Wine of the week

A new feature for my blog - one wine to try for every single week of the year - see if you can keep up!

Luna Beberide Mencia 2007, Bierzo, Spain
Averys Wine Merchants, £9.49 (www.averys.com)
Mencia is the name of the variety, Bierzo the region, in Spain's cool and damp Northwest (sound familiar?). I had probably hoped to recommend something light, white and cooling at this time of year, but something tells me that a wine with more warmth and body might be more in order this weekend.
Mencia may not be a grape you've heard of before, but it is one of the new guard of Spain's varieties that we are probably going to be hearing more about. Mencia itself is not new, but the ability to make it into wines that have international appeal, is. This wine is deep-coloured, with plenty of dusky fruit, but with the variety's hallmark acidity giving it structure, it retains freshness. This freshness, combined with pretty soft tannins, make it perfect for summer drinking - even if the summer weather is far from perfect!
This wine has just been named joint winner of the "Best Red under £10" category at the New Wave Spanish Wine Awards.

Summer wines - under £10

Here are my favourite wines, for whatever weather summer might throw at us, for under £10 a bottle, including some rosés. If you would like to read my bargain sub-£5 recommendations, they are in the previous post below.

White
Torres Vina Esmeralda 2008, Spain - £6.99 at Waitrose and Majestic
This wine is absolutely packed with the essence of summer – fresh, light and aromatic, thanks to its blend of 85% moscatel and 15% gewürztraminer grapes. The musky, floral aromas might lead you to expect something sweet, but it's dry with lively acidity. Perfect for sipping in the garden or with fish and seafood – and don't even think about keeping it beyond the end of September.

Glen Carlou Tortoise Hill White 2007, South Africa – £7.50, or £7 case rate, at Ranmore Wines, Ranmore Common, between Effingham and Dorking
South Africa has a reputation for putting together interesting blends of grapes and this is a great example. A mix of mostly sauvignon blanc, along with some fashionable, apricot-y viognier and a little chardonnay for body and breadth, this has lovely floral aromas and a citrus zest and mineral palate.

Fox Gordon Princess Fiano 2008, Adelaide Hills, Australia – Oddbins £9.99, or £7.99 as part of a mixed dozen
Fiano is a native Italian variety that originates in the hills south of Naples. Recently it's been successfully taken up by winemakers in Sicily, but has also made the longer trek all the way to Australia. It has an alluring nose of honey and apricot with plenty of juicy fruit on the palate – not subtle, perhaps, but could stand up to barbecued food.

Domaine Bégude Chardonnay 2007, Limoux, France - £7.99 at Waitrose
Limoux is a small enclave in the otherwise hot and steamy sweep of southern France that leads down to the Pyrenees and the Spanish border. Not, you might think, a promising place to attempt to make elegant white wines. Limoux, however, is a cooler area in the foothills of the Pyrenees, capable of making wines with great fruit expression and good acidity – potential spotted by Domaine Bégude's owners, English couple James and Catherine Kinglake. This wine was fermented and aged in oak barrels, giving it some subtle cinnamon spice to counterpoint the fine acidity – one for cash-strapped Chablis fans.

Rosé
Torres Viña Sol Rosé 2008, Catalunya, Spain - £5.99 at Waitrose
Plenty of lively, crunchy red fruits in this blend of spicy grenache and dark-fruited carignan. One for easy-going enjoyment.

Château Guiot Rosé 2008, Costières de Nîmes, France - £6.99, or £5.99 when you buy 2 bottles, at Majestic
Deep-coloured, as much light red as deep pink, this has hints of dark damson plum on the nose. It's full-on and has a welcome savoury dimension to the fruit, making it particularly food-friendly.

Muga Rioja Rosado 2008, Rioja, Spain - £8.99, or £7.49 when you buy 2 bottles, Majestic; £7.99 at Waitrose
This is in a different mould to the other two rosés – it's pale, delicate and elegant, with delicious, crisp red fruit.

Red
Canaletto Primitivo 2006, Puglia, Italy – £5.99 at Somerfield and on offer at £4.49 at Waitrose until 21 July
Puglia, the “heel” of Italy, has a fairly low profile as a wine producer – yet this region used to produce more wine than the whole of Australia not so long ago. They still produce plenty, most of which doesn't make it to this country; the primitivo grape makes its most appealing red wines. The smoky, black cherry fruit cries out for barbecued red meat. By the way, don't be tempted by the insipid Canaletto Pinot Grigio, the white partner to this red.

