Summer wine survival kit - part 2

The Ray Mears of wine is back. Last time I gave some recommendations for rather posh rosés; now I turn my attention to white and red wines.

Refreshing whites

Even those of you who are resolutely red wine people must find yourselves drawn to something cold and crisp at this time of year. Here are some ideas to help you explore beyond Kiwi Sauvignon and Pinot Grigio.

Hofman Weisser Burgunder Trocken 2014 - £13.95 from slurp.co.uk

Sort of familiar, soft of not. It’s not quite Pinot Grigio, but its sister (brother?) grape Pinot Blanc and it’s from Germany not Italy. Not a showy wine, but with refreshing stone fruit it has the substance to stand up to food.

Tyrrell’s Lost Block Semillon, Hunter Valley 2013 – around £12.49 from winedirect.co.uk and independents

This is in the same mould – a light (just 11%) wine that is all lemon/lime flavours and suited to drinking on its own, but with a surprising ability to stand up to vinaigrette-drenched salads.

Château Bel Air Perponcher Réserve, Bordeaux 2014 - £8.50 from The Wine Society

Sauvignon blanc fans, it’s time to get the white Bordeaux habit. This fruity, fresh and easy-drinking example is a blend of Sauvignon blanc, with some Semillon and a little Muscadelle that says “drink me”.

Lip-smacking reds

A summer wine’s first duty is to refresh – something that is easier for a chilled white or rosé to achieve. But reds can still find a place in the summer months.

Tesco Beaujolais 2014 - £4.49

Lightly-chilled (in fact I wouldn’t recommend letting this get up to room temperature) on a sunny day, you can’t ask for more for under a fiver. Plenty of juicy, crunchy fruit and a brush of tannin make this a great Gamay for a picnic. For a taste of more “serious” Beaujolais, seek out Domaine Lagneau Régnié, “Cuvée Gérard Vieilles Vignes” 2013 - £11.25 from Stone Vine & Sun.

Bradshaw Pinot Noir 2012 - £4 from Asda

This has to be one of the best wine bargains around, in fact I think it’s almost criminally underpriced. Behind the beautiful peacock Art Nouveau-style label is a Pinot Noir from Romania with, at this price, astoundingly good, fragrant, cherry fruit. Chill lightly and drink up! 

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.

Wine-ing in the great outdoors

Summer’s long and, currently, balmy evenings are here and it feels like you haven’t really made the most of them until you’ve enjoyed something cold and (in my book) alcoholic in the garden. We have even had the weather to eat comfortably outside of an evening, so I feel duty bound to offer some helpful hints for which wines to choose to fit the occasion.

Everyone loves a top 10 (or Top 100 if you’re Channel 4), so here they are:

Top 10 Tips for Outdoor Summer Drinking

1.       Complexity and subtlety are the first casualties of outdoor drinking (along with any sense of moderation some might say), so now is not the time to uncork the treasured bottle of white Burgundy or fine claret that you’ve been squirreling away for a special occasion.

2.       Go for simple, bold aromas and flavours that can stand up to being drunk outside.

3.       At lunchtime, keep it light – both in terms of the wine style and alcohol level.  Prosecco fits the bill on both counts, as does Vinho Verde and dry Semillon from Australia. 

4.        Will you be dressing for dinner? If a vinaigrette dressing features on the menu, you’ll find rosé will stand up well to the combination of sharpness and oiliness. White wines can often end up sharp tasting and short of fruit when paired with a dressed salad; the tannins in red wine can react badly with it and make for a horrible combination. Rosé drinkers are spoilt for choice nowadays, but a classic match for a classic salade niçoise would be an elegantly pale, dry and savoury Provence rosé. If the dressing is lemon and/or lime dominant, I would go for a dry Riesling (try Austrian or Australian), or again a dry Semillon from Australia.  

5.       Barbecues, our default setting when eating outdoors, are the enemy of anything understated – you need to think big and bold.  Aussie Shiraz springs to mind, but think also of the savoury spice of a good Côtes du Rhône, or the pronounced smokiness of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo or a Chilean Carmenère.

6.       White wine drinkers have plenty to choose from too. I might sometimes deplore Kiwi Sauvignon, and its ilk, for its lack of finesse and downright “slap you round the chops” pungency – but it’s a blessing here. For a change you could also look for wines made from Viognier (weighty, peachy fruit) or Grenache Blanc (weighty, herbal/spicy flavours).

7.       If fridge space is tight, or you’re just in a hurry to cool things down, an ice bucket (or just a bucket) with ice AND water is the quickest way to chill drinks. Please don’t plonk an ice cube straight into a glass of wine – or not into mine anyway.

