Time for a Carignan rehabilitation

Carignan is probably not a grape variety whose name readily trips off the tongue. It’s not one of the highly regarded, “noble” varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay. Nor is it, like Pinot Grigio, so ubiquitous that people ask for a glass of it by name in their local gastro pub.

So, a potted biography of Carignan is perhaps in order.

Carignan is mostly found in Languedoc-Roussillon, where it generally forms part of a blend and is rarely seen or its own, or, indeed trumpeted on a front label. It originates, however, in Aragon in northeastern Spain. Back in its native land, it is often known as Mazuelo (or Mazuela in Rioja) or, in Catalonia, Samsó, though you may also see Cariñena (which is also, confusingly, the name of a wine region). Outside France and Spain, you are most likely to come across it in Chile where, thankfully, it is called simply Carignan. There is some in North America, where it has acquired an extra “e” as Carignane.

Carignan has been recorded in southern France since Medieval times, but this longevity has not led to respect and it tends to be labelled a workhorse variety at best. At worst it is derided or even despised. Why?

Carignan needs a long, warm growing season to ripen fully, so it has never spread to cooler parts of France. Its influence in southern France has been waning in recent years, but it was valued by growers, especially up until the latter part of the 20^th century, as a high yielding grape which added colour, alcohol and acidity to otherwise weedy wines.

The Carignan vine is a vigorous grower which will provide high yields, if allowed to, which give a deep coloured, high acid wine that is long on tannin and short on fruit. Sounds good, huh? But, but – lower yielding old vines that have not been irrigated and whose fruit has been treated carefully can give wines with distinct, rich inky black fruit, accompanied by present but pleasant tannins and that acidity gives a freshness that is welcome in wines from a warm climate.

Many Carignan vines have been pulled up in Languedoc-Roussillon, partly encouraged by government vine pull schemes. Those that remain are, increasingly, those older bushvines on better land away from the flat, fertile plains – and they make correspondingly better, increasingly very good, wines.

So, now is the time to discover and rehabilitate Carignan – say its name with pride.

3C, Cariñena 2015 (Spain)- £5.25 The Wine Society

Ignore the hideous label and tuck into the delightlful unoaked Carignan within. There is plenty of juicy black fruit and a lick of tannin that will hit the spot on many a chilly, dark night. You are unlikely to find another red wine that packs so much flavour in at this price.

Les Crouzes, Carignan Vieilles Vignes 2015 - £6.49 Co-op

Despite its ubiquity, it is still rare to find a 100% Carignan wine in the Languedoc. This is the essence of the Midi, where a certain rusticity meets fresh and fruity to great effect.

Torres Cordillera Carignan 2009 (Chile) - £13.99 Taurus Wines, Bramley

This is a brilliant example of Carignan made from old, unirrigated bush vines in the Maule region of Chile. Producers there have now banded together to form the VIGNO project, designed to highlight the wines made from these increasingly rare old (sometimes up to 100 years old) vines. This is full of black, brambly fruit with bay leaf herbal characters and a lipsmacking freshness.

Wines to get you all fired up

It’s a Bank Holiday weekend – think barbecues, bangers and bottles.

How to choose the right wine to accompany your burnt offerings? The golden rule is to forget anything delicate, subtle or complex, as these qualities will literally be wafted away on the summer breeze – or at the very least be obliterated by the smoke from the barbecue. What you want is big, bold and beefy (how long can I keep up this b-fest?).

Red wines

The Rhône varieties Syrah and Grenache, alone or together, have flavours that complement smoky barbecue fare. Here are some from the Rhône and beyond.

Château Pesquié Terrasses Ventoux 2012 - £12.75 online or as part of a mixed case of six from The Good Wine Shop (branches in Esher, Kew and Chiswick), £14 from R&B Wines, also at Bordeaux Index

Ventoux, a large wine region in northern Provence, has a low profile compared with nearby Southern Rhône stars like Gigondas and Châteauneuf-du-Pape and, it must be said, quality is mixed. However, there are some really good wines to be found, like this blend of mostly Grenache with some Syrah. Dark, rich berry fruits mingle with liquorice in the mouth. This will stand up to any meat lover’s barbecue.

The Cubist Old Vine Garnacha 2013, Calatayud, spain - £9.99 from Waitrose

Spain is a good source of big, ripe reds with the right kind of profile for outdoor eating. This has plenty of concentrated black fruit, along with a spice-herb-pepper combination on the side.

You could also try Cruz de Piedra Seleccion Especial Garnacha 2013 - £8.25 from The Wine Society.

