#white

Nov 17

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

Oct 6

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 22

WINE OF THE WEEK: Royal Tokaji Nyulászó Dry Furmint 2018, Tokaj, Hungary

£18, The Wine Society If ever there was a wine that shouted terroir, it's this single-vineyard dry white Furmint from Nyulászó, one of Tokaji's First Growths in the enduring formal classification that dates from the late 18th century. Actually, shout is not the word: rather, it sings of its hillside volcanic bedrock and rich clay soils. How does that show itself in the wine? To me, in the arresting, tangy smoke aroma and mouthwatering tang on the palate that I think of as a v

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 11

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

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 30

WINE OF THE WEEK: Gini Soave Classico 2020, Veneto, Italy

£15.88, Justerini & Brooks Good Soave, which usually means Classico, often doesn’t get the recognition it deserves as one of the most food-friendly of dry whites and, equally, as a wine that has cellaring potential. You can blame it on cheap, bland Soaves that have tarnished the name over decades, but it doesn't help when people like me recommend the same handful of favourite producers time after time. But not this week. I’m delighted to put a long overdue spotlight on the Gi

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

May 26

WINE OF THE WEEK: A de Château d'Arche Bordeaux Blanc Sec 2020, France

£13.50, The Wine Society This is the debut dry wine from a Sauternes Grand Cru and it's delicious. Fresh herbs, grass, dried flowers, chamomile and nectarine on the nose meet a succulent, creamy palate with refreshing notes of green tea, grapefruit peel and acacia honey. It's a great advertisement for Bordeaux Sémillon, which accounts for 85% of the blend and often goes uncelebrated in favour of fashionable Sauvignon Blanc. And, while no one wants to see Sauternes disappear,

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 17

WINE OF THE WEEK: The Society's Exhibition Santorini Assyrtiko 2020, Greece

£14.95, The Wine Society Just the sight of the words Santorini and Assyrtiko on the label will be enough for some people to reach straight for their credit cards – and the price of this bottle is even more of an incentive. There's no white wine quite like Assyrtiko from the Aegean island of Santorini. The Assyrtiko grape is now widely grown in Greece, but it produces its highest quality and most distinctive wines in Santorini's exceptional, hot, dry, sunny and windy condition

Mar 3

WINE OF THE WEEK: Adnams Grüner Veltliner 2019, Kamptal, Niederösterreich, Austria

£16.99, Adnams I wouldn't expect anything less than excellence from Weingut Bründlmayer, and 2019 is a great vintage for Austrian wine, but even knowing that I was bowled over by this dry white Grüner Veltliner produced for Adnams. Aromatic, intense, finely etched and perfectly balanced, it greets you with orchard fruit and elegant spritz, then takes you on a tour of vivacious lime, juicy peach, mouthwatering minerals and a dash of spice. I can't imagine any wine lover not fa

Feb 17

WINE OF THE WEEK: Nautilus Chardonnay 2019, Marlborough, New Zealand

£17.99 (in any 6-bottle mix), Majestic stores New Zealand Chardonnay is still overshadowed by the country's Sauvignon Blanc, as is every other grape variety and wine style, but the current shortage of Sauvignon after last year's devastating frosts is a perfect opportunity to give the Chardonnays some love. And they deserve it, believe me. The barrel-fermented Nautilus from Marlborough is typically expressive and stylish, capturing the freshness of a salty sea breeze and the s

Feb 8

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 2

The Essence of Cristal Through the Prism of the 2014 Vintage

"If I don't make mistakes, I never learn." Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon's words are hardly original but still they took me by surprise. I don't think of the cellar master of Champagne Louis Roederer as one who makes mistakes, least of all with Cristal, which is what he was talking about, as he hosted (virtually) the launch of the 2014 vintage. To be clear, he didn't catalogue actual mistakes or cite any particular vintage of Cristal. The comment came in the context of the percenta

Jan 28

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 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

Dec 16, 2021

The Festive White, Orange and Rosé Wine Guide 2021

Welcome to my annual roundup of white, orange and rosé wines for the festive season. Ranging freely through styles, regions and grape varieties, it's designed to cover all occasions and eventualities throughout Christmas, new year and other festivals and celebrations of the season. There are wines for the towering occasions, lots of inspiration for gifts and, no less important, wines for the times when absolutely nothing is happening. All are ready for drinking, but some will

Dec 16, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: La Scelta di Sofia Sangiovese di Toscana Bianco 2020, Italy

£11.99/£9.99, Laithwaites, Averys This is as appealing as it is unusual: a white wine made from Sangiovese, Tuscany's principal red grape variety (and Italy's most widely planted). It's off-dry, bright and breezy with a whisp of smoke floating over quince, pear and green-apple fruit and a hint of Sangiovese's signature red-cherry in the refreshing, tangy finish. I said off-dry, but really it's more like medium dry; it's just that the acidity neatly off-sets the sweetness. The

Dec 2, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: Definition Viña Majestica Rioja Blanco 2020, Spain

£8.99, Majestic Getting the balance right between oak and fruit in barrel-fermented white Rioja has eluded many a bodega over the years, partly because Viura (aka Macabeo), the principal white grape variety of the Rioja region, can be a bit neutral and low in acidity. This blend of Viura with 20% Garnacha Blanca gets the balance just right. The inviting, softly nutty oak allows the fresh, sweet apple and pear fruit to shine. Three months on lees has given a polished, creamy t