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.

The beautiful game - and the beautiful drink

Everyone knows that wine and football go together like, oh I don’t know, Posh Spice and a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Which is to say, not at all. Undeterred, I shall press on in my mission to tie together the fruit of the vine and the beautiful game.

Over the coming weeks, you can drink along-a-football with my handy guide to footballing nations and their vinous claims to fame. With apologies to Chris Evans, Vassos Alexander and Radio 2 (ie please don’t sue me), here’s my Top Tenuous of World Cup and wine. 

At Number 10 – England. I know we did win it once but the brutal truth is that we don’t look likely to do so again anytime soon. Our wine fortunes, however, have been looking up in recent years, so now you can be proud to toast the success (or, let’s face it, probably lack of it) with some top flight English fizz.

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Nyetimber Classic Cuvée 2009: winner of a Gold medal and the English Sparkling Wine Trophy at this year’s International Wine Challenge. It shows that we do know how to be world beaters at something. £35.99, down to £30.58 a bottle if you buy two at Majestic; £27.50 from The Wine Society and £31.99 from Waitrose.

A surprise package at number 9 is Switzerland, notoriously the target of a barb from Orson Welles, playing Harry Lime in the film The Third Man: “In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love…500 years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

The comment is hardly fair or accurate: they produced Swiss Army knives too didn’t they? Unbeknownst to many of us they have also been making wine for quite some time, but tend to drink most of it themselves.

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Look out for weighty, complex whites made from Petite Arvine and reds from Humagne Rouge. Alpine Wines (formerly Nick Dobson Wines) is the UK Specialist.

France appears at number 8. After their World Cup win in 1998, there have been mixed fortunes for France, both as a footballing and wine producing nation: domestic wine consumption is falling and increasing competition in export markets has put the squeeze on French producers.

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There is no doubting the class of French wines, and any wine lover is spoilt for choice when it comes to wine styles. From bone dry whites, to full bodied reds via lipsmacking rosés and not forgetting Champagne, there really is something for everyone. But please, spend over £7 if you want to find something worthwhile.  

In at number 7, Portugal’s football fortunes are essentially dependent on whether Cristiano Ronaldo has his goal scoring boots on. Wine-wise, Portugal has a much broader team to draw on, with a vast array of unique native grape varieties. Winemaking techniques have caught up with the quality of the raw materials, making this one of the world’s most exciting wine producers.

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Thrilling, complex reds from the Douro Valley. Crasto Douro Red is £10.99, or £9.34 if you buy 2, at Majestic. Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Douro red is also made by the same producer and is £8.25.

Italy, at number 6, can never be ruled out of the running when it comes to football, and the same holds for its wines. Second only to France in the global wine production stakes, we have probably all had our fair share of disappointing reds and mind-numbingly dull whites from Italy in the past. The quality revolution has come here too though, so dip your toe in and you could find yourself charmed by an Italian all over again.

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Fiano makes juicy stonefruit-tinged whites. Look out for Tesco’s Finest Fiano, currently down from £7.99 to £5.99.

  

Number 5 brings us to the Netherlands. Consistent performers on the pitch, they are also, surprisingly, a wine nation, albeit a small one.

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You’re unlikely to find any Dutch wine here in the UK, so probably best to stick with beer.

A shudder goes through the English at the combination of football and the country at number 4 – Argentina. Hand of God and all that. Best leave it at that and concentrate on their wine-making abilities.

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It’s all about Malbec isn’t it? Bags of fruit, barbecue and meat friendly: perfect summer red. I have a fondness for the greater refinement and Messi-like silky skills of Pulenta Estate’s Gran Cabernet Franc - £25-28 at Berry Brothers and The Good Wine Shop.

For England there’s no getting past the country at number 3 – Germany. So often the team who lead to England’s footballing downfall, they seem full of confidence and technical ability. What of German wines though?

It’s time we overcame our prejudices and had another go at German wines – many more Trocken (dry) whites from Riesling are now available, which should help to convince us that German wine doesn’t have to taste like dolly mixture.

