#wine

May 26, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Henners Brut 2010, East Sussex, England

£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

May 20, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Domaine de la Grange Patrimoine Blanc 2014, Touraine, France

£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

May 13, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Tim Adams The Fergus 2012, Clare Valley, Australia

£10, Tesco I hadn’t planned to recommend this juicy, round, oak-matured red this week, although it’s a perennial favourite, but the latest vintage, 2012, has just arrived and the price, far from increasing, has dropped £2. It’s mainly Grenache, which gives the easygoing spicy raspberry succulence, but don’t underestimate it: it has some backbone, so if you have somewhere cool and dark you could lay it down for four or five years. The name Fergus comes from Fergus Mahon, the o

May 5, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Churton Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2014, New Zealand

£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

Apr 28, 2016

Go Grow it on a Mountain: extreme winemaking in Chile

Tabalí's winemaker Felipe Müller East goes to extremes in Chile: first he planted vineyards within spitting distance of the Pacific Ocean. Now he's also making world-class Malbec way inland and way up a mountain The new vineyards at 1600 metres under snow in October When Chilean winemaker Felipe Müller planted Tabalí’s Roca Madre vineyard five years ago, he settled on no fewer than 11 grape varieties. It sounds like a kid let loose in the viticultural equivalent of a sweet sh

Apr 28, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Craggy Range Te Kahu 2013, Gimblett Gravels

£14.95, The Wine Society; £17.99, or £15.99 when you buy any 6 bottles, Majestic If you want a red wine that goes down well with lovers of classic claret as much as with fans of new world reds, this Bordeaux-style blend from New Zealand is just the ticket. It’s mainly Merlot, but with some Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Malbec, and it’s matured in expensive French oak barrels in the same way as a classy Bordeaux (aka claret). The result is dark, ripe fruit edged with

Apr 21, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Mas Lavail Carignan Vieilles Vignes Terre d'Ardoise 2014, Côtes Catalanes

£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

Apr 19, 2016

Penfolds Grange and Special Bins: a unique vertical tasting in Paris

Hosted by the Australian Ambassador to France at "an intimate dinner", it was billed as "the first ever monumental vertical tasting of Penfolds Grange and Special Bins". I was one of the ambassador's guests This article was published in Decanter magazine in late 2011 The last time I tasted 1953 Grange – I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to be able to say that – it was outshone by the 1953 Grange Cabernet Sauvignon. That was September 2003, in Australia, at the fifth Penfo

Apr 14, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Viberti Barbera d'Alba Bricco Airolo, Piedmont

£16.95, The Vintner, thevintner.com This is such a food-friendly red it ought to be on as many restaurant lists as the, admittedly limited, production allows, but I’ve yet to find it anywhere in the UK other than The Vintner wine merchant – bravo to them!. Barbera, named after its grape variety, is very much the understudy in Piedmont to the more regal Barolo (made from the Nebbiolo grape) but, in the hands of a good producer like Viberti, Barbera’s lower tannin levels, highe

Apr 7, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Château Rouquette Sur Mer, L'Esprit Terroir, La Clape 2013

£9.95, The Wine Society Red wines from Languedoc can be pretty big and burly, especially when the grape blend includes, as this does, a fair amount of Carignan, but there’s no suggestion of burliness or rusticity here. Instead, it delivers a mouthful of red berry and praline-smooth flavours and a juicy, refreshing finish, all for under a tenner. The clue to the freshness and elegance is in the name. Rouquette On Sea isn’t a case of poetic licence-cum-wishful thinking: the vin

Apr 5, 2016

Iconic, historic... it must be Penfolds Grange and a Rewards of Patience tasting

Penfolds' fifth Rewards of Patience was a remarkable, unrepeatable tasting over four days in September 2003. It included the complete set of 50 vintages of Grange. I was one of five wine writers invited to taste This is the article I wrote for Decanter magazine, published in June 2004: Few French wine producers could put on a tasting of 50 consecutive vintages. Who in Bordeaux would willingly show tasters their 1974, 1977 and 1984? And who in Burgundy would wish to show 1965,

