Back to work blues? There's a wine for that

The French have a phrase, “la rentrée”, that encompasses not only our own “back to school”, but also the notion of returning to work post Summer holiday.

How, having got back into the workaday routine, can we recapture some of the freewheeling spirit of Summer? Well, in a phrase that I am hoping will catch on, there’s a wine for that.

It’s a well-known phenomenon that the “best wine you’ve ever tasted” amid the azure skies and limpid seas of holiday, will magically turn to dull and ho hum when drunk back in the land of the 9-5 and everyday worries. But here are some wines from holiday destinations, tried and tested in laboratory (well, deepest Surrey) conditions, which can give you a reminder of sunnier days and still work their magic back on home soil.

Barbadillo Solear Manzanilla – on offer at £7.49 a bottle until 20 September at Waitrose

I wrote recently that dry Fino and Manzanilla sherries are one of my favourite summer drinks, so I heartily recommend having a bottle of this in the fridge. Fresh, very dry and with a hint of nuttiness and of ozone-y sea air, this is a wonderful aperitif style. Try it with salted almonds or with gazpacho on a sunny weekend lunch.

Hatzidakis Santorini Assyrtiko - £12.99 from Waitrose

This little piece of Greece from the Island of Santorini is surely the epitome of summer. Assyrtiko is a native Greek variety that reaches its apogee on the arid, volcanic soils of Santorini. Grapefruit acidity combines with a juicy stone fruitiness and a whiff of pumice stone to create a flavourful, refreshing mouthful, with wonderful texture. Anything involving seafood, olive oil and garlic will shine with this.

Cune Barrel Fermented Rioja Blanco 2015 - £10.49 from Waitrose; Tanners have the 2014 for £10.30

We mostly think of Rioja as a red wine-producing region – but a warming, oaky red doesn’t quite strike the sunny note we’re after here. White Rioja is less well known, but it is a great style for easing from Summer to Autumn. The flavours are fresh with yellow/green plum fruit, but also some weight and body, as well as spice from the oak fermentation and ageing. This will stand up well to roast or barbecued chicken.

Whispering Angel 2015 - £15.99 (as part of mixed case of 6 – single bottle £19) from The Wine Reserve, Cobham; £15 (if buying 6 or more – single bottle £16.99) from Taurus Wines, Bramley

Rosé has an almost magical property – it can make any glimpse of sun, no matter how fleeting, feel instantly summery.  Whispering Angel is beautifully pale and delicate, but with lovely, slightly herbal flavour and real persistence. Try it with the last of the summer salads, especially if tomatoes are involved.

Feudo di Santa Tresa Frappato Terre Siciliane IGP 2015  - £9.95 from organic specialists Vintage Roots

A perhaps surprisingly fresh, light and delicate red from Sicily, made from the native Frappato variety. With its light body and cherry fruit yet still food-friendly dryness, it is renowned locally as the perfect red wine for fish, and who am I to disagree? If you get a late summer hot day, it will take well to chilling.

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.

Think pink

I’ve been waiting for summer to arrive before writing about my recommendations for rosé wines.  And waiting, and waiting.  But it seems that “summer” is never going to really get into its stride, just come and go in fits and starts.  Given these conditions, where a sunny evening in the garden will be a rare treat that you must be ready to embrace at a moment’s notice, you would be well advised to have a couple of bottles of something pink ready-chilled in the fridge.

Contrary to what you might think based on news coverage, consumption of red and white wine has been falling in the UK in recent years.  It is our increasing fondness for the pink stuff that has been single-handedly responsible for keeping our wine consumption figures essentially flat.  

Rosé wines tend to fall into two styles – on the one hand, deep-coloured “saignée” method wines, whereby juice from a vat of crushed red grapes which has been left to macerate for a short amount of time, is run off to make a fairly deep-coloured and full-flavoured wine.   One the other, the pale pink, elegant wines which are classically produced in Provence.  These last are made by the “direct pressure” method, whereby red grapes are pressed, after little or no maceration, giving only a faint trace of colour to the juice.  Both styles have their fans and in general, ne’er the twain shall meet, with each camp viewing the other with suspicion and convinced that their own style of pink wine is the best. 