Viña Zorzal Graciano 2007, Navarra, Spain - £8.99, or 2 for £15, at The Vineking in Weybridge and Reigate
I first recommended this wine as part of a selection of Spanish wines earlier this year – since then this wine has won a gold medal at the International Wine Challenge, so I make no apologies for including it again. This has fine, blueberry fruit, with proper tannins and refreshing acidity – not a DVD wine, this is a wine to drink with food, the meatier the better.

Bodegas Castano Hecula 2005, Yecla, Spain - £7.99 from The Vineyard in Dorking
This densely-flavoured wine is made from the grape known as Monastrell in Spain, Mourvèdre in France and Mataro in Australia. Still with me? All you need to know is that this is a delicious mouthful of black fruit, all the more interesting for having some time to mature in the bottle, giving it notes of exotic spices.

The Hedonist Shiraz 2006, McLaren Vale, South Australia - £9.99 at Waitrose
McLaren Vale Shiraz is no shrinking violet, typically with loads of everything – ripe, full-on black fruit and a wallop of alcohol. This wine has all that, but something else too, some extra dimensions of tarry, smooth and spicy notes that make me think of the southern Rhône and Châteauneuf-du-Pape more than Australia. So while ten quid isn't cheap, it's hard to find a decent Châteauneuf at that price. If you're that way inclined, you might like to know that this is a biodynamically-made wine.


Looking through this list, I'm struck by how many Spanish wines have made it in – it certainly wasn't intentional. But it is an indication of just how well they are doing at delivering interesting, value for money wines.

Next time: the final instalment of wines for the summer, looking at special occasion bottles over £10.

Bargain wines for summer

Without wanting to tempt fate, it seems we might actually be having a summer this year. Ever community-minded, I have put together my list of wines to see you through the warmer weather.

What makes a wine good for the summer? There are a number of reasons, but they can probably be summed up in one word: refreshment. This might be conveyed by fresh, zesty flavours, lower alcohol, zippy acidity, or vibrant fruit. So I’ve searched out wines that will complement the lazy days of summer – fingers crossed.

We still don’t like to spend that much on a bottle of wine in this country, with the average amount paid stubbornly hovering just over £4 a bottle. This week I’m going for the bargain end of things, with wine recommendations under £5. My experience of wines at this level is, generally, dispiriting: it’s very hard to put anything characterful in a bottle at that price. I must have tasted hundreds of wines under £5 in order to arrive at this list: there’s a lot of dross out there.

I’ve tasted the dross, but you don’t have to: here are my top 10 wines for under a fiver this summer.

White
Oddbins Own White 2008 (Vin de pays d’Oc, France), £4.49, £3.59 as part of a mixed dozen
Dull name and a hideous label, but get past those hurdles and you’ll find a wine with all manner of crisp, appley and citrus fruit and nice weight. Made from a veritable cocktail of grape varieties, helping to give extra dimensions of flavour, it’s hard to ask for more at this price.

Virtue Sauvignon Blanc Chardonnay 2008 (Central Valley, Chile), £3.99 Waitrose
The virtue in the name refers to the fact that the wine is shipped in bulk to the UK and bottled here. Shipping wine without the weight of the glass makes it cheaper, as well as giving it a smaller carbon footprint. Why don’t we see more wines like this? The wine itself is full of fresh and juicy fruit, with the chardonnay giving some more weight and depth to the herbaceous sauvignon.

Foraci Tre Cupole Grillo 2008 (Sicily, Italy), £5.99, £4.79 when you buy any two Italian wines, Majestic
Grillo is one of Sicily’s native grape varieties (not all of which are worth discovering), giving this some distinct character amongst the sea of cheap but cheerless whites. Cut pear aromas, with floral and almond flavours, it makes for an interesting mouthful.

Carletti Malvasia 2008 (Abruzzo, Italy), £5.99, £4.79 as part of a mixed dozen, Oddbins
Another Italian white: Italy has always had plenty of grape varieties to work with and now their winemaking is able to do them justice. This is a financially painless way to discover the aromatic Malvasia grape, which has bags of character, a curious mixture of floral and spicy notes.

Undurraga Chardonnay Pinot Noir Brut NV (Maipo Valley, Chile), £9.99, £4.99 if you buy two, Majestic
I probably wouldn’t bother with this sparkling wine at the full price, but at under a fiver it’s hard to resist. It’s not made in the same way as Champagne, but it’s clean and refreshing and, for me, preferable to Cava at the same price.


