£22.99, D Byrne; £27.99, Corks Out, corksout.com English wine week starts on Saturday – a great opportunity to visit an English vineyard or simply to drink an English wine. I’ve chosen a sparkling wine because it’s what we do best, growing the same grape varieties as Champagne in similar soils and climate. There are so many good ones it's hard to choose – Nyetimber, Hambledon, Wiston, Hattingley, Gusbourne, Exton Park, Ambriel and Ridgeview were all in the running – but in th

£13.50, joiedevin.co.uk I fall in love with too many wines, but this was love at first sip. It’s a dry white from the Loire Valley based on the Chenin Blanc grape, but rounded out with a little Chardonnay and fermented in oak barrels to give a creamy softness to the spicy pear fruit and preserved-lemon zesty freshness. It’s a good match for savoury dishes in cream sauces, but can partner simpler fish, seafood, pasta, grain and chicken dishes too. There are just two options fo

£13.80, Tanners, www.tanners-wines.co.uk I don’t know who comes up with these things, but tomorrow is International Sauvignon Blanc Day. If you need another excuse to drink Sauvignon, it’s the English asparagus season. New Zealand Sauvignon might seem a tad unimaginative, especially when it’s from Marlborough, the main region, but Churton is different. It’s a year older than most of the southern hemisphere Sauvignons on the shelves, it’s from a biodynamically farmed vineyard

£9.99, or £7.49–£7.99, when you buy any 6 bottles, Majestic Let’s show the Carignan Blanc grape a bit of love. Mas Lavail’s Carignan is a beautifully rounded, full, southern white with spicy citrus, herb and apricot flavours and a dry, refreshing finish – and it’s practically given away at the offer price (until midnight, Monday). I don’t know why white Carignan is such a neglected grape variety, except that it’s very susceptible to mildew, which can’t endear it to growers, b

£90 for 6 bottles, Armit Wines; £13.60 The Bottle Bank A label and name for dog lovers, for sure, but the stylish, barrel-matured dry white wine should captivate everyone. It’s made in the Cape to a Bordeaux model using Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc grapes that were partly fermented and aged in French oak. The oak gives a richer flavour and texture, but fermenting some of the Sauvignon in stainless steel tanks keeps the wine’s aromatic lime-curd zing and grapefruit snap. It’s

£13.99–£14.99, Dylans Wines, L'Art du Vin, The Square Wine Company There are times when only Chardonnay will do as far as I’m concerned. Sauvignon Blanc is there when you need a brilliant espresso-like boost, but good Chardonnay is there for you all the time – when you’re tucking into lemon- and herb-roasted chicken, seared scallops or roasted veg, or when you’re just chilling out with a glass of wine. This one, from English-owned vineyards pretty well within spitting distanc

Stop Press! 14 April, 2016: I'm delighted to report that these wines are now available at £19.95 per bottle from winesensations.co.uk These two wines are not available in the UK or the US (stockist information at the end). I’m telling you about them simply because they express so much of what I admire about wine: integrity, authenticity, purity, flavour, character. Above all, even though I haven’t been to the vineyards or met the producers (we have corresponded and have a fri

£5.99, Wine Rack and Bargain Booze I wasn’t planning to wax lyrical about a Sauvignon Blanc this week. I’d been thinking along the lines of big, chunky reds to go with robust, warming casseroles, but this Sauvignon came along and it has such revitalising elderflower, passion fruit and pink grapefruit flavour that I can’t resist choosing it. Plus, it’s a bargain! It’s from the gentle, rolling Gascon hills in south west France, a haven of ultra-light, fresh whites, but because

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

£8, Marks & Spencer If you’re going for the complete January detox and diet, you have my sympathy – and more usefully a recommendation below – but my wine this week is proper wine as usual, a dry white with a median 12% abv that goes brilliantly with seared or chargrilled seafood, Thai and Vietnamese salads and other healthy, light, spicy dishes. It’s a classic, Eden Valley dry Riesling packed with snappy, crisp, lime and apple flavours pulled along by a refreshing, stony, mi

New year, new grape varieties: ten grapes and wines for 2016 Remember Grü-V? Yes, the American moniker for Grüner Veltliner. The trouble was that by the time sommeliers and their customers were saying Grü-V it was anything but, er, groovy. Fashions come and go in wine as in all things and there’s always somebody out there trying to outdo everyone else by requesting the most recherché lesser-spotted grape variety, To help you keep ahead of the game, here are ten cool grapes an

