£13.95, The Wine Society
If you're about to move on because you think that Nebbiolo isn't a summer wine, please give me a moment. It's true that the grape famous for Barolo and Barbaresco has a savoury, autumnal side to its flavour and goes well with lots of autumn foods - game, mushrooms, truffles – but that's only part of the story. It also has a wonderful fragrance – ethereal and haunting, as so often described – and in the Langhe hills it has notable elegance, as it does in the small Alto Piemonte DOC(G)s, such as Gattinara, Lessona and Ghemme. Or the best bottles do.
Which brings me to this new wine in the Wine Society's superior own-label Exhibition range, a winningly accessible but authentic Nebbiolo that smells of roses and sweet red berries brushed with kirsch, liquorice, herbs and woodsmoke and finished with an oak-polished texture that's as far removed from the scarring, swarthy tannins of old-fashioned Barolo as it could be. It's aged in large oak for a year, for texture not flavour, and is made from young vines within Barbaresco by Enrico Dellapiano of Rizzi.
At this time of year, serve it cool with foods such as aubergine, mushrooms, red wine risotto, bresaola, tagliata, quail, osso buco or a chunk of aged Parmesan. I'd be happy to try it with a tuna steak too. 15%
The Society's Exhibition Langhe Nebbiolo 2018, Piedmont, Italy
£13.95, The Wine Society