Best wines for summer barbecues and parties

It’s always tricky, working out when to recommend wines for hot, summer days, when so often summer itself can be a slippery concept. Nevertheless, the schools have broken up, the Olympics loom: the calendar points to summer, regardless of what the weather might be doing.

Don’t be afraid of the fridge for reds

Refreshment is a key aspect of wines for drinking at any time, but never more so than on a hot day. Don’t be afraid to chill any red wine for a short while (say 30 mins) before serving it. Reds are generally designed to be drunk at rather less than modern room temperature, and much less than the ambient temperature on a warm day, so a quick chill will make it both more refreshing and bring out the more delicate flavours.

Fizz

Le Monferrine Asti DOCG - £5.50 at Morrison’s

Here’s a guilty pleasure. It’s sweet, it’s fizzy, with a rich grapey flavour that you can serve really chilled to go with picnic-y fruit puddings…or instead of.

Cava Juvé & Camps Selección Reserva 2013 - £11.49 from Waitrose

I’m the first to admit that I’m not a huge Cava fan, but I have a soft spot for this producer, renowned for ageing their Cavas for longer (much longer than the law dictates) on the lees – over 24 months in this case. Apple and citrus fruits combine on the palate, which has lovely freshness.

White

If refreshment is what you’re after, then two white wine styles readily spring to mind: Chablis and Sauvignon Blanc.

Chablis William Fèvre “La Maladière” 2013 - £13.49 mix six price at Majestic

This is “proper” Chablis. Fresh, light and incisive, but in no way short of flavour. It’s not so much about the lemon and green apple fruit as the texture and feel of the wine. This will quench any thirst.

Dog Point Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2015 - £13.50 from The Wine Society; £15.50 from Winedirect; £19.99 from Laithwaite’s; also available at independent merchants

This Sauvignon Blanc has developed a dedicated fan base – and with good reason. At a comparative tasting of Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs earlier this year, Dog Point stood out as the most classic expression of the style. It has expressive but balanced flavours, with grapefruit and white pepper.

Rosé

Pure de Mirabeau Côtes de Provence Rosé 2015 - £12.99 from Waitrose

A quintessential Provence rosé, yet it is made by Brit abroad, Stephen Cronk. This is delightfully pale in colour, light and elegant, but with body and flavour. A delight for a sunny evening. Rosés are a great match for all manner of salads, coping admirably with the sharp/oily combination of vinaigrette dressings.

M Signature Champagne Rosé - £20 at Morrison’s

Sometimes you just have to have Champagne and, to capture the spirit of summer, it also has to be pink. You can quickly empty your wallet on rosé Champagne, but here’s one that’s more friendly to those of us who are more flash than cash. Morrison’s own label Champagnes are both good value and classy and this rosé would make a lovely accompaniment to nibbles/smoked salmon and the like.

Red

Waitrose Southern French Grenache 2015 - £6.49 from Waitrose

Hardly an inspiring name for a wine, but this is well suited to a summer barbecue with its ripe, sweet-tasting fruit. I would definitely give this a quick blast in the fridge before cracking it open on a warm evening.

Recchia Bardolino 2015 - £7.99 from Waitrose

Bardolino is a hugely unfashionable style of red wine: pale red colour that is almost rosé and with very light body. Often in the mass produced versions it can also mean sharp acidity and an unappealing weediness. But this, with its pale ruby colour and soft, cherryish fruit is just made for summer picnics. In other words, a perfect summer red.

Summer wine survival kit

I do hope that writing about wines for summer weather will not put the kybosh on any sightings of the sun from now until September.

Now and next time I’ll provide you with a handy list of wines that should see you through summer for all sorts of occasions. Use that wine rack attachment in the fridge for its intended purpose and you’ll be ready for anything. This week: pinks to quench your thirst.

Think pink

Nothing says summer like rosé and, thanks to our enthusiasm for the style there is now a wider choice to buy than ever. Cheap rosés are in plentiful supply, but some guidance on the more pricey ones might be appreciated. I had the chance to taste (blind) some rosés ranging in price from £12 to £100 and these were some of my favourites.

Whispering Angel 2014 - £16.99 from The Wine Reserve, Cobham and other independents

A lot to pay for a bottle of rosé? Somehow we seem to think that rosés can never scale the heights of truly fine wine in the same way as white and red wines. Is rosé just too frivolous? Well try this and see what you think. This Provence rosé is pale and pretty, a blend of Grenache, Rolle (aka Vermentino, a white grape) and rosé specialist red grape Cinsault. I found it to be herbal and delicate, but with presence and length.

I also rated Château Léoube, Rosé de Léoube 2014 - £14.50 from organic specialists Vintage Roots; £14.95 from slurp.co.uk; also independent merchants. It typifies the “don’t try too hard” charm of Provençal rosés and has enough depth of flavour combined with freshness to make for great balance. 