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Louis Guntrum Dry Riesling, £8.95 from The Wine Society

At number 2, Spain, the current cup holders, are sitting pretty. It seems unlikely that they could triumph again, but they are certainly easy on the eye on the pitch.

Spain’s wines are pretty easy on the palate too – who doesn’t love the mellow fruitiness and hint of shoe polish of a Rioja Reserva?

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Great value Rioja Navajas Crianza from The Wine Society – textbook smooth and sleek Rioja style for £7.75 a bottle. 

And at number 1 – home nation Brazil may be more known for rain forests, poverty, those buttock-revealing bikinis and (possibly related) frankly dodgy body grooming practices. But it is also a wine producer and the UK is now its biggest export market, which leads me to conclude that I wasn’t the first person to hit on this wine and football connection.

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Carnival Sparkling Moscato NV £9.99 or Coconova Sparkling Brut £8.99, both from Marks & Spencer for some frothy fun.

As they say in Brazil, tim tim! Which must be Portuguese for “Come on Tim!” – how nice of them, if a little out of date now.

Awards! What are they good for? Absolutely nothing?

With apologies to Edwin Starr’s “War”.

Wine awards that is.  The summer of sport may have come to an end, but have no fear, for the wine awards season is now in full swing, with the winners awarded their own bronze, silver and gold medals in the major competitions.

But does it really make sense to judge wines and award them medals, just like Olympic athletes?  It’s not as if they’ve done something remarkable, like run really fast or thrown something a long way is it?

Awards are useful for a couple of things.  Firstly, pointing you towards a new wine that you haven’t tried before; and, conversely, confirming your already positive impression of a wine.  There’s nothing like having your own valued opinions confirmed by others for making you feel good.

And which competitions should you trust?  Some bottles are festooned with medals awarded in competitions that you have never heard of – do they really mean something? 

Australia, for example, has a well-established system of wine shows across their vast country.  Some well-performing wines can emerge from them looking like much-decorated army veterans, with rows of medals adorning the bottle.  In that country there is a strict training system for show judges, which is particularly hot on ensuring consistency of judging and on penalising any kind of wine fault.  So you can be sure that no wine that does well in Australia will be less than squeaky clean – whether your tastes coincide with Australian palates is less clear cut.

The Annual Wines of Argentina Awards, which have run since 2007, ensure they have a mixture of nationalities in their judging panel, which must surely make sense when export markets are so key for any major wine producing nation.  I am less keen on their policy of choosing one particular section of the wine business to judge each year – this time it was winemakers.  A more consistent and balanced set of results comes out of a mix, not just of nationalities, but background and experience.  Wine writers (ahem), educators, sommeliers, members of the wine trade – they all have something to bring to a judging panel.

Which brings me to the “big 3” of the UK wine awards jungle – the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA), the International Wine Challenge (IWC) and the International Wine and Spirit Competition (IWSC).  Each year, tens of thousands of wines are entered into these competitions and, around now, bottles with gold, silver and bronze medals proliferate on wine merchant and supermarket shelves.

I am a judge for both the IWC and IWSC, so can talk with confidence about the professional approach and rigour of these two.  Their judging procedures differ slightly – and DWWA differs again – but it’s interesting to see how, year in, year out, certain wines perform consistently well across the competitions.  This shows that, however the process might differ, the end results can be surprisingly similar – and quality will out.  And, let me stress, judges never get to know the identity of the bottles they are judging, beyond an indication of the wine’s origin and grape variety/ies.

To paraphrase E M Forster, two cheers for wine competitions.  They may not be perfect, but they are the best we’ve got.

Here’s a selection of wines I’ve tasted recently, or have long admired, and which have done well in competition this year.

