#wine

Dec 23, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Finest Ebeia Ribera del Duero 2018, Spain

£12, Tesco I'm posting this a day early in case anyone is still looking for a red wine for Christmas Day. I've chosen a full-bodied, approachable, barrel-aged Spanish red that could accompany beef, lamb, pork or game, as well as goose, turkey or duck, or vegetarian dishes such as mushroom and chestnut Wellington and vegetable and cheese pies and gratins. It could also stand alongside hard cheeses such as cheddar and Manchego, but I would spare it the stilton. It's made from T

Dec 18, 2020

The Festive Sweet, Sticky and Fortified Guide 2020

Sweet wines and fortified wines, dry as well as medium and sweet, are some of the wine world's greatest bargains. They're wonderfully comforting on long, dark evenings and come in a kaleidoscope of styles to suit every taste. They make ideal presents and sweet wines, unfortified or fortified, can be served not only with puddings and cheese but instead of them, when you're time-poor, ingredient-poor or simply don't want any more to eat. I've divided them into two groups below:

Dec 17, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Maison Louis Latour Bellevue Domaine de Valmoissine Pinot Noir 2017, Var, France

£18.50–£23.50, Bakers & Larners, Flagship Wines, Harvey Nichols, North & South Wines As an affordable alternative to red Burgundy, Maison Louis Latour's regular Domaine de Valmoissine Pinot Noir is an old favourite (see my Festive Red Wine Guide), and a good choice for the festive table whether you're eating turkey, a smaller bird, beef fillet or vegetarian, but there's now also a top-tier Valmoissine. Step forward Bellevue, a small production from the domaine's best vineyard

Dec 16, 2020

The Festive Champagne Guide 2020

I hardly need say that the past year isn't going to go down in history as very celebratory and that 2021 is looking shaky, but I don't need a celebration to drink Champagne (do you?). If I did, there are the first covid-19 vaccinations (my mother was one of the first to get one). And there's Christmas. And New Year. Here then are my Champagne picks: not as many as usual, and fewer at the bottom end thanks to the absence of tastings and travel, but there are some crackers and

Dec 11, 2020

The Festive White & Rosé Wine Guide 2020

I've tasted far and wide to pick white wines and rosés from a dozen countries to fill your glasses with festive cheer during this small-scale, socially distanced Christmas. Whether it's a simple lunch or supper, a fancy feast or a moment of reflection, these wines will illuminate it. Starting at under £8, they're listed in ascending order of price, give or take differences in retailers’ prices and special offers. If you're in the mood to splash out, you'll know to scroll down

Dec 10, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Château de Rochemorin Pessac-Léognan 2016, Bordeaux, France

£13.99 on offer, Waitrose I said at the beginning of the year that we should all drink more Sauternes and followed with a resolution a couple of days later to drink more dry white Bordeaux as well. This Pessac-Léognan (the superior AOC enclave of Graves) is one of the dry whites I've loved – and it's currently on offer, so there's no excuse not to indulge. It also happens to go well with smoked salmon, if that's on any of your festive menus. It's a barrel-fermented Sauvignon

Dec 8, 2020

A Meeting of Minds: Salcombe Distillery Gin and Château Climens Sauternes

When gin distiller Angus Lugsdin was visiting Château Climens in Barsac for the first time, the fog was so thick he couldn’t find it. Suddenly it emerged out of the fog like a phantom. Later, when he was naming his new gin, the sixth and latest in Salcombe Distilling Company’s limited-edition Voyager Series, each named after a nineteenth-century Salcombe fruiter (fruit schooner), Phantom seemed the obvious fruiter to choose. Obvious because Phantom was created in collaboratio

Dec 4, 2020

The Festive Red Wine Guide 2020

However different this Christmas turns out to be, wine is going to be at least as vital as usual. Here then is my round-up of red wines to cater for all kinds of occasion during the festive season, or no occasion at all. As always, wines are in 75cl bottles unless stated and are listed in ascending order of price, give or take differences in retailers’ prices and special offers. If you're in the money, you'll know to scroll down and start at the end. A couple of other things

Dec 3, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Daniel-Etienne Chablis Vieilles Vignes 2015, France

£22.50, Tanners Wines This is the Chablis you need for Christmas. It's the one I need anyway. It's not a lean, razor-sharp, steely style but one that celebrates Chablis' potential for richness and savoury complexity, given old vines in top locations and long ageing on the lees without oak. When you factor in a warm year like 2015, there's the potential for even more ripeness and density, although that doesn't mean higher alcohol in the case of Daniel Defaix's Vieilles Vignes.