Albury Silent Pool Rosé 2014 - £15 or thereabouts for stockists including Taurus Wines, Bramley and The Wine Reserve Cobham, see www.alburyvineyard.com

Made on the south-facing chalk slopes of the Downs near Guildford, 2014 is the best vintage yet of this organic wine. Made from classic Champagne varieties Pinots Noir and Meunier, it has lovely red fruit characters, citrussy acidity and real depth of flavour.

Williams Chase Rosé 2014 – £14-15 from The Good Wine Shop, Corks Out and Harvey Nichols, £13.50 from Tanners – also look out for magnums

This beautifully packaged rosé sounds English, but is very definitely French, from the Lubéron (Peter Mayle country for those old enough to remember him). I found a beguiling mix of asparagus and rose petal aromas with lovely freshness on the palate.

Spring is here - or is it?

Pity the poor wine writer. As I pen this column, the weather is looking fairly Spring-like. I can hear birds tweeting (“our” Greater Spotted Woodpecker was heard for the first time this year a couple of days ago), the snowdrops and hellebores are in full swing and the buds of the first daffodils are swelling. Skies may be grey but the rain, thankfully, has let up and the sun, when it appears, has a growing warmth to it.

However, what the weather will be doing by the time you read this is anyone’s guess.  Spring may have well and truly sprung and we could be seeing signs of incipient Summer to come; or the battering of Atlantic storms may have returned; or we may have been given a dose of the proper Winter weather that failed to arrive at the usual time – or indeed anything in between.

Pity me, then, having to make suitable wine recommendations for this time of year. I know, in all our preoccupation with flooding , storm damage and potential loss of life, no-one (quite rightly, before you get a lynch mob together) stops to think of the impact on wine writers – even ones with their tongues firmly in their cheeks.

So when is Spring, officially? In calendar terms, the year is divided into the four seasons, each lasting three months, with Spring spanning the beginning of March to the end of May. This is solid enough logic, though I cannot remember when we last had a Summer that lasted from the beginning of June until the end of August.

The Spring Equinox, on or around 21^st March, is the point at which we reach equal amounts of daylight and night-time in a 24-hour period, so there is a case for making this the official first day of Spring. Ecologists apparently add in a couple of extra seasons to cover those in-between times of the year which are neither one thing nor t’other, referring to the “prevernal” period following the “hibernal” (winter) and preceding the “vernal” (Spring). We must be getting at least prevernal by now I feel.

No matter what the weather is doing, the days are getting noticeably longer and nature is getting on with the business of springing back into life after the cold and wet (OK mostly wet) Winter. Ergo, it is, I reckon, Spring. Sort of.

Springtime-ish drinking recommendations

Peter Yealands Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2013 – usually £9.99, but currently on offer at Sainsbury’s (until 4^th March) at £7.49

It can jar a little to see a 2013 label, when we’ve only just said goodbye to that year in this hemisphere. Downunder, of course, they’re ahead of us in wine terms and are now thinking about getting ready for the 2014 harvest.

This Sauvignon Blanc is made by gifted young winemaker (and fellow glases wearer) Tamra Washington, whose wines for Yealands Estate have garnered many an award recently and show a restraint that is unusual in Marlborough. This wine manages to combine the typical vibrancy of Kiwi Sauvignon with the fine acidity and class of Loire versions. Aromas of elderflower and tropical fruit pave the way for a crisp palate with juicy acidity and mouthfilling fruit, with an edge of blackcurrant leaf. In short, all the verdant freshness of Spring in a glass, even if Spring itself has gone AWOL.

I remember being looked at askance by a French sommelier when I and my fellow diners asked for a bottle of rosé to accompany our lunch. It was early March, the sun was out and the temperature had hit 18⁰C – bingo! Rosé time, we thought. Except, we were in Provence, where, as far as they were concerned, this was still woolly jumper and warming red wine weather; the sommelier advised us that they had not yet taken delivery of any rosé that year, so we tugged our metaphorical forelocks  and ordered a bottle of Vacqueyras. The shame!

However, in this country, days like that are rare enough to warrant being greeted with open arms and a glass of the pink stuff, so you should ensure you have some suitable rosé squirreled away.

M de Minuty Côtes de Provence Rosé – currently £10.99 if you buy 2 bottles at Majestic (usually £14.99) for the 2012. Taurus Wines of Bramley will be getting their consignment of 2013 in soon, which will have more freshness  - and Surrey Advertiser readers can benefit from a special reader offer of £10.99

I have a soft spot for the pale negligée pink rosés of Provence, whose gentle colours and herb-tinged flavours are so redolent of summer days.  M de Minuty is one of the most consistently enjoyable Provence pinks that I’ve tried over the years and has a loyal following in this country – and it comes in one of those curvy “Bardot” bottles.  

