#supermarket

Nov 10

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

Nov 3

WINE OF THE WEEK: Donnafugata La Bella Sedàra 2019, Sicilia, Italy

£14.99, Waitrose We've been hearing so much about the wines of Etna, not to mention Sicily's nimble, red-fruited Frappato, that it's easy to forget that the island's most widely planted red grape variety, and the one that dominates its only DOCG, Cerasuolo di Vittoria, is Nero d'Avola. Like Cerasuolo di Vittoria, La Bella Sedàra is a blend driven by Nero d'Avola, but instead of Frappato there are small amounts of Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and a few other varieties in

Sep 29

WINE OF THE WEEK: Ken Forrester The Misfits Cinsault 2021, Western Cape, South Africa

£9, Tesco A light, limber red that's as full of character as it is of joie de vivre – silky and supple with perfumed, sweet red-berry fruit, gentle spice, sun-baked earth and breezy freshness and purity. For years, South Africa kept most of its Cinsault grapes in the back room for blending, but now they're going solo to produce wines like this that fit a zeitgeist valuing lighter, less tannic reds as much as power and concentration. The grapes for The Misfits were hand-picke

Sep 8

WINE OF THE WEEK: Loved & Found Frappato 2021, Terre Siciliane, Italy

£7.99, Waitrose Everything about this nimble, light-bodied Sicilian red wine is cheery and crowd-pleasing, from the juicy fresh fruit – cherry vying with raspberry vying with strawberry – to the lick of pepper and herbs, the barely-there tannins, the refreshing freedom from oak and the soft, dry finish. Because it should be served lightly chilled, it’s the kind of red wine that seems perfect for uncomplicated summer drinking, but really it works at any time of the year. I can

Sep 1

WINE OF THE WEEK: Bellingham The Bernard Series Chenin Blanc 2021, South Africa

£11–£14.39, Tesco, The General Wine Co Chenin Blanc comes in all shapes and sizes: dry, medium, sweet, still, sparkling, oaked, unoaked, mass-market, limited-production (but rarely overpriced), early drinking, long-lived, young vines, old vines and more. There's something for everyone and yet as a grape variety it's never captured hearts in the way that whites like Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay have. It's not as if it's difficult to pronounce, but maybe the sheer diversity o

Aug 25

WINE OF THE WEEK: Malbado Malbec 2019, Lujan de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina

£12/£14, Asda You might not expect it from the name Malbado, a take on ‘malvado’, the Spanish for ‘the evil one’, but this is a silky and elegant Malbec with a captivating perfume of violets, pure, precise fruit (especially blueberry and plum), a mineral inflection, a touch of spice and fine tannins. It comes from Ugarteche, a small sub-region lying on the southern fringes of the Lujan de Cuyo region at an altitude of around 900m, which is high by global standards but about a

Aug 10

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 4

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 28

WINE OF THE WEEK: Forza della Natura Orange Catarratto 2021, Terre Siciliane, Italy

£9.99, Waitrose If you've yet to fall for an orange wine, try this hazy gold, unfined and unfiltered organic example from Sicily. It's very much at the gentler end of the orange wine spectrum, with aromas of chamomile, fresh and dried apricot, orange peel and green tea and a textured palate with a refreshing, orangey, softly spicy flavour. It's very good value too. The vines grow high up in the Alcamo hills in northwest Sicily and the wine is made in a winery down in Marsala,

Jul 21

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

Jun 23

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 16

WINE OF THE WEEK: Smith & Sheth Cru Sauvignon Blanc 2021, Wairau, New Zealand

£17, Tesco This cracking New Zealand Sauvignon is the product of the very low-cropping 2021 vintage and one of the country’s top winemakers, Steve Smith MW, in partnership with Texan investor and wildlife conservationist Brian Sheth. It may look expensive, but you get your money’s worth in the breadth of flavour and interest in every sip: in vivid aromas of fresh-cut grass, herbs, gooseberry, lime, green apple, crushed rocks and hints of woodsmoke and spice; and in the juicy

Jun 9

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

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 6

WINE OF THE WEEK: Filos Estate Aspri Petra Assyrtiko 2021, Florina, Greece

£6.99, Aldi I know, I know, this week's wine is being posted late but, believe me, it's worth the wait for this terrific value, summery Assyrtiko. It's from a single vineyard, Aspri Petra, at a soaring 625 metres in the IGP of Florina in the Amyndeon region of north west Greece, and it's everything the country's flagship white grape, Assyrtiko, should be when it's grown on the mainland. I stress mainland because it's not trying to be Santorini. Instead, it's zesty and refresh

Mar 10

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

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 3

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 27

WINE OF THE WEEK: Viña Leyda Single Vineyard Garuma Sauvignon Blanc 2020, Leyda, Chile

£12, Tesco Having seen sunshine for the first time in what seems ages, I've pulled this white wine forward and pushed back the red I'd planned for another week. It's a Sauvignon Blanc with a real spring in its step from Chile's coastal Leyda region and from a vineyard that, just 4km from the Pacific Ocean, almost has its toes (or roots) in the cooling waters. The aromas come in a mouthwatering burst of fresh pea pod, salt-crusted peaches, lime zest and flint. The palate foll

Jan 6

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