W hen I compiled this month’s offer — from the estimable
Simon Wrightson, who conducts his business from a gorgeous manor house in North Yorkshire — I was slightly surprised to discover that we had an entirely French selection. This at a time when Australia is ahead of France in offlicence and supermarket sales. But Spectator readers tend to be counterintuitive and eclectic — iconoclastic even when they are most conservative. We are all discovering that French wines have improved hugely over the past few years, and the arrogance implied by so many third-rate bottles sold at high prices is disappearing. Personally, I’d still avoid buying wine in a French supermarket — they flood the domestic market with stuff they can’t sell abroad — but I would happily give cellar room to all of these.
Take Muscadet, which used to be the second cheapest wine (after the grisly Cuvée du Patron) in so many Indian and Chinese restaurants. If you didn’t finish the bottle, you could take it home to clean the silver. But this Clos de Beauregard 20011 is remarkable. It is fermented sur lie, which means that the lees of dead yeast are stirred up occasionally to create a secondary fermentation, which in turn softens the wine and deepens the lovely, spicy, almost seafoody flavour. Like all this month’s choices, it is reduced, to a mere £5.50 a bottle.
I have always loved Vouvray, and this Ch. Gaudrelle 20012 is a beauty, made at a property where they have been tending vines since 1537. Chenin blanc is not an easy grape, and can make dull, reedy wine. This, by contrast, is rich and full and fat. The locals rhapsodise about the scents of acacia, cloves, roses, apples, pears, ‘honey, beeswax, Virginia tobacco, and nuances of ripe quince’ — but I’m sure you’ll enjoy it anyway. It’s demi-sec, making it perfect as an aperitif, with fruit, or with salty cheese, price £7.50 a bottle.
We all know how the term Chablis can mean a sort of nasty chalk juice spiked with alcohol. But this Domaine St Louis3 is tremendous. It’s from 2003, the year when all Europe roasted, but the grapes were picked early, keeping the acidity without which a wine becomes dull and flabby. The result is a beautifully balanced wine yet with bags of fruity flavour, close in quality to a fine white Burgundy costing a lot more than the £8.25 Simon Wrightson is asking — a £9 per case saving.
One French region where quality continues to improve year by year is the Côtes du Rhône, and this Domaine St Claude 20034 is as smooth and as ripe as you would expect from that extraordinary year — a disaster for some, a miracle for others. This is 80 per cent Grenache, only 20 per cent Syrah, and it has a lovely balance of fruitiness and nuttiness. Reduced again to £5.50.
If you’ve seen the film Sideways, you’ll remember how the anti-hero Miles declares, as he walks into a restaurant, that if anyone starts drinking Merlot, he’s leaving. Which is plain silly, since some of the finest wines in the world, including Château Pétrus, are made largely from Merlot. Admittedly there is some bad stuff out there, but none of it is made by Mme Jadaud at the Caves d’Euzet in the Pays d’Oc. Her Happy Hog Merlot5 is also from 2003 and features a splendid drawing (by Rodger McPhail) of a cheery warthog on the label. Inside the bottle the wine is made from macerated grapes, which means the tannins have softened out, and the short spell in oak gives extra depth. A terrific quaffing wine at £5.75, good for parties or drinking with a roast or casserole.
We finish with another 2003 Rhône wine, La Bastide St Vincent6 from Vacqueyras, an appellation which is becoming increasingly admired all round the world. This too is largely Grenache and Syrah vines, with an average age of 30 years, providing a luscious, complex wine packed with cherries and plums and spice. This is a very special wine and, I think, terrific value, reduced to £8.25.
Delivery as ever is free, and there is a sample case of all six wines.
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