Torres Viña Sol – widely available at around £7

The sun in the name and on the label make this eminently suitable for this time of year, when we yearn for the sun to brighten and warm the days. This venerable wine was made for the first time back in 1963 (when it was labelled “Spanish Chablis”; those were the days) by the then young gun Miguel A Torres. Viña Sol was intended to bring modern winemaking to Spain and was made then, as now, without oak, the Grenache Blanc and Parellada grapes fermented at low temperature to preserve freshness and fruit. Crisp Granny Smith apple flavours combine with the weight and white pepper of the Grenache to make a delicious lunchtime wine (especially as it’s just 11.5% alcohol).

Through a glass, darkly...shattering wine preconceptions

As a wine writer, it’s part of my stock in trade to shatter other people’s misconceptions about wine.  These are the kind of bombshells I like to throw at you, you know the kind of thing:  sherry doesn’t have to be sweet and is perfectly safe for the under 65s to drink!  White wine is often better than red with cheese!  Riesling is a top quality grape variety and shouldn’t be ignored!  It really is OK to drink Beaujolais, a lot of it is very good!

You’re probably reeling from that lot for starters, so take a moment to compose yourselves while I press on.  Yes, it’s all very well when I’m the one dishing out the home truths – but what about when I’m faced with my own “No!...Really?” moments?

To wit, a mixed case of wines from Aldi arrived on my doorstep recently.  I’d never considered buying wine from them, thinking it unlikely that a discount supermarket would be investing much effort into its own-label wine range.  Well readers, I must say I was pleasantly surprised in some cases.  I also took the opportunity of a residents’ meeting to try them out on a group of unsuspecting neighbours – without at first revealing where the wines had come from.   Far be it from me to suggest that Surrey drinkers know not to look a vinous gift horse in the mouth, so to speak.  However, they seemed happy enough to drink them and were suitably surprised at the quality for the price.

I especially enjoyed these bottles from the selection:

The Exquisite Collection Côtes de Provence Rosé 2012 - £5.99

A pale pink blend of Grenache, Cinsault and Syrah that delivers gently fruity, rose-petal scented flavours and bags of refreshment.

The Exquisite Collection Rias Baixas Albariño 2011 - £5.99

Albariño is a classy white grape that makes crisp whites with an alluring blend of freshness combined with a hint of stone fruit – peach in this case.  It may not be the best Albariño on the market, but at this price, well-chilled and served with something fishy, you can’t go wrong.

The Exquisite Collection South Eastern Australia Shiraz 2012 - £5.99

I normally avoid wines labelled South Eastern Australia like the plague – this denomination is a catch-all that covers a geographical area roughly equivalent in size to western Europe.  Would you buy a wine that was “produce of various members of the European Community”?  Only to slosh into sangria or to mull, or to play a cruel trick on a wine snob, I imagine.  I hope I haven’t given you ideas there.  In any case this has a tasty mix of dark berry fruits, blackcurrant, bitter chocolate and something savoury, even slightly wild about it, thanks to the inclusion of Cabernet Sauvignon, Durif and a sprinkling of Petit Verdot in the blend.  At 14.5% alcohol it packs a punch, but would stand up admirably to smoky barbecue fare.

Crémant du Jura 2010 - £6.99

This 100% sparkling Chardonnay from the tiny Jura region in eastern France delivers sensational quality for this price.  I recently served this at a wine dinner and, very gratifyingly, it drew gasps of disbelief (and appreciation) when its identity (and price) was revealed.

I often puzzle over the worth of tasting notes for wines.  Is there really any point in trying to convey to other people how a wine tastes to me?  Who’s to say whether a wine smells of strawberry rather than raspberry or cherry – are such things not in the eye (or nose) of the beholder?  Nevertheless I soldier on, reassuring myself that I’ve been at this for a few years now and have honed my skills to such a degree that I am able to communicate something useful to distinguish one wine from another.

Yet again, however, my high falutin’ thoughts on my own worth were brought crashing down to earth by my son the other day.  I was tasting a rather classy Italian Sauvignon Blanc – Vie di Romans “Piere” Sauvignon Blanc 2009 to be precise, available from independent merchants, including Laithwaite’s, at around £26 a bottle.  My son asked to try the wine and of course I obliged.  After a second of reflection he said, “Mmm it’s really fruity, but not sweet and kind of tangy. I love this kind of wine – yum.”  Here he is again, this time describing the Portuguese red wine, Marco de Pegoes Terras do Sado 2010 (£7.99, or £6.49 if you buy two bottles from Majestic), “It smells soft, musky.  Mmm is tastes so nice it makes you want to have another sip.”   He’s ten years old. 

I should stress that I only ever let him have a sip of wine, before you think of grassing me up to social services, but he’s obviously been paying close attention to those sips over the course of his brief tasting life and I am now seriously considering letting him do all my tasting notes in future.