Red
Oddbins Own Red 2008 (Vin de pays d’Oc, France), £4.49, £3.59 as part of a mixed dozen
The red partner to the white above, so same warning re: cheap and nasty-looking label. The grenache-based blend inside, however, is much more fun: chewy, dense and spicy with bags of peppery black fruit.

Beaux Galets Rouge 2008 (Vin de pays de l’Herault, France) £3.99, Majestic
There is also a white version of this wine, which I didn’t feel able to recommend, but this red, a mixture of merlot, carignan and grenache grapes, is good for the price. Don’t expect depth and complexity, but it has plenty of sweet black and red fruit.

Castillo de Montearagon Reserva 2003 (Cariñena, Spain) £4.49, Tesco
Spain does a pretty good job of delivering good value, if not always exciting, red wines. There is plenty of juicy blueberry fruit here, under a gloss of oak and with some definite tannins: one for food rather than drinking on its own.

Familia Zuccardi FuZion Shiraz/Malbec 2008 (Mendoza, Argentina), £4.49 Waitrose
This is decent stuff with juicy black fruit and shiraz’ hallmark spice balancing out the tannic structure.

Carletti Sangiovese Merlot 2008 (Abruzzo, Italy), £5.99, £4.79 as part of a mixed dozen, Oddbins
The red partner to the white Malvasia is well-balanced, with some tannin to give structure to the spangly fruit.


Interestingly, perhaps, I didn’t find a rosé under £5 that I felt I could recommend – heaven knows we drink enough of them in the UK, so my palate must be seriously out of whack with most British rosé drinkers!

The next instalment will feature wines from £5 to £10 - including some rosés, I promise. Competition is much fiercer at these price levels because winemakers have more to play with and can deliver hugely better quality - and independent wine merchants can get a look in too.

Perfect time for port?

This may seem like an unlikely time of the year to be writing about port. The dark purple, sweet and highly alcoholic drink is something so redolent of winter and, specifically, Christmas, that we don’t give it a second thought for the rest of the year.

It might surprise you to know, then, that port doesn’t have to be deep purple and can be served chilled – even over ice – giving it appeal, even in the warmer months.

On that bombshell, here’s a quick outline of what port really means and how it’s made. It all starts life as grapes grown in the Douro Valley in northern Portugal. Life for vines (and people) here is tough: the weather is scorching (40˚C is a possible average in summer), the soil is not soil at all but rocky schist and there is nary a flat vineyard to be seen, only varying degrees of slope from fairly gentle to vertigo-inducing. It takes tenacity, some would say pig-headedness, to tend vines here – it also requires grape varieties able to stand up to these conditions. None of your namby-pamby merlot and pinot noir here: this is the land of varieties like touriga nacional, tinta barroca and tinto cão, amongst others even less well known.

Once ripe and full of natural fruit sugar, the grapes are harvested. Grapes for port get only a very short fermentation, so they need to be treated vigorously in order to extract plenty of colour and tannin in that time. For once the mental picture of a swarthy local treading grapes in a vat is true.

Foot-treading in shallow granite troughs, or lagares, is the traditional way, and is still used for the very best or small-production ports. Mostly, though, machines of varying kinds have replaced humans – including robotic feet.

After treading, the fermenting wine is fortified with grape spirit, raising the alchohol level to around 20%. Yeasts cannot exist in this alcoholic environment, so fermentation stops, leaving a wine with some remaining sweetness: embryonic port.

After fermentation, different treatments and length of ageing determine what kind of port will finally result. All ports need some ageing and the Douro Valley, with its extreme climate, is an unsuitable place to do it. Young port is, therefore, traditionally taken downstream to Oporto at the mouth of the Douro River, where it will age in the shippers’ port lodges in the damper and gentler maritime climate. This journey used to be undertaken by picturesque sailing boats, until the Douro was dammed for hydroelectric power: now it’s done by lorry.


Ruby port
This is the most straightforward style of port and accounts for the majority of the port that we drink – predominantly at Christmas, when price wars between the major producers result in silly prices. The bottles rarely have the word ruby on them, preferring their own brand identities, such as Warre’s Warrior or Cockburn’s Special Reserve.

Wines from multiple years are aged for two to three years, then blended and bottled while still deep-coloured, full of youthful berry fruit and a spirity fire. They don’t improve in the bottle, so no point stashing them away for a few years, and there’s no need to decant – other than the fact that it looks good on the table of course.

Prices from around £9 a bottle now – much less come Christmas.


Vintage port
The most famous style of port is also the most rare and expensive, accounting for only around 1% of the total sold, so most of us never actually drink it.

