinot Noir, Western Cape, South Africa

£10.99 (offer price), Waitrose Crowd-pleasingly approachable fizz with generous nutty, toasty, yeasty, fresh bread flavours wrapped around a fruity heart – the ideal bargain bubbly for New Year's Eve (down £4 until 22 January). It's made in the the same way as Champagne (known as the Méthode Cap Classique in the Cape) using Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, the two main varieties of Champagne, and it's aged on its lees for 15–18 months to give the generous creamy flavour and texture

Dec 17, 2018

Festive fizz for 2018: anything except Champagne

17 December: I've updated this post (first published on 3 December) with the addition of two more English wines: Denbies Cubitt Blanc de Noirs 2013 and Nyetimber Classic Cuvée. The first of the season's round-ups is anything sparkling except Champagne. (That comes next.) They're selected for quality, interest and value for money and cross four continents, spanning the spectrum from easy-drinking crowd pleasers to quirky Pet Nat. There is, though, nothing ultra cheap. If you w

May 29, 2018

From wine book editor to Winemaker of the Year – 5-minute Q&A with Emma Rice

I first met Emma Rice when she was the editor of the second edition of my book Discovering Wine. She went on to become one of the UK's first graduates of the new BSc (Hons) in Viticulture & Oenology at Plumpton College, Sussex in 2006. Now she's head winemaker of English sparkling wine producer Hattingley Valley and was UK Winemaker of the Year in both 2014 and 2016. This article first appeared in Waitrose Drinks magazine. Q: How old were you when you went to Plumpton? A: 28.

May 24, 2018

WINE OF THE WEEK: Bluebell Vineyard Hindleap Rosé Brut 2014, England

£29.95, Bluebell Vineyard Estates English Wine Week starts on Saturday. There's no guarantee of good weather, especially as there's a bank holiday involved, but there'll be no shortage of English wines on offer and more than 200 UK vineyards are now open to the public (you didn't know? Check out englishwineproducers.com). The producer of this week's wine, Bluebell Vineyard Estates on the edge of the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, is open Monday to Saturday 10am–4pm (bluebellv

Mar 29, 2018

WINE OF THE WEEK: Arthur Metz Crémant d’Alsace Brut 2015, Alsace, France

£14.99, Ocado One taste of this and you understand why Crémant d’Alsace is the most popular sparkling wine in France (aside from Champagne) and why the French keep nine out of every ten bottles for themselves. It’s dreamily fresh, rounded and floral with delicate honeysuckle, peach, ginger and citrus flavours and a breezy grapefruit-zest finish. It’s made in the same way as Champagne, which means the bubbles are created in the bottle during a second fermentation and the wine

Mar 23, 2018

12 of the best from Aldi

Aldi's wines are cheap, as you would expect, but they're bought with care. These are a dozen that stood out at a recent press tasting. Overall, the whites were better than the reds, or at least I preferred them. There's a tendency for the reds to be a bit sweet and/or oaky. Generally, I reckon it's harder to buy whites of any interest at the bottom end than it is to get reds, so buyers Mike James and David Elliott are bucking the trend. The two sparkling wines are both very g

Dec 11, 2017

Festive fizz 2017: anything except Champagne

The first of the season's round-ups is sparkling wines – anything alcoholic and fizzy except Champagne (the Champagne round-up follows shortly). They're selected for quality, interest and value for money and it's ended up as five rosés, three whites and two reds from five different countries across both hemispheres. There's no Prosecco this year – I'm prepared for the brickbats – but if you're looking for one, Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Prosecco Conegliano 2016 is bette

Dec 7, 2017

WINE OF THE WEEK: Dowie Doole Moxie Sparkling Shiraz, McLaren Vale, Australia

£20.16, Armit Wines A frothing, deep red, sparkling wine with vibrant black cherry and blackcurrant fruit, Christmas spice and dark chocolate flavours, and sweetness tempered by freshness and gentle tannin. No, there’s nothing quite like Australian Sparkling Shiraz. It maybe a bit of a Marmite wine, but those who love it love it for its exuberance and versatility – and it's certainly something different to serenade the troops at Christmas. Moxie gets its particular richness

Jun 13, 2017

Growers' Champagne Month: top picks

In homage to Growers’ Champagne Month (June, in case you didn’t know), I’ve listed below some of the top names and am highlighting two that are new to me this year. The first is Champagne Guy Charlemagne, winemaker-owners from father to son since 1892, based in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. The second is Champagne Labruyère in Verzenay, which is not only new to me but new to the world. A quick word on growers’ Champagne. The term simply means a Champagne that is produced by the person/

May 27, 2017

English fizz recommendations for English Wine Week

To celebrate English wine week, running from Saturday 27 May to Sunday 4 June, I've chosen some top quality, Champagne-style sparkling wines from three Hampshire Vineyards. They're part of a group of Hampshire vineyards that have banded together to promote their wines. All eight wines have retail stockists, but ideally, of course, you'd taste them in situ (quick – get out there while the weather is good!). Cottonworth This isn't one of England's, or Hampshire's, best known pr