SPECTATOR WINE CLUB
SIMON HOGGART
Sometimes wine merchants lay in stocks of wine that they know to be terrific, but which don’t sell as well as they might because the public don’t know about them. For instance, if you saw on a list ‘Professor Black, Sauvignon Blanc’ at £11.22, you might decide that, since you’d never heard of it, you should give it a miss in favour of a Sancerre or something familiar from New Zealand. Which would be a pity, because you would miss a seriously scrumptious wine, with all the grassy, gooseberry savour of a first-rate Sauvignon combined with real depth and fruitiness.
So to persuade you, Andrew Firth of Playford Ros, one of the most enterprising merchants in the north of England, has dropped the price by a whopping £3.11 a bottle, not far short of 30 per cent. Obviously he hopes you’ll try it — which you certainly should — and then come back for more. Indeed, he has done the same with all these wines, which represent amazing bargains. There were so many to choose from: I have selected eight, all available by the dozen, or in two taster cases, regular and luxury.
The whites include two Sauvignons and two Chardonnays. The French Sauvignon Blanc Montmarin 20041 is a smashing wine for everyday drinking, being crisp and full flavoured, and quaffable in considerable quantity, since it has been reduced by nearly £2 to just £4.61.
There are two white Burgundies, very different in style. The Macon Uchizy 20042 is certainly cheap and definitely cheerful: it has a lovely, clean, oaky, vanilla flavour. Macon can be just a tad harsh at times; I like this because it is much smoother than usual. Reduced by £2.19 to £6.74, it is another wine for summer glugging, a wine that will make your friends think how generous you are, because they won’t known how inexpensive it is.
Professor Black’s Sauvignon Blanc 20043 is from the highly regarded Warwick Estate in South Africa, and is everything I said at the start of this article. At just £8.11 a bottle, it’s a snip, and I urge you to lay in supplies.
The Chablis Premier Cru from LechetDampt 20034 is astounding value at £10.97, reduced from £15.22. I have written before about Chablis rage, the discovery in a restaurant that you have just paid £25 for something that tastes like alcoholic chalk dust. This has all the backbone of the best Chablis, but with a rich fruity taste, verging on the tropical. We served this with fish the other night and the satisfied ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ reminded me of Centre Court, when things are going right for a British player.
Now the reds: Valpolicella is one of those wines served in Italian restaurants when the waiter wielding a pepper mill the size of a small redwood tells you that your guest is a ‘bellissima signorina’ even if she has a beer belly and a moustache. So I was sceptical about this — at least until I drank it. The Superiore Zenato 20025 is gorgeous — all cherries and chestnuts and warm ripe fleshy sensations. We found it advisable to leave it to breathe a while, say an hour in a carafe. (Almost all wines, includ ing whites, benefit from a spell in the air.) Andrew has knocked more than 25 per cent off the cost of the Rioja Lorinon 20016, which brings it down to just over £6 a bottle. Rioja is a name that covers many sins, but this is wonderful — delectable and sophisticated and subtle and aromatic.
New Zealand is now, along with Oregon, the place for the new Pinot Noirs. The Rongopai 20027 is silky and perfumed and finely flavoured, and would be perfect with almost anything, including red meat, and fish. Reduced by £2.99, bringing it down to just £7.53 a bottle, and I doubt you could find better value anywhere in the New World.
Finally, I was knocked out by the Three Cape Ladies 20028, a wine made in South Africa from Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Pinotage. This is warm, ripe and luscious, with the Pinotage offering just the faintest familiar hint of muddiness. Reduced by £3.32 per bottle. _p
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