Vintage port is the product of a single year’s harvest, deemed to be of exceptional quality. Like ruby port, it is aged for a short time in wood, then put into very thick, dark glass bottles, where it is destined to remain for years, even decades, before being drunk. The port houses each decide whether to “declare” a vintage every year: the quality of the wine is ostensibly utmost, but in practice a vintage is declared three or four times in a decade.

In years where a port shipper does not “declare” a vintage, they may still, confusingly, produce a single quinta vintage port. These carry the shipper’s name and the name of the vineyard or quinta, such as Taylor’s Quinta de Vargellas or Graham’s Malvedos. They are less pricey than the straight vintage and designed to be drunk younger, as they come from less favoured years.

Why does vintage port last so long? All wine needs one or more of the following ingredients to help preserve it and to provide a framework within which the flavours can develop: sweetness, acidity and tannin. Vintage port has all of these in spades, as well as masses of dense fruit to provide the centrepiece to fill out the structural framework. As it ages, the fruit matures to give complex aromas and flavours – and it will always need decanting, to separate the clear wine from the thick deposit in the bottle.

Single quinta ports start at around £25 per bottle, vintage port varies greatly depending on the year, but expect to pay around £40 and up.


Late bottled vintage (LBV)
This is a relatively recent innovation, dating from the 1970s. LBV gives some of the cachet of a vintage port, with the grapes coming from a single year, but the price and quality are somewhere between ruby and vintage. As the name suggests, it spends longer than true vintage port ageing in wood before being bottled (hence late bottled). Most are filtered before bottling so need no decanting. They are designed to offer a full-bodied, dark-coloured port that goes some way towards the flavour of vintage port, but which is cheaper and can be drunk earlier.

Prices for LBVs start at around £10 a bottle.

Tawny port
Unlike the ruby and vintage versions, tawnies are aged in wood for an extended period. The time in barrel results in a mellow, nutty style of port which is deep amber-brown: tawny in fact.

The most basic tawnies can be pale pink rather than deep mahogany brown and don’t have much to recommend them. Instead look for “aged tawny” on the label, or an indication of age. 10 year-old tawny will be an average age of the wines in the bottle, ditto 20, or even over 40 year-old tawny. You might also come across a single vintage tawny, known as “colheita”.

Not deep purple, more mellow than sweet and spirity: this is the port that lends itself to summer drinking. While there’s nothing better than a nip of it next to a crackling fire in the winter months, in summer you can chill it, or even serve it over ice for a refreshing aperitif.

Tawny ports, like ruby, won’t have any sediment or need decanting and won’t improve in the bottle.

Warre’s Otima 10 year old – around £11.99 at Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Thresher/Wine Rack and Waitrose
Quinta do Noval 10 year old - £15.99 at Waitrose
Taylor’s 10 year old - £17.99 at Sainsbury’s
Taylor’s 20 year old - £27.25 at Waitrose
Dow’s 20 year old - £26.25 at Waitrose
Calem 1990 Colheita - £20 at Waitrose

As with all these posts, this article was published in the Surrey Advertiser, but this version is much longer.

Ripe New Zealand reds

“You wine writers need to check your facts!” barked John Buck, of Te Mata Estate, the oldest winery in New Zealand. This to a room full of wine writers, at last week’s London Wine Fair.

And his gripe? That too many wine guides state that, while New Zealand produces great white wines, its red wines lack fruit and have a tell-tale unripe, green, character. To prove his point, we then proceeded to taste a range of top flight Kiwi reds, all from the highly promising 2007 vintage, none of them showing a trace of anything unripe, yet with the New Zealand hallmark clearly-etched fruit. That was us told.

In defence of wine writing in general, I feel I should note that the leafy, unripe character of New Zealand’s reds is not a figment of our imagination. It was most definitely there when I first started tasting Kiwi reds back in the mid-nineties; I tasted it as recently as a couple of years ago in some Hawkes Bay syrahs. However, New Zealand’s winemakers are a determined bunch and have clearly worked hard to bring up the standard of their red wines, demonstrated by those impressive 2007s.

New Zealand’s first red wine successes came with pinot noir, which, ironically, has a reputation as one of the fussiest grapes in the world and hard to get right. Much of New Zealand’s neighbour, Australia, is too hot for top class pinot noir, for example, resulting in baked or stewed fruit flavours. New Zealand, however, has been arguably the most successful producer of fine, perfumed pinot noir, outside of its ancestral French home in Burgundy.


Pinot Noir producers to watch
New Zealand is, by any measure, at the cooler end of the winemaking world. However, its length from North (warmest) to South (coolest, this being the southern hemisphere), the varying influence of the cool Pacific and Southern Oceans, the variety of soils and sites, all make for wine regions which produce different styles of wine – even when based on the same grape variety.

