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    WINE OF THE WEEK: Gini Soave Classico 2020, Veneto, Italy
    • 2 days ago

    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
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Pierre Jaurant Saint-Chinian 2020, Languedoc, France
    • 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
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Smith & Sheth Cru Sauvignon Blanc 2021, Wairau, New Zealand
    • 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
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Albert Road Pinot Noir by Savage & Louw, Western Cape
    • 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
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Château des Fougères La Raison 2012, Graves, France
    • 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
    WINE OF THE WEEK: A de Château d'Arche Bordeaux Blanc Sec 2020, France
    • 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,
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Tringario Ludopata Marselan 2020, Colchagua Valley, Chile
    • 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
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Kutjevo Rosé 2020, Slavonia, Croatia
    • 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
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Filos Estate Aspri Petra Assyrtiko 2021, Florina, Greece
    • 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
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Adnams Barolo del Commune di Serralunga d'Alba 2015, Italy
    • 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
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Saddle Goose Skin Contact Bacchus 2020, England
    • Apr 7

    WINE OF THE WEEK: Saddle Goose Skin Contact Bacchus 2020, England

    £20, Saddle Goose Wine On the face of it, the only thing this straw-yellow wine has in common with the red wine that occupied this slot two weeks ago, Lyme Bay Pinot Noir, is the country of origin, England. That and the impressive quality. In fact, the grapes for both wines come from the same region, the UK’s new viticultural hotspot, Essex. To all intents and purposes, Saddle Goose Skin Contact Bacchus is an orange wine, although it’s a long way off the extreme end of the sp
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Domaines Lupier El Terroir 2015, Navarra, Spain
    • Mar 31

    WINE OF THE WEEK: Domaines Lupier El Terroir 2015, Navarra, Spain

    £19.99, Marlo Wine The old Garnacha vines that produce this fragrant, concentrated red date back to 1903 and come from up to 27 individual small plots of Garnacha that Elise and Enrique of Domaines Lupier bought parcel by parcel. From the 27 –certified organic and farmed biodynamically – they make just two red wines, El Terroir and La Dama. In the 2015 vintage, they made 26,315 bottles of El Terroir. It's not a lot. All the vineyards are at altitudes of 400 to 750m and it’s t
    WINE OF THE WEEK: The Society's Exhibition Santorini Assyrtiko 2020, Greece
    • 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
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Ringbolt Cabernet Sauvignon 2020, Margaret River, Western Australia
    • Mar 10

    WINE OF THE WEEK: Ringbolt Cabernet Sauvignon 2020, Margaret River, Western Australia

    £10, Tesco There aren't many areas that produce really distinctive regional Cabernet Sauvignon – pure Cabernet Sauvignon, rather than Bordeaux-style blends with Merlot and so on – but Australia has two of them, Coonwarra in South Australia and, thousands of kilometres to the west, the much more recently planted Margaret River in Western Australia, where the first vines went into the ground in 1967. I've written more about the differences between the two here, so let's go stra
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Adnams Grüner Veltliner 2019, Kamptal, Niederösterreich, Austria
    • 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
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Colpasso Appassimento Nero d'Avola 2020 Sicilia, Italy
    • Feb 24

    WINE OF THE WEEK: Colpasso Appassimento Nero d'Avola 2020 Sicilia, Italy

    £7 on offer (normally £9), Morrisons This Sicilian red is new to the UK and a snip at the introductory price of £7 until 15 March. Even at £9 it's good value – dark, ripe and super-smooth with a tumble of black cherry, plum, kirsch and toasted vanilla flavours, gentle grip and a streak of Italianate agrodolce. It's made from hand-picked Nero d'Avola grapes, a proportion of which are dried, some of them left on the vines to dry, others dried on racks for about 15 days to lose
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Nautilus Chardonnay 2019, Marlborough, New Zealand
    • 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
    WINE OF THE WEEK: The Blind Spot Pinot Meunier 2021, Yarra Valley, Australia
    • Feb 10

    WINE OF THE WEEK: The Blind Spot Pinot Meunier 2021, Yarra Valley, Australia

    £12.95, The Wine Society It's no exaggeration to say I've never had a wine quite like this. Usually I can say a wine reminds me of so-and-so, or it's a bit like something else, but this Pinot Meunier, which hardly knows whether it's red or pink, is entirely itself – low in alcohol, big on personality and absolutely delicious. The Wine Society lists it as a red wine, but it's deep pink and makes an excellent aperitif, served lightly chilled, if not colder. Mind you, it also go
    WINE OF THE WEEK: Gaia Organic Malbec 2019, Gualtallary, Mendoza, Argentina
    • Feb 3

    WINE OF THE WEEK: Gaia Organic Malbec 2019, Gualtallary, Mendoza, Argentina

    £11.99 on offer (normally £16.99), Waitrose Named after the Greek earth goddess Gaia, Domaine Bousquet's stylish Malbec is rich and succulent with polished tannins and seamless structure. Woodsmoke, rosemary and a hint of liquorice add layers to the glossy, dark, plum and elderberry fruit and long mineral-edged finish. I've written about this pioneering French-founded estate before here, but, briefly, it was established in remote virgin territory in Alta Gualtallary in the la
    New Year, New Wines, New approach: the Blind Spot Australian range gets a makeover
    • 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
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    Website © 2019 Joanna Simon

    Header photo © Waitrose & Partners Drinks / Cat Garcia