8.       Think about chilling red wine – on a hot day, red wine at room temperature can seem a bit soupy and unrefreshing. Chilling won’t suit all red wines – but what’s the worst that can happen? You can always just let it warm back up again. Reds that work well chilled need to have plenty of fruit and not much tannin – think Beaujolais or New World Pinot Noir.

9.       If guests arrive hot and thirsty, it would be both kind and sensible to offer something low in alcohol – or even non-alcoholic as an initial thirst quencher, rather than have them plunge straight into a glass of 14% alchohol red wine on arrival. I’m planning on unleashing my Aperol Spritz on guests this weekend, (3 parts Prosecco, 2 parts Aperol, 1 part soda water) which I reckon should be under 10% alcohol. I have it on good authority that non-drinkers (and designated drivers) now find elderflower cordial a bit meh, so try and find something new to tempt them. Try a lemonade punch – strong tea, lemon juice and sugar, topped up at the last minute with ginger ale and mint sprigs. You can of course also add rum.

10.   Finally, a word of warning: beware Pimm’s. It’s so inoccuous-tasting that you forget you’re drinking something alcoholic and it can slip down all too easily in the sun. All that fruit floating around in it does not, I’m afraid, cancel out the alcohol.

The shock of the new vs the tried and tested

I’ve been wondering about readers of this column recently.  It’s well reported that our appetite for consuming cookery programs on TV and buying cookery books to adorn our shelves is not a reflection of an increase in actual cooking in the UK.  We seem content to ogle Paul Hollywood as he expertly kneads brioche dough, or gaze longingly at Nigella as she coos over her billowy pillows of meringue or whatever – then find we don’t have time to cook anything ourselves. 

Do you read this, with a passing interest in the content (“Oh, tasting wine from Turkey this week.”) and then revert to your regular tipple of Pinot Grigio/New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc or Rioja next time you buy wine?  It’s not at all a criticism, I am genuinely interested to know if anyone out there is really encouraged to try something new by anything that I might write about. 

This is probably prompted by my own efforts to get out of a culinary rut (yes, by buying a couple of new cookery books) and making the food I dish up for my family less predictable – and (gasp) less reliant on meat.  I’ve been scouring the shelves of the supermarket in sections that I normally eschew as fit only for cranks who think they have “intolerances” to everything,  in search of new wave grains:  farro, quinoa, bulgur, giant couscous, Camargue red rice - all have been given shelf space in my food cupboards.  Some have even made it to the table, with mixed reactions from the rest of the family.  However, I am still (at this early stage at least) optimistic that we will find some new dishes that we all take to our hearts. 

Enough about my own domestic preoccupations, and onto what should be the primary concern of this column.  At this time of year, you are no doubt expecting wine recommendations for alfresco dining.  Has anyone EVER actually said that outside the world of journalism?  “Hello darling, I thought we’d dine al fresco this evening.”  Your other half would think you’d hit the Prosecco early doors.    

No matter, here are some recommendations for summer drinking (indoors or out) that I hope might encourage you to depart from the tried and tested and to strike out in search of glasses new.  

Grüner Veltliner

If you count yourself a Sauvignon Blanc fan, then I urge you to seek out this grape.  It’s a speciality of Austria and has plenty of zingy and zesty grapefruit-tinged fruit, with often more body and personality than many Sauvignon Blancs.  You might be interested to know that New Zealand wine growers have taken up the variety and are starting to produce their own versions.  It’s still early days, but look out for Kiwi Grüner in years to come. 

Laurenz V. Forbidden Grüner 2011, £11.99 from morrisonscellar.com

This is a hugely unfashionable style – light, fresh, a bit of natural sweetness and with low alcohol (11%).  But this is exactly the sort of wine that, if it’s put in your hand, I bet many of you would enjoy.  Bursting with fresh lime and grapefruit, and yes, a touch of sweetness, but the finish is clean as a whistle thanks to a bright streak of acidity.  This will cheer up even the greyest summer’s day.

 Domäne Wachau “Terraces” Grüner Veltliner 2011 - £9.99 from Waitrose

Drier and higher in alcohol, this is a satisfyingly tangy and refreshing wine, which has nothing skinny about it – perfect for what passes for summer weather nowadays.

 

Australian Riesling

Here I go again:  Riesling, Riesling, Riesling.  Will I never tire of banging on about this variety?  The short answer is no – not until I’ve convinced you all to love it as much as I do. 

If the idea of sweet Riesling is too scary, then stick with Aussie versions which are reliably dry. 

Plantagenet Great Southern Riesling 2010 - £13.50 from The Wine Society, £13.99 from morrisonscellar.com

I served this blind at a tasting recently (see what you Riesling haters have made me resort to) and many people loved the wine but were convinced it couldn’t be Riesling, which they were sure would be sweet and nasty and not bursting with zesty, waxy  lime fruit and resolutely dry.  Most guests thought it was Sauvignon Blanc (not sure whether to laugh or cry about that).  Need I say more?