Ata Rangi
The daddy of New Zealand’s pinot noir makers. They epitomize the muscular, relatively full-on style of Martinborough pinot. This spot at the southern tip of the North Island is about as far north as pinot ventures in New Zealand, making for depth of flavour, complexity and savoury richness. Burgundian in style – and price.
Ata Rangi Pinot Noir 2007, £31.49 from New Zealand House of Wine, Majestic (Fine Wine) £45 per bottle, down to £36 if you buy any 2 New Zealand wines.

Jackson Estate
Based in Marlborough, at the northern tip of the South Island, Jackson Estate has a reputation for elegant, Loire-ish sauvignon blanc. Their pinot noirs, though, are equally alluring and a great illustration of the lighter, more juicy style of Marlborough pinot.
Jackson Estate Vintage Widow Pinot Noir 2006, Majestic, £17.99, down to £14.39 if you buy any 2 New Zealand wines.

Felton Road
This is a small outfit with a huge reputation. Based in Otago deep in the South Island, the most southerly wine region in the world, they turn out deceptively effortless wines. The sunny days and cool nights in Otago give their pinots perfumed fruit and delicate tannins; light, but with no lack of flavour. Biodynamic practices may also have something to do with the poise and depth.
Felton Road Pinot Noir 2007, £25.50 from Imbibros, £25.99 (£22.50 case rate) from The Vineking, £26.20 from Les Caves de Pyrène (though the 2007 has yet to arrive and they have sold out of the 2006). They also make a number of wines from particular vineyards or blocks of vines, available in tiny quantities, including Calvert Vineyard and Block 3 – hard to find and prices start at £30 and up.


Other varieties
If New Zealand was going to succeed with any red variety, then pinot noir would be top of the list, with its liking for cooler conditions. Surely the warmer climate varieties like cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah are more of a struggle. Well, they have been, hence the talk of green, leafy wines.

However, the North Island, and specifically Hawkes Bay, has a warmer, maritime-influenced climate capable of ripening these varieties. Particularly important for syrah is an area called the Gimblett Gravels, with large pebbles from an ancient riverbed. These stones absorb heat from the sun during the day and radiate this heat during the night, helping to ripen the grapes – in much the same way that the “pudding stones” of Chateauneuf-du-Pape do in France’s southern Rhône Valley.

Producers to watch

Trinity Hill
With an uncompromising attitude to quality, Trinity Hill’s wines are ambitious and a signpost to the future of New Zealand reds. Their syrahs are all worth trying.
Trinity Hill Homage Syrah 2006, £75 from Swig. Less eye-watering prices for the Trinity Hill Gimblett Gravels Syrah 2007, £19.95 from Swig, £17.35 from New Zealand House of Wine.

Craggy Range
The winery may be in Hawkes Bay, but Craggy Range specialise in producing single vineyard wines from all over New Zealand, made from a range of grape varieties by Master of Wine Steve Smith. Highly-rated by people in the know, they command respect from everyone who has come across them.
Craggy Range Sophia 2006, a blend of mostly merlot, with cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon and malbec in support, is £25 at Waitrose. Wine Direct have the 2005 for £24.95, New Zealand House of Wine the 2004 at £23.75. For a more affordable taste try Craggy Range Syrah Block 14, Gimblett Gravels 2006, £16.99 from Waitrose.

Te Mata
Finally, back to New Zealand’s oldest producer, dating from the 1890s. They have a long-standing reputation for producing outstanding red wines (hence John Buck’s impatience with the “green” label), which have long commanded international recognition. Coleraine, their flagship red, is a blend of cabernet sauvignon and merlot with a fair dollop of cabernet franc. The 2007 is embryonic, but already mouthwatering and a delicious prospect, especially if you are prepared to wait a few years to allow it to develop.
Te Mata Coleraine 2007, £27.99 from The Vineyard (due in a couple of weeks, so check first!). The 2006 is available from New Zealand House of Wine for £28.25 and from Wine Direct for £26.75.


Stockist details
Imbibros – branches in Godalming and Farnham, http://www.imbibros.co.uk/
Les Caves de Pyrène – retail outlet in Artington, Guildford, http://www.lescaves.co.uk/
Majestic – various branches and online at http://www.majestic.co.uk/
New Zealand House of Wine – online-only: http://www.nzhouseofwine.co.uk/
Swig – online-only: http://www.swig.co.uk/
The Vineking – branches in Weybridge and Reigate, http://www.thevineking.com/
The Vineyard – Dorking, http://www.vineyard-direct.co.uk/
Waitrose – various branches and online at http://www.waitrosewine.com/
Wine Direct – on-line only: http://www.winedirect.co.uk/

Are English wines coming of age?