Tilimuqui Fairtrade Torrontés 2011 – Argentina, £7.99 (but currently £5.99) a bottle from Waitrose

IWSC Silver – and Gold at the Wines of Argentina Awards

Sadly this 2011 vintage seems to be out of stock across most of Waitrose, though you might be lucky in your particular branch.  However, the 2012 is just as delightful – Fairtrade and organic, it is great value for money at full price and a steal at £5.99.  Torrontés flavours will not please everyone, with their tangerine peel and floral aromas, but give this a go if you’re feeling adventurous.

Amalaya White 2011 – Argentina, £7.65 a bottle from slurp.co.uk and other independents

DWWA International Trophy for dry aromatic wine under £10

I have to say I don’t like Decanter’s separation of wines into under £10 and over £10 for judging purposes:  a gold medal should be a gold medal, whatever the price.  The Decanter approach leads to a two-tier system where some golds are better than others.

That said, this is a cracking wine, made mostly from Argentina’s signature Torrontés grape, whose vibrant aromas are tamed with the addition of a little Riesling.  Dry, but intensely aromatic with hints of lychee, grapefruit and lime.  Drink on its own or with prawny things.

Plantagenet Great Southern Chardonnay 2010 – Australia, £16.05 from slurp.co.uk and other independents

IWC Gold, DWWA Silver

Plantagenet is a winery whose name crops up reliably across the major competitions.  This Chardonnay has great concentration of ripe but elegant fruit with nicely done oak to complement.  Also look out for their Riesling and Shiraz.

Cien y Pico “Doble Pasta” 2009 – Spain, £11.49 case rate at The Wine Reserve in Cobham

IWC Gold – also Trophy in the Sommelier Wine Awards

The best of old and new Spain in a bottle.  Full-on, ink-dark, brooding fruit from low-yielding ancient Garnacha vines, but clean and fresh too and bottled under screwcap.

Mount Horrocks Cordon Cut Riesling 2011 – Australia, £19.95 from slurp.co.uk and other independents

IWC and DWWA trophy

A year in which this wine didn’t score at least a gold medal in a major competition would be a shocker.  This Michael Phelps of a wine is an intense delight for the senses.  Lusciously sweet and piercingly bright Riesling from the Clare Valley, its flavours are concentrated by literally cutting through the vine’s canes in order to cut off the water supply as the grapes ripen.

Lustau East India Oloroso Sherry – Spain, £9.75 from Waitrose

IWSC Silver

The Lustau name is always a guarantee of quality when it comes to sherry.  Sweet, dark, sticky, figgy, nutty.  So unfashionable, yet so delicious and something to warm anyone’s cockles over the coming months. 

Spain: sun, sea and...sherry

Jerez, pronounced Haireth, is a vibrant white town shimmering in the heat of the plains of El Andalus and epitomizes all things that conjure up the earthy image of the heart of Spain. It is here that you find The Royal Equestrian School of Art with its magnificent Lipizzaner “dancing” war horses. As if this was not reason enough to travel to Jerez de la Frontera it is here too that you can tour (and taste) at the Sherry bodegas from the ancient to the modern state of the art.

After the incredible spectacle and emotions engendered by the skill and beauty of the Andalusian dressage, and the historical knowledge gained from the tour of the bodegas, escape up to the bars of the “mountain”-top Arcos de la Frontera. Here watch the soaring birds of prey silhouetted again the pink sky as the sun sinks and join the locals for jamòn, cheese and wine to contemplate the simple wonders of the world.

Alternatively, go to your local wine merchant or supermarket and buy a little bit of Spanish magic to warm the cockles of your heart as you shiver around the coals of your British barbeque. Here are our suggestions to tempt you to explore Spanish wines, beyond the realms of Rioja:

Verd Albera 2010, Celler Marti Fabra - £7.95 from The Wine Society, £11.99 from the Vineking (Reigate, Weybridge and Horley)

A bunch of French interlopers (Grenache blanc, Muscat, Grenache gris and Chardonnay) have tiptoed across the border to the far northern Spanish region of Empordà. That cocktail of varieties makes for interesting texture and a fresh, herbal quality – but it has enough weight of fruit to avoid being too skinny.