Mar 31, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Mulderbosch Faithful Hound 2013, Western Cape

£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

Mar 24, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Torres Salmos Priorat 2012, Penedès

£13.86, Waitrose (on offer at this price until 29 March) The classic matches for Easter roast lamb are claret or Rioja, but I’m going slightly off piste by choosing a Priorat. It’s as Spanish as Rioja, but comes from the dark slate hills of Penedès, Barcelona’s local wine region, and is made from the more robust Mediterranean grape varieties Cariñena, Garnacha and Syrah. These give a more powerful wine, but Salmos, matured in French oak, is at the more elegant end of the Prio

Mar 23, 2016

Wines to Pair with Chocolate – and how to make them tango

Chocolate can be a tricky customer when it comes to matching wines, but it’s certainly not a no-go area. Believe me, after years of selfless testing, I’ve come up with winning combinations (below) for chocolate in all its forms. If you’re looking for pairings of your own, keep two things in mind. Firstly, even when it’s dark/bitter with a high cocoa percentage, chocolate is sweet. Secondly, it has a texture that coats your taste buds, so you need wines that can power through

Mar 17, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Stapleton & Springer Orange Pinot Noir 2014, Czech Republic

£13.75, or £12.50 in any 12-bottle mix, Lea & Sandeman This is one of the most unusual and delicious wines I’ve come across in ages (quirky wines can be more challenging than delicious). It’s named Orange because of its colour, but it’s not one of the so-called orange wines that have a bit of a cult following in fashionable London restaurants: those are made from white grapes where the juice, skins and pips have been fermented all together instead of just fermenting the clear

Mar 10, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Foremost Syrah 2015, Hawkes Bay

£8.99, Lidl This is from Lidl’s Easter wine cellar collection and is worth snapping up before the limited stocks disappear – even if you’re not a Lidl regular. It’s proof positive that there’s not only far more to New Zealand wine than Sauvignon Blanc, but more to the country’s reds than Pinot Noir. It’s typical of the Syrah style emerging in Hawkes Bay on the North Island: much more like a French Syrah from the northern Rhône than a typical Australian Shiraz (which is why th

Mar 3, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Terres de Moraines Madiran 2012

£7–£9, Marks & Spencer Madiran from southwest France is definitely one of France’s wilder, more rugged red wines. If you’ve bumped into it before, you’ll know that it can be a bit of a bruising experience, but this one has been tamed just enough to make you feel you can drink it rather than carve it. It has the tannic grip to keep it real, but it’s been smoothed down around a core of rich, dark fruit and spice. The grape that gives Madiran its distinctive character is the loc

Feb 28, 2016

Blend it like Johnson... or making the most of leftovers

As I said a few weeks back, in what turned out to be my most popular Tweet ever @joannasimon, England’s chief medical officer and I clearly move in different circles. Dame Sally Davies says she doesn’t know many men who drink more than half a glass of wine a day. I don’t know many who drink less than half a… Tell you what: you fill in whatever measurement seems appropriate to your own circumstances. To continue from where I was before I threw the floor open, one of the first

Feb 26, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Allegracore 2014, Etna Rosso

£19.50, Tanners shops and tanners-wines.co.uk Who wouldn’t be drawn to a wine called Allegracore – happy heart, named after the spot where the vines are grown? I can think of all sorts of occasions when it would strike the right note, not least leap-year marriage proposals next Monday and, less limited in application, Mother’s Day a week on Sunday. Even without an excuse, this is a lovely winter-into-spring rosso from the super-fashionable (in wine terms) slopes of Mount Etna

Feb 18, 2016

WINE OF THE WEEK: Seven Springs Vineyards Chardonnay 2012, Overberg

£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