£10.50–£11.80, Booths, Waitrose, Davy's Wine, Tanners Wine, The Wine Shop (Knaresborough)
I'd like to think that my venture into mouthwatering dry Riesling for last week's wine lifted the putative winter gloom. It certainly did nothing to improve the weather, so this week I'm back with a full-on winter red, although that doesn't mean it's not suitable for summer. It's an excellent barbecue red, but it's a bit cruel to mention summer and barbecues in current conditions.
Altano Organic is a blend of traditional Douro grape varieties grown in the Symington's own 126ha of organic vineyards, holdings that makes the family the largest organic vine-grower not only in the Douro but in the whole of Portugal. It's a wine brimful of blackberry, liquorice, dark chocolate and balsamic flavours, and so succulent you could overlook the tannins, but they're there if you want to give this a few years in the cellar. Aside from meat – casseroles, roast, barbecued – spicy root vegetable dishes and chargrilled Mediterranean veg make good partners (you can tell I've been drinking it at different times of the year). 14%.
Symington Family Estates Altano Organic Douro Tinto 2017, Douro, Portugal
£10.50, Booths; £10.99, Waitrose; £11.50, Davy's Wine Merchants; £11.80, Tanners Wines; £12.10, Bon Coeur Fine Wines; The Wine Shop (Knaresbourough)