Still and sparkling wines that are easy to drink, don’t need food and are available on the high street – five of them at under £7.50. For more ideas, especially if you want to aim a bit higher, check out my festive Champagne, Red and White Wine guides and my Wines of the Week. Wine Atlas Côtes de Thau 2014, Languedoc, France Breezy, light (12% abv), southern French blend of Sauvignon, Grenache Blanc and Vermentino. Zesty grapefruit and nettle flavour with a suggestion of whit

The purpose of this blog is to provide you with some material for Christmas quizzes, longueurs in the conversation, one-upmanship with the family wine bore, charades (not the sort of charades I play –ed) and so on and so forth, perhaps leaving some leftover material for a pub wine quiz or two in 2016. Let’s do it with grape varieties – always rich pickings (sorry, terrible pun – just thinking of the Christmas crackers) and let’s focus on crossings and synonyms. · Cabest

Whites to keep the show on the road this Christmas and New Year Wines listed in ascending order of price. I've given a UK stockist for each, but you can find other stockists in the UK and other countries on wine-searcher.com Tesco *finest Saint Mont 2014, France Mouthwatering, tangy lime and quince flavours. A brilliant, snappy fresh alternative to Sauvignon Blanc made from local grape varieties – mainly Gros Manseng – in Saint Mont, south west France. £5.50, Tesco Cimarosa M

Ten Champagnes to put you in the mood for Christmas and all the rest Listed in ascending order of price, ignoring special offers and quantity discounts. I've given a UK stockist and price (sometimes two) for each, but you can find other stockists in the UK and other countries on wine-searcher.com. Les Pionniers Brut NV Champagne Biscuity, rounded and fresh. Consistently good; remarkable value. The Co-operative's own label. 50% Pinot Noir, 30% Pinot Meunier, 10% Chardonnay. Th

£37.95, Eton Vintners, £42, Berry Bros & Rudd This fabulous Champagne was voted best value of the night at a tasting called Ultimate Champagne that I co-hosted this week. Louis Roederer Cristal 1995 was voted best, irrespective of price (around £300 a bottle), but the sumptuous Charles Heidsieck Brut Réserve (be careful not to confuse it with any of the other Heidsiecks) is a Champagne niche enough to make a perfect present for a connoisseur and approachable enough to be a pe

£9.75, selected Tesco and tesco.com/wine This dry Australian Semillon is an old favourite, not only for its citrus-zest freshness, lemon-curd smoothness and delicate smoky oak but because it’s a vinous flexible friend. It goes well with all sorts of fish and seafood, vegetable and salad dishes, goats’ and other cheeses. You can equally well drink it on its own – and if you have somewhere with a reasonably steady temperature below that of the average kitchen, you can lay it do

£13.95, The Wine Society, thewinesociety.com This wine is a great match for cashew nuts. You might think that anybody worrying about which wine to drink with cashews has too much time on their hands, but think of all the delicious dishes, especially Indian, Chinese and Thai-style, that include cashews. I rest my case, and not least because it also goes very well with chicken, prawns, pork, pumpkin and aubergine (perhaps that should be eggplant as the wine is American). It’s v

£7.99, cellarandkitchen.adnams.co.uk and Adnams stores Hear this: Portuguese wines are some of the most overlooked and underrated and you don’t have to go very far to find them. There are lots of warming, velvety reds around, from Dão, the Douro and Alentejo, but we can’t drink wall-to-wall reds from here until next spring, so here’s a wonderfully zippy white. Light in body but not on flavour, it has a delicately honeyed, citrus and quince taste with a hint of baked apple and

£9.74, Majestic Wine Let's extend a warm welcome to a sophisticated, Burgundy-style Chardonnay at a non-Burgundy price. In fact, this wine was supposed to be a white Burgundy, but the buyer tasked with sourcing it for Majestic's new Definition range (its promising, inaugural foray into own-label) went off-piste. Heading south into Languedoc, he came back with this: a subtly oaked, nutty Chardonnay with almond blossom, beeswax, peach and citrus flavours and a fresh, oystershel