English wines are at an awkward adolescent stage in their growth. They are past the early years when they were viewed as something of a joke, and not a very funny one at that. Today, more and more consistently enjoyable wines are being made across England (and Wales) and conditions seem right for a growth spurt to take them into adulthood with the other big boys of the wine world.

Of course wine-making in this country is not a new thing: the traditional view conjures pictures of Roman Britons lounging in their villas (presumably with the hypocaust turned up high), downing goblets of locally-produced wine. Sadly there is no evidence to support these imaginings: grapes seem to have been grown here in Roman times, but there is nothing to suggest that any wine was made from them.

However, it is true that wine was made, probably in a rather patchy and piecemeal way, over the intervening centuries. Wine was intimately connected with monastic and church ritual, but any lasting progress was hampered by the Black Death, the dissolution of the monasteries, easier trade routes with wine regions further south and climate change. The renaissance of English wine began shortly after the second world war, when the first commercial vineyard was planted at Hambledon in Hampshire.

So perhaps, given this long history, it’s churlish of me to talk of English wines being still only adolescent. Well you have to recognize that we don’t have the ideal climate for grape-growing and wine-making. If you’ve visited other wine-making regions around the world, you can’t help noticing that they are, well, warmer than here. Our climate is the limiting factor on our wine industry: it dictates which grape varieties can be grown, and only then in the most favoured spots, and only in the warmer years too.

These tricky conditions have led English wimemakers to plant grape varieties specifically bred to survive and ripen in our marginal climate. There’s nothing wrong with these varieties per se, but mostly they were developed in Germany and have correspondingly Germanic-sounding names: Huxelrebe, Schönburger, Würzer, Dornfelder. These are not names to tempt English wine drinkers – if those varieties are any good, why aren’t they grown elsewhere? Never seen a Siegerrebe from Chile or Australia, have we? And any combination of “Germany” and “wine” is commercial poison. There’s also some, perhaps correct, snobbishness about these varieties: they are mostly hybrids (made from crossings of other varieties) and there is a view that hybrids can never produce good quality wine, certainly not great wine.

As time has gone on, many of these older Germanic varieties and hybrids have started to die out in favour of other grapes, as our climate has warmed, as vine-growing and wine-making know-how have improved. They are still there and still used, but their names are not trumpeted on labels; they are mostly blended together in wines with inoffensive-sounding names like Autumn Spice or Surrey Gold.

Varieties that have proved themselves over time and which look likely to grow further in popularity are Bacchus, for white wines and Pinot Noir for reds.

Bacchus, despite being pretty much unknown outside these shores does have some advantages. It doesn’t sound German and even sounds like it might have something to do with wine. Perhaps more importantly (but only perhaps), it makes wines that are attractive to the average wine drinker. Bacchus wines have some things in common with our current favourite white, Sauvignon Blanc: fresh, herbal and nettley-smelling with attractive fruit.

Pinot noir – ah, finally we get to grow a variety that people have already heard of, that is actually grown in other countries. Pinot noir is the grape that makes red Burgundies; it is also one of the trio of grapes that are permitted to make Champagne. That’s quite a pedigree and, by some stroke of good fortune, we English seem to be able to grow it here.

Making red wines in England has been a bit of a struggle, frankly. Red grape varieties are more difficult to ripen here, so growers have had to resort to those unfamiliar-sounding hybrids in the past. Now, however, Pinot Noir has arrived and seems to suit the climate – and perhaps the climate has changed a little too, to meet it halfway. You still see other varieties in bottles of English red wine, but the future looks increasingly pinot-tinted. And, as a bonus, if the weather isn’t good enough to ripen the pinot noir to make red wine, then growers can use it to make sparkling wine instead.

Sparkling wines are perhaps the area where English wines have taken the greatest strides in the last few years. In Ridgeview and Nyetimber, both based in Sussex, England has sparkling wine makers whose ambition is to emulate Champagne itself in style and quality. People may have found the idea laughable not so many years ago – but they’re not laughing now. Indeed the Queen, it is said, serves Nyetimber sparkling wine at Buckingham Palace – though I don’t believe her Majesty is obliged to divulge all expense receipts (yet), so I can’t be categorical.