Falernia Reserva Syrah 2011, Chile - £9.95 from Great Western Wine, £12.95 from Slurp.co.uk, also from independents

Chile makes some lip-smacking Syrahs that combine clean, ripe fruit flavours with a refreshing pepperiness. This is a real crowd-pleaser of a wine with bags of ripe, sweet fruit before the black pepper kicks in on the finish.

In the same vein, but with a bit more elegance is long-time Chilean Syrah superstar Matetic EQ Syrah 2012 - £16.50 from The Wine Society (2013), £17.95 from Slurp.co.uk (2011).  

White wines need to have plenty of personality if they are to stand up to outdoor drinking - this is not the time to uncork your best Pouilly Fumé. Go for wines with plenty of fruit, some weight and, if there’s spice involved, a bit of sweetness too.

A Mano Puglia Bianco 2014, Italy - £7.95 from The Wine Society, £8.95 from Slurp.co.uk and other independent merchants

This refreshingly different white, made from a blend of varieties including the aromatic Fiano, has bags of character and a certain soft weightiness with a food-friendly saline lick.

Cono Sur Reserva Especial Riesling 2012, Chile – on offer at Morrison’s for £5.99 (usually £8.99)

A little sweetness here makes for a good match with chilli, though the balancing acidity and zippy lime fruit mean that you won’t feel like you’re drinking anything sweet. And at this price, you can’t go wrong.

Meet the new, old Chile

Chile has a reputation for being sort of middley – a source of good value, reliable wines that are predictable and safe. Almost uniquely among wine producing countries, its sales are built on exports, rather than domestic consumption, so they have played their hand astutely, making wines with broad international appeal.

Sometimes it can feel all a bit corporate, as if men in suits are the ones in control, deciding which grapes are grown, and where and how the wines are made.

But recently there have been signs that the winemakers themselves are getting restive, tired of turning out glossy, international-style wines that could have been made almost anywhere and that they themselves don’t want to drink. 

This quiet revolution is taking inspiration from the past in the form of the re-discovery and re-evaluation of old plantings of untrendy varieties like Carignan and Païs; a return to picking grapes earlier so that they retain natural freshness and acidity; and eschewing new oak barrels for ageing wines in favour of bigger, older vessels which don’t mask the flavours of the grapes. There is also an impetus forwards to the future of wine, pushing the boundaries of viticulture east up into the Andes, west to cool coastal areas, south towards the ice fields of Patagonia, even north to high altitude sites on the way to the arid Atacama desert.

Where to find the new, old Chile:

Morandé Vigno 2009 - £29.10 from Hedonism Wines

A taste of old vine Carignan from the Maule Valley, a field blend that also incorporates Syrah and Chardonnay, it’s tangy, fresh and alive with flavours of red fruit and dark, rich cocoa. It also won a Silver Outstanding Medal at the IWSC.

Viña Casa Silva Cool Coast Sauvignon Blanc 2014 – around £14-15 from independent merchants including Avery’s and Oxford Wine Company

Zesty, pithy, citrus flavours and a distinct minerality – this is a new style of Chilean Sauvignon from the chilly, Pacific-cooled Paredones vineyard.

Darth Vader winemaking in Chile

If I ask you what comes to mind when I say Chilean wine, what pops into your head? I am betting that excitement, experimentation and risk-taking are not at the top of the list. Perhaps you are thinking more along the lines of reliability, good value and consistency?

If ever I find myself a contestant on Pointless and the category of Chilean wine comes up, I reckon I’ve got that round pretty well sewn up. Never mind that neither occurrence is ever likely to happen.   

But back to the matter in hand. Given my hypothesis viz a viz wine from Chile, what would drive an established producer, with a proven track record of critical and commercial success for their international style wines (for want of a better description) to turn their back on all that? What happened to “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”? Marcelo Retamal, Iron Maiden-loving winemaker at Chile’s De Martino winery for the past eighteen years, puts it simply: he didn’t enjoy drinking the wines that he was making. They represented what he now calls “the Dark Side”.

 

Marcelo Retamal and some of his large oak foudres

He pinpoints 1998 as a year of change, when the arrival of international winemaking consultants in Chile and demand from international buyers led to a very different approach to winemaking from what had gone before. The trend for soft, sleek and powerful wines meant that grapes were picked later (up to two months later than previously) in order to get super-ripe flavours, which in turn led to the need for routine acidification to correct the low acid levels in such ripe grapes; 100% new oak barrels and selected yeasts became the norm in the winery.

