SIMON HOGGART
Private Cellar is a new company, based near Newmarket, and run by three former employees of our old friends Corney & Barrow. Their first list is short but carefully cho sen, and I have picked four French wines which I think are both delicious and remarkable value.
The Sauvignon Blanc from Les Rafelières 2004(1) is made in the heart of the Loire, though it lacks a grand appellation like Sancerre. On the other hand, at £6.35 it is two thirds the price. It is zingy and fruity and full of all the good stuff you’re meant to find here, such as grass and gooseberries. This is one region of France that has learned quickly from world competition, and I would rate this alongside several New Zealand Sauvignons at higher prices.
The Château Grinou Grande Réserve 2003(2) is stunning. In the past, readers have bought plenty of Guy Cuisset’s excellent La Combe de Grinou. This is a whole dimension richer, more complex, more layered. Honey, peaches, almonds and chestnuts make it sound more like a dessert than a drink, but the touch of sweetness is beautifully balanced, so you could drink this with fish, chicken, salad, fruit, or have it as a luscious, mouth-filling aperitif. I cannot quite believe that they are asking only £7.40 for such a scrumptious wine.
Cabernet Franc is a much underestimated grape, even though it makes up 90 per cent of the fabulous Château Cheval Blanc in St Emilion. (There’s that wonderful sad scene in Sideways in which the antihero, thwarted in love, glugs his prize 1961 down from a plastic cup in a diner.) This 2003 from the Domaine de Montmarin(3) is not as good as that, but it is an awful lot cheaper. It is the estate’s first vintage and an amazing debut; wonderfully fresh, packed with ripe red-fruit flavours, with just a slight tarry or tobacco edge, which makes it highly distinctive yet easy to drink in great quantity. Tremendous value at £6.35.
Guy Cuisset’s other reserve wine, the red Grinou 2004(4), is superb. We had friends round for a tasting and conversation stopped as people ooh’ed and aah’ed at its lovely, warm, cedary, oaky, plummy, smoky depths. ‘I’d like to go swimming in this,’ said one chap, indicating perhaps more enthusiasm than common sense. But I know what he meant. If this was a claret it would cost twice the £7.40. At least.
There is also a sampler case. Delivery is free, and there is a discount of £4 per case on orders of three cases or more. O
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