#wineandfood

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

Oct 1, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Vasse Felix Classic Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2020, Margaret River, Australia

£12, Tesco I can't quite believe this is my first Wine of the Week from the 2020 vintage. So much has happened this year, the southern hemisphere harvest seems aeons ago. Even Champagne started picking seven weeks ago... But enough musing, let's get on with the wine. A zingy, citrus-facing white might not immediately seem a match for the current weather, but Semillon (70% of the blend) has mouthfeel – a delicate, oily roundness and suppleness that gives substance to the vibra

Sep 24, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: The Society's Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon 2018, Maipo, Chile

£7.50, The Wine Society In a tasting of 20-plus wines from The Wine Society that included, among others, an excellent Brézème rouge, Barolo, Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir (the two latter in the Exhibition range) and Shaw & Smith Adelaide Hills Shiraz, I wasn't expecting to be bowled over by the £7.50 Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon. But I was. Yes, bowled over. I'm not remotely suggesting it's on a par with those other four reds (variously priced between £16 and £26), but for sheer valu

Sep 17, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Andrian Alto Adige Müller-Thurgau 2019, Italy

£14.50, The Daily Drinker This is the first time I've mentioned Müller Thurgau on my website; never mind recommended it. Extraordinary. And yet not so extraordinary. As a grape variety, its reputation rests on early ripening pretty well anywhere and all too plentifully. As a white wine, its past reputation in Germany, England and New Zealand is best forgotten. But in Italy's Alto Adige (aka Sud Tirol or South Tyrol) it's something else. The delightful Müller Thurgau from Kell

Sep 10, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Domaine des Sanzay Saumur-Champigny 2018, France

£13.50/£12, Haynes Hanson & Clark Just because you can drink the Cabernet Franc red wines of the Loire lightly chilled, it doesn't mean they should be confined to summer (not that I'm giving up on summer yet, as I said last week). With a floral perfume, succulent raspberryish fruit and Cabernet Franc's hallmark graphite undertow, Domaine des Sanzay's Saumur-Champigny is supple and rounded enough to drink on its own but also goes well with foods as varied as lamb, salmon and g

Aug 27, 2020

Yalumba Organic Viognier 2019, South Australia

£7.49 (on offer), Waitrose I had scheduled Yalumba Samuel's Collection Bush Vine Grenache 2018 this week, getting in ahead of International Grenache Day on September 18, but this luscious Viognier, which missed out a couple of months ago, is now on offer (down from £10), making it even better value – cracking value, in fact, and a great wine buy for the bank holiday. You can't go wrong with a Yalumba Viognier. It's been one of the Hill Smith family's specialities since the 19

Aug 13, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Château Fabre Gasparets Corbières-Boutenac 2017, France

£13.74–£20.50, Drinks & Co, Cellar Selected, Mr & Mrs Fine Wine, Noble Green Wines, Kwoff, Hedonism A jewel not just of Corbières but of all Languedoc red wines, Boutenac was officially recognised as the premier cru of Corbières in 2005 and remains its only stand-alone appellation. The 220 hectares of vineyards fan out from the Aleppo pine and Mediterranean scrub-clad hills of the Pinada range at the heart of the huge Corbières appellation. Pretty? Is the Pope Catholic? Carig

Aug 6, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Vergelegen Chardonnay Reserve 2017, Stellenbosch, South Africa

£15.49–£18, Roberts & Speight, drinkfinder.co.uk, TheDrinkShop.com, winedirect.co.uk, Noble Green Wines The South African wine industry needs and deserves our support, but I don't need an excuse to recommend Vergelegen estate's Chardonnay. It's got everything going for it, with appeal for both Chardonnay camps: followers of contemporary, lean and elegant styles and fans of fuller, riper wines who want to taste a bit of oak. Fermented in French barrels (35% new) and aged on it

Aug 4, 2020

Prime Time for Pink: Summer Rosé Round-up

Another summer, another round-up of delicious dry rosés, plus a featherweight, lightly sparkling sweet wine from Italy and a pink Champagne that I wasn't familiar with and which hugely impressed me recently. There are lots of different styles, shades, flavours and grape varieties, but it has turned out to be an almost all-European selection this year, reflecting the limitations the pandemic has imposed on tastings, travel and trade. The one exception (perhaps ironically) is f

