#wine

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

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

Aug 3

Penfolds French-ish Launches, the New Grange, the Fabled Bin 60A and More

When Penfolds launches its 2022 collection tomorrow, Thursday 4 August, it will include two French, or French-ish, still wines for the first time. Not Penfolds’ first French wines, because it launched three vintage Champagnes in partnership with Thiénot in 2019, and not its first northern hemisphere still wines, because it launched a Napa-Australian red blend last year, but the first wines from Bordeaux. Or more or less Bordeaux. Clarification in a moment. The two wines are P

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

Jul 19

Prime Time for Pink: Summer 2022 Rosé Round-up Part 1

Update, August 12 I've just added two more wines to this, so it's now 12 appetite-whetting rosés. The additions, Ramón Bilbao Rosado and Señorio de Sarría Viñedo Cinco are both Spanish, from the neighbouring regions of Rioja and Navarra, and both are based on Garnacha, but they couldn't be more different in style. I haven't yet found a UK stockist of the 2021 vintage of the Señorio de Sarría, but look out for it if you're in Spain. Scroll down. Ten appetite-whetting rosés rou

Jul 14

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

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 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 24

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

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 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 19

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

May 12

WINE OF THE WEEK: Kutjevo Rosé 2020, Slavonia, Croatia

£14.49/£12.49 in a 12-bottle mix, Laithwaites If you like your rosés very pale, look no further. If you don't like your rosés very pale, please do not look away. You'll regret it. This one is different. For a start, it's from Croatia, from Vetovo in the east, and from vineyards close to the mountains and to the coast – a double bill of beneficial cooling breezes. Then there’s the unusual blend: Pinot Noir and the Austrian red grape Zweigelt in a ratio of 60:40. If this wine i

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

Apr 14

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