Devotees of this column, should there be any of you, might recall that I wrote about De Martino’s wines back in 2011 when Marcelo Retamal and Sebastian de Martino visited the UK and told the world about their plans for the future. Their 2010 vintages which I sampled then contained tantalising hints of what was to come, but now they have come back to show us the full picture with their 2011 and later wines.

To illustrate his point, Marcelo led a vertical tasting of a Carmenère from De Martino’s Alto de Piedras vineyard in the Maipo Valley.

The 2005 epitomised what Marcelo calls “the Dark Side”: there is plenty of oak and ripe, slightly pruney fruit, but also a swingeing tannic structure, jarring acidity and a lingering flavour of alcohol (which stands at 14.8%). It felt like a wine at war with itself.

In 2010 Marcelo, in partnership with Sebastiàn de Martino, decided that he had had enough of making what he now calls “bad wine”. That meant no more new oak barrels, earlier picking dates, no acidification, use of natural yeasts (that is naturally occurring yeasts which are present all around us and provide, for example, the lift in sourdough bread) and lower alcohol.

The 2011 Alto de Piedras wine illustrated the new thinking. It is light on its feet, with lively fruit and fresh acidity. Alcohol is down to 13.3% and acidity is naturally higher, thanks to earlier picking (20 April compared with 10 May in 2005, some 20 days earlier). The wine is aged in 5,000 litre foudres (huge wooden barrels) instead of new oak barrels holding 225 litres, so the effect of oak on the flavour is minimal. It demonstrates the move towards a more authentic, natural and gastronomic style of wine.

De Martino’s other project is a number of wines fermented and aged in old giant clay amphorae (known as Viejas Tinajas in Chile) from vines grown in the southerly Itata Valley. It may sound wilfully eccentric to use such antique techniques, which would not have looked out of place in ancient Rome, but amphorae (and their modern equivalent, cement “eggs”) are actually becoming, if not commonplace, at least not freakish, in wineries around the world.

Itata is home to some of Chile’s oldest, dry farmed bush vines and the De Martino Viejas Tinajas range comprises a dry white made from Muscat and two reds, one a 100% Cinsault and the other a Carignan/Cinsault blend. Production is not high – only 6,000 bottles of the Cinsault are made – but it could mark the arrival of user friendly Chilean natural wine, with its soft structure and lifted sweet/savoury flavours. 

De Martino wines to try

Gallardia Cinsault Rosé 2013 - £8.95 from The Wine Society, £11.65 from Caves de Pyrène of Guildford

From Itata, but not part of the Viejas Tinajas project, this is a more mainstream, but effortlessly enjoyable wine. It looks and tastes like a classic Provence rosé, with fresh, marine flavours and a gentle finish.

Gallardia Muscat 2012 - £11.65 from Caves de Pyrène

Muscat can be a bit of an in your face variety, with its intensely grapey aromas, which can then seem out of synch with a dry palate. Here, the aromatics are more restrained, with hints of candied fruit. It tastes beautifully fresh and would be a real crowd pleaser (especially if you don’t let on that it’s Muscat, to avoid people like me thinking they won’t like it).

La Aguada Old Vines Field Blend 2011 - £22 from Caves de Pyrène (The Wine Society currently stocks the 2008 for £14.95)

Planting an entire vineyard with a single grape variety is actually quite new technology in many parts of the wine world. It was once common practice to plant a range of varieties together (without necessarily even knowing what those varieties were), though it’s now increasingly rare. This vineyard is predominantly Carignan, usually a despised variety, thought to bring nothing more than colour, alcohol and rusticity to a wine. Old, dry-farmed vines such as this, though, can make wines of real character and depth – and the smattering of Cinsault and Malbec help to give lift and perfume.

Getting fresh at the Real Wine Fair

Don’t you just love it when the wine trade gets a bee in its bonnet about what we should call wines?

Guildford’s own Caves de Pyrène are the leading lights in a new wine movement, which has recently held its second annual tasting of what they are calling “real wine”.  Doug Wregg, wine trade poet-philosopher and sometime Sales and Marketing Director (a man further removed from the image of anyone with that job title you could not hope to find) for Caves de Pyrène is the brains behind the operation.

What is a real wine?  Are some of the things we drink, foolishly imagining them to be wine just because that’s what it says on the label, in fact no such thing?  Rest easy, wine drinkers, of course it’s all real wine – just not “real wine”.  