English Wine Week – 23rd – 31st May
This is the annual celebration of all things English and winey and a great excuse to get out and visit a vineyard or two. Over the course of the week vineyards across England will be opening their doors to welcome visitors and offer a variety of activities, including tours, tastings and sales or hosting special events. Details of all activities are available on www.englishwineweek.co.uk.


Recommended English Wines
A highly personal selection of my current favourite English wines.

Ridgeview Fitzrovia Brut 2006, £21.95 from Ridgeview themselves or £21.99 from Waitrose
Ridgeview’s take on a rosé Champagne, made authentically from chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier. All of Ridgeview’s wines are worth a try and their commitment to quality is always impressive – the only trouble being, their wines sell out so quickly that it’s hard to buy them at their peak of maturity.

Nyetimber Classic Cuvée 2001/3, £25.99, from Waitrose
Nyetimber are, by far, the largest sparkling wine producer in the country and further expansion is planned. They don’t suffer from false modesty and consider their wines on a par with Champagne. It’s a fine and elegant sparkling wine in any case.

Camel Valley Brut 2006, £19.99 from Waitrose, £19.95 from the vineyard
Unlike Ridgeview and Nyetimber, at Camel Valley, based in Cornwall, they pursue a more English idiom of sparkling wine, rather than apeing Champagne. This fruity and easy-going wine is made from a blend of Seyval blanc, Huxelrebe and Reichensteiner grapes.

Chapel Down Bacchus 2007, £9.49 at Waitrose, £9.99 direct from the vineyard in Tenterden, Kent
If you’ve yet to try Bacchus, this is a good place to start. Chapel Down is the country’s largest wine producer, making wines from grapes from their own substantial vineyards, as well as buying in grapes from growers all over Kent, Sussex, Essex and even the Isle of Wight. Although described as a dry wine, this wine is essentially off-dry, which is I feel the best way to appreciate most English white wines. The small amount of sweetness helps to round out the palate and enhances the fruit.

Bookers Vineyard Dark Harvest 2005, £7.99 from Waitrose, or £8.95 at Bookers Vineyard
What I really wanted to recommend is Samantha Linter’s pinot noir – but, sadly, she hasn’t had ripe enough grapes to make any in the last two summers, and the 2006 vintage is now sold out. One of only a small handful of female wine-makers in England, Samantha seems to have found her niche with her attractive, scented pinot. The Dark Harvest is made from the more reliably performing Dornfelder and Rondo grapes. Its jewel-like purple colour is matched by plenty of juicy berry fruit.

Denbies Hillside Chardonnay, £13.50 from the vineyard
I couldn’t write about English wines without mentioning Denbies, the largest single vineyard in the country (rather than the biggest producer). Denbies make a wide range of wines and, overall, quality is high and consistent. They can’t get the chardonnay grapes ripe enough every year to make a still, 100% chardonnay wine, but this is a great signpost of what English wine is capable of in the right hands and with favourable weather. No funny-sounding grape varieties, no hiding behind residual sweetness, just a well-made chardonnay that doesn’t automatically make you think, “OK for an English wine”.

Oddbins v Majestic

Most wine in the UK is bought in supermarkets, but there is still a place, albeit a shrinking one, for specialist wine merchant chains on our High Streets. Oddbins and Majestic are, I would guess, the most interesting of the chains for people interested in wine.

I’ll come clean straight away – I once worked for Oddbins. Only for 10 months or so, until I found that selling wine and selling tins of beans had too much in common for me. But I will do my best not to get all misty-eyed about how things used to be “back in my day” and attempt to give a fair comparison of these two giants of UK wine retailing.

How do they stack up? Publicly-listed Majestic currently has 147 wine warehouses across the country, compared with 132 Oddbins shops, privately owned by Simon Baile and his business partner. The distinguishing factor for Majestic is that shoppers must buy a minimum of 12 bottles of wine (or beer or spirits); at Oddbins you always have the option of popping in for just a single bottle. I get the feeling that Oddbins eye this case-only policy jealously and would love to have their customers do the same. I can see their point: it’s so much easier to serve 20 customers in a day, each of them spending, say, £80 each to earn £1600 income; rather than having to deal with more like 160 customers, spending an average of £10 each.

Additionally, it must irk Oddbins’ owners that their rival can essentially build in a case discount to all their prices, whereas they must offer a single bottle price, which is necessarily higher. In order to address this imbalance, Oddbins offers discounts of up to 15 and even 20% on particular wines if you buy a mixed case, in order to encourage shoppers to buy more each time they visit. However, interestingly, Majestic are trialling a minimum purchase of six bottles in some of its stores, rather than the traditional twelve – so it may be that the benefits of their case-only policy are wearing thin in these straitened times.