Gran Tesoro Garnacha 2010, Bodegas Borsao, Campo de Borja - £4.29 at Tesco

This is consistently one of Spain's most reliably good value wines. It's rather rustically built, but has plenty of dark fruit, with a rasp of tannin and 13.5% alcohol. Fine and dandy for a mid-week night in – with food.

Altos de la Guardia Reserva 2005 Altos de Rioja - £12.50 Laithwaites Wine

OK, OK, here's a Rioja to keep you happy. Plenty of juicy berry fruits with a tomato leaf edge which combine to provide plenty of refreshment. Very decent Rioja for the price.

Monasterio de Santa Cruz 2010 Artiga & Fustel, Tarragona £6.99 Laithwaites Wine

Mostly Monastrell (aka Mourvèdre in France) with 20% of Rioja's hallmark variety, Tempranillo. This shows how much wine you can get for your money when you look beyond the big name regions. Masses of dark, blueberry and blackberry fruit and inky, peppery spice.

Tinto Figuero 4 Roble 2009 Viñedos y Bodegas García Figuero, Ribera del Duero - £12.99 Old Butcher's Wine Cellar (Cookham, Berkshire)

The cult status of wines like Vega Sicilia has helped to haul up prices in Ribera del Duero, so this wine represents good value for the region. Very attractive black fruit aromas lead onto a palate of sweet n' sour fruit and softish tannins. Not a shouty wine, but a satisfying one to unwind with.

Lest we forget....sherry

It's not fashionable, it's not new – but none the worse for that.

One of the problems people have with sherry is that they don't quite view it as wine. And yes, it is fortified, but the lightest, driest sherries, Fino and Manzanilla, will be 15% alcohol – hardly more than a new world Sauvignon Blanc.

To help you get in the swing of sipping sherry as you eat, here's some pithy Jerezano food and wine matching advice: if it swims, drink Fino; if it flies, drink Amontillado; if it runs, drink Oloroso. Simples.

But what, you may well enquire, about that British favourite of sherries, sometimes known as Auntie's tipple - the sherry that we most associate with Christmas, Cream Sherry? Should we just ignore this secretly admired drink until log fires are burning? Certainly not. Amuse yourselves with these:

Frontera

A southern Spanish cocktail. If Pimm's is THE drink for June, then this is THE drink for August. Cream Sherry, tonic water, sprig of mint, slithered zest of orange and lemon. Any quantities to your own taste. Serve on lots of ice.

Or, steep a few raisins and almonds in sherry and use in or on ice cream; especially good with dark chocolate; Devilled barbeque sauce is improved beyond compare with a generous slug of this versatile wine. Finally, of course, you can drink it on its own, chilled or room temperature around your blazing barbeque and dream of the sunny climes from whence it came!

Waitrose's Solera Jerezana Rich Cream Sherry, £8.39 will provide the perfect ingredient for all these delights.

But in summer, we should be craving dry sherries, so here are some suggestions to try.

Tio Pepe Fino Palomino, Gonzalez Byass, £9.49, widely available

A benchmark Fino that is as bracing as a dip in the Channel. The epitome of dry and the king of aperitifs. Serve it really cold, with jamòn iberico, chorizo, prawns and the like. And treat it like a normal white wine, so keep it in the fridge and finish it within 2-3 days. Please don't let it languish on the sideboard until Christmas.

Waitrose Solera Jerezana Dry Amontillado, £8.39

Don't turn your nose up at supermarket own label sherries – these guys know what they're doing and all of Waitrose's sherries are sourced from the eminent Emilio Lustau, yet are ridiculously underpriced. Still in the realms of dry (in fact all sherry starts out dry, sweet sherries have sweet wine added to them) this is all nuts, caramel and tangerine marmalade. Try following the food and wine matching advice and serve it with the first grouse of the season on the Glorious Twelfth.

If you'd like to explore more in the world of sherry, then have a read of Heather D's blog on a whole range of sherries: http://heatherdougherty.blogspot.com/2011/07/if-it-swims-serve-fino.html

Ole!