Now I should provide a pithy and concise definition of what constitutes “real wine”.  But of course such a thing doesn’t exist.  These wines tend to be made with minimum intervention in both the vineyard and winery; many are organic and/or biodynamic; usually they are made by small-scale operations; a good number of them would probably also come under the banner of natural wines (another rather nebulous and hard-to-pin-down category).  The winemakers share an interest in producing wines that speak of their origins and which express the growing conditions of the vintage.  The real or natural wine movement is somewhat akin to the slow food movement.

Giusto Occhipinti of COS, a "real wine" maker - and a real winemaker

If someone put a gun to my head and asked me to sum up such wines in a single word, I’d say “What the h*** are you doing with a gun, for God’s sake, it’s only wine.” as I ran from the room.  If I was asked nicely (without the gun) then “authentic” might be a decent stab at it.

Here are some of my own highlights from the second annual Real Wine Fair, held last month in London:

I Vigneri Salvo Foti – Vinujancu Bianco 2011 - £23.16 from Caves de Pyrène

One of the joys of exploring Italian wines is constantly discovering new grape varieties, even as a seasoned grape-spotter.  This Sicilian white is a blend of Minnella (the new one to me, native not just to Sicily but to the Etna region specifically), Grecanico (aka Garganega, another Italian native and most famously associated with Soave) and Riesling (a long way from its German origins).

As you might imagine in the Etna region, the soils that the vines grow in are volcanic – indeed some resemble black granulated pumice, rather than anything you might consider trying to use as a growing medium.  The result is intensely flavoured, characterful wines, helped along by the high altitude (1200m for this wine) and ancient vines.  Salvo adds no sulphur to the wines, but there is no hint of odd or off flavours, just aromas of honey and honeycomb, leading onto a dry, grippy and zippy palate.

COS, Giusto Occhipinti – Cerasuolo di Vittoria 2010 - £16.80 from Caves de Pyrène

Still in Sicily, COS produce a range of wines from indigenous varieties.  Cerasuolo di Vittoria is the island’s only DOCG (ostensible top of the quality tree for Italian wines) and is a blend of two native varieties:  Nero d’Avola and Frappato.

If you were to imagine the style of red wine that comes from such an intensely Mediterranean setting, then I would wager it would be confounded by what you would find here:  nothing is overdone, all is lightness and elegance.  The fruit is delicate, cherryish and fresh, with no oak flavours to tone it down – the wine is fermented in cement tank and aged in large old oak “foudres” (essentially giant barrels).

 

Bodegas Bernabe Navarro – La Amistad 2011 - £8.88 from Caves de Pyrène

Spain has been rather slow to hop aboard the real wine train, but Alicante winemaker Damien Perez is making enough leftfield wines to make up for it.  This one is made from local variety Rojal and is fermented and aged in amphorae, or tinajas in Spanish.  We usually associate amphorae with archeological digs, as these vessels were used in the ancient world to transport olive oil and wine, but they have begun to find favour again in the natural/real wine movement.

Amistad is a light red wine that you could serve chilled in summer (should it ever arrive) to appreciate its lively, fresh sour cherry fruit.

“The Wild Vineyard” Villalobos Carignan Reserva 2012 - £15.90 from Caves de Pyrène

Just to show that the New World is also getting the hang of this real wine thing, I’ve included this Chilean, new to the Caves portfolio.  Carignan is one of those lowly varieties that gets labelled “workhorse” if it’s lucky.  It was enthusiastically taken up by growers in France’s Languedoc post 2^nd World War, valued for its colour, alcohol and high yields.  This aim-low strategy allied to reliance on industrial viticultural techniques was never going to be a recipe for quality, and Carignan’s reputation suffered as a result.

Chile, however, is home to some wonderful old vine Carignan – these were planted in the 1940s and 50s, which makes them positively prehistoric in the context of Chilean viticulture.  Essentially organic from the word go, the vines have never been subjected to any kind of treatment and have been allowed to grow wild (hence the vineyard name).

Freshness is a hallmark of all the wines that I enjoyed at the fair and this one is no exception, with masses of crunchy blueberry fruit - though I concede blueberries are not a crunchy fruit, it’s more a combination of crunch and blueberry that I’m trying to convey.  There is plenty of body and substance, but also elegance.

If you fancy checking out more of these kinds of wine, you can pay a visit to RAW, which bills itself as an artisan wine fair and will take place in London on 19/20 May.  The Real Wine Fair will be back again in 2014.

2011 review: my best bits

If you're feverishly searching for last minute Christmas wine recommendations – and you really are cutting it fine – then please have a look at my previous two posts on this blog.