Majestic’s management has had nothing more troublesome to deal with than the transition of power from long-time CEO Tim How, to Steve Lewis last year. From the outside at least, their progress looks assured, including snapping up fine wine specialists Lay & Wheeler in March this year.

Oddbins, by contrast, has been through a particularly torrid time in the last decade or so. In the eighties and nineties Oddbins was owned by Seagram, as part of its spirit and wine brand portfolio. During this time Oddbins grew rapidly to over 200 shops and stood head and shoulders above other High Street merchants – a funky image, eclectic range and pioneers of new wines to the UK and a foregone conclusion as the International Wine Challenge’s Wine Merchant of the Year.

Then in 2002, Oddbins, that champion of the new, the exciting, the sometimes, frankly, odd, was bought by a French company, Castel Frères. It should never have worked and it didn’t. Finally, last year, Castel sold Oddbins to the son of one of its former owners – not without first having cherry-picked the most profitable sites for its own group of underwhelming French wine merchants, Nicolas.

Oddbins’ new owners face challenges on many fronts – breathing life into their wine range, so neglected under Castel; retaining and motivating staff; regaining their place in the hearts of the UK’s wine lovers – and all at a time of unprecedented economic slowdown. I don’t envy them their task.

If Oddbins have been known for their funky, risky side of wine retail, then Majestic are more steady Eddy. They don’t take chances with their wine range – if someone’s going to champion a new wine country or region, you can bet it won’t be Majestic. However, while Oddbins have, to all intents and purposes, been absent from the UK wine scene, Majestic has stolen a march on its long-time rival and turned ex-Oddbins shoppers into loyal Majestic customers.

It’s not an easy time for anyone selling anything quite so frivolous as wine and it would be a shame to see either of these two retail institutions suffer. And, while it’s too early to say if Oddbins can rekindle its old magic, a rejuvenated wine presence on the High Street can only be welcomed.



Top wine picks from Oddbins
Oddbins Own White and Oddbins Own Red 2008 - £4.49 (£3.59 as part of a mixed dozen)
The Castel-era versions of these wines were dreary. Now, though, they are fantastic value for money wines made by the enterprising Domaines Paul Mas in the Languedoc – though it’s a shame they haven’t changed the fright of a label on the bottle. The white is a veritable cocktail of grapes: grenache blanc, vermentino, chenin blanc, colombard, ugni blanc and chasan which deliver a fresh, crisp yet weighty mouthful of apple and citrus fruit. The red, meanwhile, is made up of grenache, cinsault, syrah and carignan and offers lively, dark fruits with a touch of spice. At this price don’t expect greatness - but they are honest and cheerful.

Fox Gordon Princess Fiano 2008 - £9.99 (available mid-May)
This is the kind of off the wall wine we love Oddbins for – a cultish southern Italian grape variety, used to make a wine in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia. It has a gorgeous, alluring nose of honey and apricot – in the vein of viognier, but with more freshness – a full-on and interesting mouthful.

Margrain Pinot Noir Home Block 2007 - £14.99 (£11.99 as part of a mixed dozen). Available from end of May.
The case price is great value for such an accomplished Pinot Noir from Martinborough in New Zealand. This spot, at the very southern tip of the North Island, across the water from Marlborough, seems to produce the most intensely-flavoured and “masculine” of New Zealand’s pinots – this is rich, ripe, spicy and smoky, but with typical pinot noir lively acidity and perfume.


Top picks from Majestic
Dr L Riesling 2008 - £6.99
Despite its complete lack of popularity with the wine-drinking public, Majestic valiantly continues to stock a small but well-chosen range of wines from Germany. This riesling is just off-dry, with plenty of zesty, peachy fruit and at just 8.5% alcohol with a screwcap it’s a perfect picnic wine.

Hautes Cotes de Beaune Blanc, Domaine de Mercey 2004 - £9.99 (£7.99 if you buy two)
This is the kind of thing that Majestic do so well – white Burgundy is hardly original, but they have searched out a less fashionable area and found a great example of maturing Burgundian chardonnay at a very reasonable price. There’s a hint of honeyed ripeness to the appley fruit, along with a touch of peach and spice.

De Martino 347 Vineyards Carmenère Reserva 2007 - £7.49 (£5.99 if you buy any two Chilean wines)
If you’re planning a barbecue then look no further – it practically smells like barbecue steak already. The palate is a mass of juicy black cherry fruit.