Nov 26, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Santa Tresa Rina Russa Frappato 2019, Terre Siciliane, Italy

£9.99–£10.75, Ocado, Vintage Roots I recommended an earlier incarnation of this organic wine a few years ago as a perfect spring red. In August this year, in searing heat, I had the 2019 and thought it was the ideal summer red. I've just had it again on a dark, chilly November evening and come to the conclusion that it's a delicious all-seasons red. With its gem-bright, pale colour and medium body, it doesn't have that hearty winter look, but trades it for suppleness, freshne

Nov 19, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Terra Costantino De Aetna Etna Bianco 2018, Sicily, Italy

£16.76, Jeroboams Etna wines have become hugely trendy in the last few years, and rightly so. From soaring vineyards on the volcanic soils of an active volcano, they've got everything – quality, character and singularity. The Costantino family's 10 hectares lie at about 450–550 metres in Contrada Blandano on the south-eastern slopes, from where, they say, they can see the sea and taste the windblown tang of salt. Some of Etna's vineyards are twice as high again. Red wine heav

Nov 18, 2020

Festive Fizz 2020: Anything But Champagne

It may be a festive season unlike any other, but we'll still need wine of all sorts –perhaps more than ever. The first of my 2020 round-ups is, as always, any kind of sparkling wine except Champagne, which gets its own show. This year there's a red, as well as white and rosé, and some pretty unusual wines: a Frappato, an Albariño and a stunning biodynamic wild-ferment English sparkling wine. I don't know what I was expecting when I tasted the English biodynamic natural wine,

Nov 12, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Henriques & Henriques Sercial Madeira 10 Years Old

£20 (50cl), Waitrose, The Wine Society, independents* Whenever I taste good Madeira, I think, 'why don't I drink this more often?' I've never yet had a satisfactory answer. Sercial, made from the eponymous grape variety, is the driest style, although that doesn't have to mean the bone-dry austerity that the term sometimes seems to imply. Henriques & Henriques' amber-coloured ten-year-old (ten years meaning the average age of the wines in the blend) is off-dry/medium dry, but

Nov 10, 2020

Connecting with Wine Growers the PICA Way

Before lockdown I visited the Cavit co-operative group in Trentino to see how it applies cutting edge technology to improve its wines and the environment. Last week I caught up with the head of agronomy on zoom to find out about its impact in a year like this. Colour-coded vineyard parcels, including Schiava Gentile, on the PICA app on a Cavit agronomist's smartphone In the tiny village in deeply rural France where I’m often based, we always know when a storm is about to whip

Nov 5, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Domaine de Bréseyme Brézème Côtes du Rhône 2017, France

£22, The Wine Society I'm getting in early with this because when I tried to recommend the 2016 it had sold out (Wine Society members clearly know a good new thing when they see it). If you tasted the 2016, you'll know that it was northern Rhône-style Syrah at its most bewitchingly pure, perfumed and peppery. The 2017 is equally delicious, but more opulent – more Cornas, perhaps, than Côte-Rôtie – although both are a comfortably moderate 12.5% abv. The 2017 opens with a wave

Oct 29, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2020, Marlborough, New Zealand

£21.50–£26.95, The Champagne Company, ND John, Majestic*, Clos19, Laithwaites, Jeroboams This is the first Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc I've tasted in a few years. I always used to like New Zealand's iconic wine and I've seen how well it can age, but I wasn't expecting to make it a Wine of the Week. After all, it's expensive, it doesn't need a helping hand and you can find other very good New Zealand Sauvignons more cheaply. But I was really impressed; I loved it. It's got conc

Oct 28, 2020

Sipping Siepi with the Best of 'Em

Gnocchi with girolles, chanterelles and black truffle paired with the 2011 vintage of Castello di Fonterutoli's super-Tuscan Siepi, at a dinner hosted by Giovanni Mazzei at The Petersham restaurant in London The text of this article was first published in The World of Fine Wine issue 64 The first person I met at the Siepi winemaker dinner at The Petersham restaurant in London’s Covent Garden was an engagingly conversational Jermyn Street shirtmaker. He didn’t say whether he c

Oct 22, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Château Laurou Fronton Tradition 2019, Fronton, France

£11.95–£13, Cheers Wines, The Jolly Vintner, The Stroud Wine Company, Shaftsbury Wines I'm delighted to have found a red Fronton this week – such a distinctive but appealing wine, made predominantly from a grape variety, Négrette, that's grown almost nowhere else in the world (there's a tiny amount in San Benito County California). Fronton is an appellation in south-west France about 30km north-west of Toulouse between the Garonne and Tarn rivers and west of the larger Gailla

Oct 15, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Springfontein Terroir Selection Chenin Blanc 2018, Springfontein Rim, South Africa

£16.96, Private Cellar There were a couple of other South African wines, red and white, in the running for this week's slot, but this organic Chenin is from a producer – an estate – I barely know, although once I read the label I knew a lot more about the estate, the growing conditions and the winemaking. Amazing how much you can pack on to a label if you want to. And then I went to the website and discovered a whole lot more, not least that Springfontein Rim, an appellation

Oct 8, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Waitrose & Partners País 2019, Maule, Chile

£7.99, Waitrose A juicy, soft, low-tannin, pale red with strawberry and white pepper flavours, a swish of orange and a stony mineral burr. Delicious. It could stand in for good Beaujolais, or Pinot Noir or Etna Rosso, although it's made from a grape variety that has no connection with any of them: País. No need to be surprised if you're not familiar with País. Most people aren't. What might surprise you is that it has long been Chile's second most planted variety. Where has i