In the caring sharing spirit of Christmas, I offer here just one nugget that could save your bacon. If you seek the perfect wine match for Christmas pudding, then look no further than Moscatel de Valencia, a ridiculously under-priced dessert wine from Spain. Its luscious sweetness with an orange marmelade edge makes the pudding sing. Sainsburys' version is just £3.98 a bottle. If you're quick you might just make it...

This column is devoted to a review of the best bits of 2011. Here, in no particular order, are my personal highlights of the year:

• Tasting top class Aussie Rieslings courtesy of Jacob's Creek at “wine workshop and kitchen” 28-50 in London. The 2005 Steingarten Riesling was the highlight, but Jacob's Creek Riesling Reserve 2010 was pretty delicious too: fresh and lively (and limey), floral but dry – a great palate cleanser.
  
  
• A Bollinger Grande Année masterclass, with chef de cave Mathieu Kaufmann, where I learned that I have expensive tastes when it comes to Champagne. Bollinger Grande Année Rose 1996 was my favourite, if you're reading this, Santa. Completely beguiling, luxurious stuff which, sadly, I can't afford.
  
  
• Marcelo Retamel, Chilean winemaker (at the family-owned De Martino winery) and Iron Maiden fan, describing his return from the Dark Side of wine-making. Tasting the first vintage (another 1996) of his single vineyard Carmenère was a delicious reminder of how good wine can be when allowed to mature without the added glitz of selected yeasts, new oak and other winemaking frippery. Look out for the 2010 vintage of the Alto de Piedras Carmenère when it arrives at the Wine Society, which marks his return to the more natural style of winemaking that characterised that first vintage back in 1996. 
   
• I can't honestly remember what the exact bottle was, but drinking fizz in spring sunshine at our Royal Wedding street party felt both modern and traditional at the same time.
  
  
• Meeting Chester Osborn, legendary Australian winemaker at d'Arenberg and infamous wearer of loud shirts, and his collection of wine-themed fluffy toys at a wine “speed tasting”. His Money Spider Roussanne 2009 was one of my favourites at the whistle-stop tasting.
  
  
  
  
  
• Tasting Tio Pepe “en rama” at Bar Pepito in King's Cross (a must for sherry lovers) and then seeing how well it stood up to their excellent range of tapas. The summer weather may have been a let-down, but that day was a true taste of the Mediterranean. “En rama” is a special, full-flavoured, unfiltered bottling of Tio Pepe that sells out (mostly to those in the know in the wine trade) almost as soon as it hits these shores. The classic Tio Pepe, however, is widely available for around a tenner.
  
  
• Getting to grips with the new face of Portugal's Vinho Verde at a fascinating tasting this summer. I learned that Vinho Verde is not green and doesn't have to be redolent of soluble aspirin – and it can also be red! 
   
• Buying an exotic-looking liqueur in France over the summer, only to find it was none other than that British Christmas stalwart, sloe gin. Equally nice served cold in the summer, I can helpfully tell you.
  
  
• Spending three footsore days working at the London wine trade's annual fair in May – but my reward was to be responsible for encouraging visitors to taste a great selection of interesting, individual and delicious wines from Southwest France.
  
  
  
• The taste of Graham's Malvedos 1958 single quinta port – still looking and tasting good at 50!
  
  
• Tasting Zind-Humbrecht's Rangen de Thann Clos-Saint-Urbain Gewurztraminer 2009 at the first dedicated biodynamic wine tasting in London in November. Olivier Humbrecht (Master of Wine and PhD) has managed to create a perfect marriage of grape variety to terroir making for an unforgettable wine experience.
  
  
  
  
  
• Seeing how Hunter Valley Semillon ages (well, it turns out) courtesy of a vertical tasting of Neil McGuigan's Bin 9000 Semillons back to 1997.
  
  
  
  
  
• Drinking nothing but Champagne for 3 days (OK and some water) during my first study tour of the region.

Life could be worse! Wishing you a suitably merry time over the next couple of weeks. See you all in 2012.

Stop the (wine) world, I want to get off

Sometimes I wish the wine world would just stop for a bit, so that I can catch up. It seems every time I look, there's a new wine region in Spain, a handful of grape varieties from Italy that I've never heard of, and a whole new grape-growing valley in Chile. Is there a never-ending supply of these things?

This latest yearning for a pause button on the wine world was prompted by a Chilean wine which hails from the Choapa Valley. Choapa? Choapa???