Here I’m recommending a few wines in varying styles – arm yourself with a few of these and, when the sun does decide to show itself, you’ll be ready for it. 

Señorio de Sarría Viñedo N⁰5 –   £9.99 from The Vineyard (Dorking), various independent merchants, including Harrods at £11.99

This wine is from Navarra, northern Spain.  Wines from here have a hard time establishing a separate identity for themselves, distinct from their more famous neighbour, Rioja.  What Navarra can do, though, is make a name for itself as Spain’s pre-eminent source of deep-coloured, intensely flavoured and food friendly rosé. 

 

The best known Navarran Rosado in this country is Chivite’s Gran Feudo, which is quite widely available for around £7.50.  It’s fine as far as it goes, but Sarria’s old vine Garnacha has more class.  The old vines give the wine an effortless concentration and a kind of gentle intensity (can a wine be gently intense?).  Strawberry and apple aromas leap out of the glass and continue on the palate, along with fresh acidity and a long-ish finish.  You could drink this on its own, but it can more than hold its own with things prawn-y and garlick-y. 

Miguel Torres Santa Digna Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 - £7.99 from Taurus Wines (Bramley) and other independent merchants

Miguel Torres is best known for his Spanish wines, but he has fingers in a few pies and this is one of his projects from Chile.   

Small-berried, thick-skinned Cabernet Sauvignon is never going to make a delicate pink wine, but this really is a wine for people who would normally drink red, but would like something  you can chill in the warmer months and drink on its own or with food.  A rosé purist would surely consider it out of order, but I rather like its full on, pure blackcurrant aromas, with more of the same on the palate, along with blackcurrant leaf and something more savoury that stops it being a complete fruit salad.  This could stand up to bangers, burgers or barbecued lamb.

Aldi The Exquisite Collection Côtes de Provence Rosé 2012 - £5.99 from Aldi

Yes, Aldi.  It might not be somewhere you would traditionally head for wine but, along with the unknown brand cheap cereals and spanner sets, they have now put together a pretty good and good value selection of own-label wines.  To spare your blushes, the word Aldi is restricted to small lettering on the back label – though if you’re anything like me you’ll be telling everyone where it’s from, just to see the reaction. 

This doesn’t pretend to be the finest Provence rosé, but it certainly looks the part:  pale, sea-shell pink colour in a curvy “Bardot” bottle.  The nose is fresh, with a hint of rose petal and the palate delivers a gently fruity experience.  £5.99 is a very fair price for it.

Aix, Côteaux d’Aix en Provence Rosé 2012 - £19.99 for a magnum from Majestic

If you like the understated charms of Provence rosé, but at the same time fancy givin’ it large at a summer party, a magnum of this should do the job nicely.  The magnum (the equivalent of 2 standard bottles) makes a nice statement of intent, looks great in an ice bucket – and the wine inside is pretty classy too.  Majestic will probably sell out of these, as they did last year, despite the underwhelming weather, so make your move sooner rather than later. 

Vidal-Fleury Côtes du Rhône Rosé 2012 – around £11.49 from amazon.co.uk and Hailsham Cellars (East Sussex)

Pink wines from the Rhône valley sit somewhere in between the pale Provence-style rosés and those deeper-coloured saignée types stylistically.  It has great freshness (surely a prime requirement of pink wines) and a lively palate with a hint of stone fruits about it.  I could happily drink this on its own, but it has enough oomph to stand up to wedding buffet-style food.

Days of wine and rosés

Rosé, like Champagne, is a wine that signifies more than just a drink. Champagne is shorthand for victory, celebration, excess even. Rosé shares some of Champagne's sense of occasion – it's a wine that has strong associations with the sun, the coming of summer, frivolity, holidays and some of the glamour of the Côte d'Azur.

When I hear the pop of a Champagne cork, I immediately wonder what the occasion is that's being celebrated. Similarly, when I see someone enjoying a glass of rosé, especially if the sun is out, I feel that I would like to share some of that carefree, holiday spirit.