Jul 29, 2020

Douloufakis Winery Dafnios Liatiko 2017, Dafnes, Crete

£14.50–£16.25, The Daily Drinker, Maltby & Greek, Strictly Wine Let's start by unpacking the name. This is a dry red wine made from the Liatiko grape by Nikos Douloufakis, the leading light in the Dafnes region, a PDO in the middle of Crete, in the Heraklio prefecture. What's interesting about it? Tell me what isn't. It's quite a pale ruby red, medium-bodied and has distinctly fresh acidity and fine, sandy tannins. That's the basic shape that wraps around one beguiling flavou

Jul 23, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Rosa di Santa Tresa 2019, Terre Siciliane, Italy

£9.74, Majestic I shall be posting this summer’s rosé round-up soon, but another pink as Wine of the Week is well overdue, so here it is: a delightful, copper-tinged salmon pink organic wine from southeast Sicily – and a timely reminder that rosés don’t have to be off-the-scale-pale to be sophisticated. Some of the most interesting and authentic are anything but. Sporting a pretty name and label as well as a pretty colour, Rosa di Santa Tresa is made from half and half Nero d

Jul 22, 2020

Circus Trick: How a Wine from Saint Mont Overcame the Authorities

The first four vintages of Plaimont's single vintage Cirque Nord Saint Mont – 2014, 2016, 2017 and the yet to be bottled 2019 I was planning to write more on what’s been happening at the Plaimont co-operative group in southwest France, having caught up with some of the latest developments and new wines over a virtual tasting with MD and former technical director Olivier Bourdet-Pees. But instead I made Les Vignes Retrouvées my Wine of the Week and am highlighting another whit

Jul 16, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: Plaimont Les Vignes Retrouvées 2017, Saint Mont, France

£8.95, The Wine Society I haven’t featured the 2017 vintage before, but Les Vignes Retrouvées is no stranger to this slot. Year in, year out, it’s one of the best value dry whites on the market, not least because it’s a wine with such a vivid personality. Bristling with energy, passion fruit, pineapple, aromatic green fruit and laser-cut lime-juice acidity, it’s just the job if you want to break out of Sauvignon Blanc. But Saint Mont Blanc is much more than a stand-in for fam

Jul 14, 2020

A Story of Redemption: Castello Banfi in Montalcino

The imposing medieval Castello Poggio alle Mura with just below (on the right of the picture) part of the luxury Castello Banfi Il Borgo hotel When John Mariani bought the Poggio alle Mura estate just south of Montalcino in 1978, it had had only two previous owners, the Sicilian family living in Venezuela that he bought it from and a Sienese family. In itself, it’s not necessarily remarkable, but the Castello dates from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, so it was a big c

Jul 9, 2020

WINE OF THE WEEK: La Garnacha Salvaje del Moncayo 2018, Spain

£8.49, Majestic Maybe it's auto suggestion, but there's a lovely off-the-beaten-track mountain wildness (salvaje means wild) to this old-vine Garnacha (aka Grenache), one of six under the the creative Vintae's Proyecto Garnachas banner that showcase the grape variety from old vineyards in different areas of the Ebro Valley in northeast Spain. The Salvaje vineyards lie on rocky soils at 820m asl on the north face of the Moncayo massif, where Navarra and Aragón meet and the Atl

May 30, 2019

WINE OF THE WEEK: Plaimont Les Vignes Retrouvées 2016, Saint Mont, France

£8.95, The Wine Society Mouthwatering, juicy quince, apricot and citrus fruit, supple texture and zingy acidity – the latest vintage to be released of an old favourite from one of France’s least well-known appellations, Saint Mont in Gascony, southwest France. Here the admirable quality-focused Plaimont co-operative specialises in rediscovering and restoring production of old, indigenous grape varieties, both red and white – in this case white Gros Manseng, Petit Courbu and A