It's enough to make you hanker after the simplicity and stability of classic regions like...Burgundy. On the surface, it's all so straightforward: white wines are all Chardonnay, reds are Pinot Noir; the vineyard area has been minutely graded and differentiated over centuries and new bits do not spring up overnight like so many mushrooms; there is a strict hierarchy of quality, with generic Bourgogne at the bottom, going through village level, then Premier Cru and finally the pinnacle of Grand Cru.

Except it's not quite as simple as that....

Here's an illustration: Clos de Vougeot is a single walled vineyard in Burgundy's Côte de Nuits that is all classed as Grand Cru, hence it commands pretty astronomical prices. But it's big: 50 hectares (125 acres) of vineyard is enclosed within the walls, sub-divided between many growers (the average plot size is around 0.2 of a hectare).

The far-sighted Cistercian monks who decided to rip out the French beans, tomatoes and apple trees in favour of grape vines, would have made wine blended from the entire plot. Nowadays those monks are long-gone and each grower must try to wring the best quality possible from their few rows of vines.

The slopes at the middle and top of the Clos are generally agreed to make better wines than the plots on the flatter, damper ground at the bottom. And, let's be realistic, not all winemakers are created equal. Hence two equally eyewateringly expensive bottles of Grand Cru Clos de Vougeot may contain wine that varies considerably in terms of drinking pleasure. Caveat emptor!

So, to return to Chile, there they are at the other end of the wine adventure to Burgundy and most of the Old World. They are constantly exploring new territories within their long, thin string-bean of a country to see where grapes will flourish and which varieties best express the terroir. In vinous terms, Chile is a gigantic wine laboratory and, it must be said, the results are deliciously drinkable.

Chile, unlike any other major wine producing nation, does not have a long tradition of wine drinking. Up until recent years, grapes were grown primarily for distillation to make pisco – basis for the pisco sour cocktail. There were small winemaking concerns, based primarily in the Maipo Valley, close to the consumers and transport links of capital city, Santiago.

Over the years, Chile's winemakers have spread their wings and wineries to further flung and ever cooler regions, which would have initially been dismissed as too cold to ripen grapes – especially for such heat-loving varieties as Syrah (aka Shiraz).

This week's recommendations – Chile rather than Burgundy.

De Martino Legado Syrah 2010 - £10.49 from Caves de Pyrene (Artington, near Guildford)

The wine that prompted this column: from the Choapa Valley, which, I now know, is north of Santiago, roughly half-way between the Aconcagua and Limari Valleys. Chile is a long, narrow strip of land that flanks the Andes, but it is especially thin at this point, where the vines here are exposed to the cooling air of both the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean.

Having initially made their name with well-crafted, reliably gluggable Merlots, then taking up Carmenère as their signature red grape, Chileans are now showing the wine world that they are also pretty nifty when it comes to Syrah. Really, do they have to be so good at everything they do? The answer seems to be yes.

The fact that they choose to label the wine Syrah, rather than its New World synonym, Shiraz, tells you that in terms of style this is much closer to the peppery, herbal, cooler-climate Northern Rhone versions than the exuberantly fruity Australian ones. This has a definite tannic structure and an almost Old World restraint to the black-pepper tinged berry fruit.

Matetic Vineyards Corralillo Syrah 2009, San Antonio - £85.80 for a case of 6 from Armit, £15.95 from Sipp London

Matetic have had a real cachet about them and their wines since they burst onto the Chilean wine scene in 1999. The other Syrah made by Matetic, labelled simply Syrah, is undoubtedly a fine wine, but the price has gone up to a frankly ridiculous £37 a bottle. This little brother, Corallilo, however, still offers class in a glass at a much more reasonable price and has got better with each vintage I've tasted. Satisfyingly savoury, but with bumptious juicy fruit and great balance, this is also organic and biodynamic.

Maycas del Limari Quebrada Seca Chardonnay 2008, Limari - £18.95 from slurp.co.uk, £24.95 from Berry Bros (bbr.com)

Limari is yet another recently exploited wine region where you'll find deliciously fresh, juicy red wines – and this altogether very sophisticated Chardonnay.

If you know someone who has an expensive white Burgundy habit, but who struggles to afford to keep it going, then do them a favour and point them in the direction of this wine.

I was lucky enough to taste this wine with the man who makes it, Marcelo Papa, the man responsible for the phenomenally popular Casillero del Diablo wines. It combines the ripeness of fruit and mealy nuttiness of Meursault with the poise and linearity of Chablis. It's a truly lovely wine and incredibly moreish.