Nowadays, with the ubiquity of pink wines, you can pick up a bottle of rosé made almost anywhere in the world, but Provence in the south of France can claim to have the longest tradition of making it. Grapes were probably brought here by the ancient Greeks to the colony they founded in Marseille in around 600BC. While we have no real way of knowing what style of wines they made, the Provençals are nevertheless keen to promote the idea that these first wines were also pink – so Provence has a claim to be the ancient birthplace of rosé.

Winemakers there are specialists in the art of making rosé – and they get lots of practice at it too, as 88% of wine production from southern Provence is rosé. Red wines account for just 9% and whites a measly 3%.

Provence is the only wine region in the world that specialises in the production of rosé and, despite its frivolous image, winemakers there take it very seriously. That typical pale negligée pink of a Provence rosé is a result of giving the red skinned grapes (usually predominantly Grenache, Syrah and Cinsault) a short period (as little as 45 minutes in some cases) of maceration after crushing. During that time the skins transfer some of their colour and flavours to the juice of the grapes. After maceration the grapes are pressed and the resulting pink juice is fermented into wine.

Of the legions of more deeply-coloured pink wines that adorn our supermarket and wine merchant shelves many are made by a different method, known as saignée, or bleeding. Here red grapes are lightly crushed to rupture the skins and put into a vat. The free run juice is run off from the bottom of the tank and then fermented. The really clever thing about this method is that the winemaker can get a bonus wine, a BOGOF, in the process. After running off the juice and fermenting it he will have a more or less deep-coloured pink wine. But he will also have the option to make a red wine made from the juice and grapes that remain after the saignée. This red wine – and this is the really clever part – will have been given additional concentration and fruit intensity due to the separation of the lighter coloured juice first.

While I can't fault the clever marketing that allows winemakers to produce two wines from a single batch of grapes, it's important to realise that rosés made this way will always be a different beast from their paler pink Provençal cousins. In Provence, the grapes that make rose have been selected, grown and made into wine with the single intention of making a pink wine. The gentle maceration period is also thought to produce a more subtle range of aromas and flavours than the saignée method.

Recommended Provence roses

Famille Négrel, Côtes de Provence Sainte Victoire 2010 - £9.99 from Majestic

Still relatively pale for a rosé, but with more richness and sappy fruit than lighter Provence styles, this is one to crack open with a meal. Salad niçoise would be a joy with this.

Château de Berne, Côtes de Provence Grande Récolte 2011, £9.99 from Majestic

On its own this wine impresses with its pure linearity. But with food the palate opens up and is able to cope with a wide range of foods. It even managed the seemingly impossible task of standing up to steak. A great all rounder rosé.

Château de Galoupet, Côtes de Provence Cru Classé 2010, £13.08 (for a 50cl bottle) from London Wine Shippers

This wine is a great illustration of the canny knack that Provence rosés have of being pale and delicate, yet having plenty of lingering flavour. I'd recommend this one for crab, or any other full-flavoured seafood.

Aix, Côteaux d'Aix en Provence 2011 - £19.99 for a magnum at Majestic

Clearly marketing is a strong suit with Eric Kurver, the Dutch owner of this domaine. His stated ambition on taking up winemaking five years ago was “to make the best rosé in the world” - I wonder how many people take up wine with the aim of producing a so-so wine? The masterstroke of bottling this in 1.5 litre magnums, with a bold label makes this a statement wine to bring out for summer celebrations. Luckily, the wine lives up to its own hype (leaving aside the best in the world moniker): fully dry, structured, and refreshing with plenty of lively grapefruit acidity.

Domaine OTT, Clos Mireille Coeur de Grain 2010, £27.95 from Roberson Wine

No discussion of Provence rosés is complete without the daddy of ambitious (with price tag to match) wines – Domaine OTT. This is a minimalist wine: pale, with a delicate, floral nose and a palate that is soft, savoury, peppery and persistent. Fine, refreshing stuff.