 

Paulett’s Riesling, Polish Hill River, Clare Valley - £13.74 or £10.99 if you buy 2 bottles at Majestic

Despite the mangled name (is it from a river or a hill, it can’t be both) I have long admired this wine for its classic Clare Valley Riesling style – elegant lime and lime blossom fruit.

 

English fizz

The grape varieties may be nothing new, usually consisting of the classic Champagne trio of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, but the style is English all the way.  Our home-produced sparkling wines have yet again shown their quality by bagging medals at the major international wine competitions this year. 

Gusbourne Estate – wines from £24.99 to £29.99 online at gusbourne.com and some independents

This newish producer in Kent managed to take home gold medals in each of the “big 3” competitions (International Wine Challenge, Decanter World Wine Awards and the International Wine and Spirit Competition) this year – a stunning achievement.

 

Ridgeview Bloomsbury 2010 - £24.99 from Waitrose

For my money Ridgeview are the most consistent producer of high quality English sparkling wine across their range, though they failed to bag any medals at the big three competitions.  Like Spurs, there may be no silverware in the trophy cabinet this year, but they are undoubtedly a class act.

 However, I do have to beware that I don’t push this experimentation with the new too far.  As my husband remarked the other day, when faced with yet another new dish for supper:  “It’s just like wine, we’re never allowed to have the same thing twice.”  Sigh.  Oh go on, crack open the bottle of Oyster Bay.

Last of the summer wine

September, the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.  According to the French Revolutionary Calendar, we are bang in the middle of Fructidor, the name celebrating the abundance of the season.

For the young this time of year marks the start or continuation of their school or college life, and for some of us the return to a routine not based on making the indolent most of the fickle British summer weather.

Happily, September is the most reliably sunny month of the year in the South East of England, so we can look forward to the harvest-gold sunshine and intensely blue skies that characterize this changing season. The days get shorter and there is a sharper coolness to the mornings and evenings; birdsong becomes more apparent as cheery, cheeky Robins re-instate their territorial rights.

Everywhere there is fruit of the season, from trees laden with apples, plums and pears, to hedgerows of blackberries, sloes, elderberries, hips and haws. They constitute a veritable feast for the opportunist forager and are a sign of continuing bounty and re-birth for future seasons. Taking advantage of all this food for free really makes you feel part of the bigger picture, as nature calls, as it has since time immemorial, us to go out and gather the fruits of the field and to cook, bottle and store against the coming winter’s shortages.

If this whets your appetite for foraging, then you should track down a copy of “Food for Free” by Richard Mabey, originally published in 1972, when we first got a taste for ecology and all things green, and rarely out of print ever since. Once you've leafed through it, you won't be able to look at a hedgerow or roadside verge without getting a rumble in the tummy.

You can, of course, make wine from almost anything, depending on your own preferences, but also it is quite satisfying to make a rather stronger cordial from fruits and leftover cheap bottles of vodka, gin and brandy. Heather A has made some amazingly tasty, blow your head off Elderberry Vodka, which is tasty and not so lethal if mixed with tonic water, mking a warming alternative to a naked summer vodka. Try also steeping rosehips in gin, pears in brandy and, of course, your own brand of sloe gin would be stunning. Take it easy with all of these concoctions: they are perfect for sipping at home on a darkening evening when you don’t have anything too demanding to do. You could also pour some of your home brewed mixture over fruit and ice cream for a lively pudding.

With the distinct smoky whiff of Autumn in the air our palates are leading us towards something more mellow and satisfying than the flippant summer white and rosé wines we have been slurping with salads and bolting by the barbeque. Ideal for this time of year is a light red with a little zip of warmth and spiciness, nothing too weighty but with fruit enough to reflect the season. Words like silky, mellow, juicy and evocative seem reflective of the right wines to drink now.

Our selections this week:

Falanghina 2009, Terredora, £9.99, £7.99 if you buy 2, from Majestic. Falanghina is the name of one of Italy's many fascinating native grape varieties, even though it sounds more like a radical Middle Eastern organization. Its perfumed, fleshy body is just the kind of white that suits this time of year. 

Domaine des Anges, Ventoux Rouge 2006/7 - £7.35 from online merchant Big Red Wine Company. This wine proclaims itself to be from the place of angels, we think it is a heavenly balance of juicy damson fruit and soft spices.

Cuvée de Tête, Brouilly 2007, £7.99 from M&S. Beaujolais (for this is one) is hopelessly unfashionable, but maybe this will win a few people over: soft tannin, light, juicy strawberryish fruit with rose-scented overtones. If the sun makes an appearance, you can even chill it.

TH Pinot Noir 2009, Undurraga £11.95 from the Wine Society.The TH stands for Terroir Hunter, conjuring images of adventurous vignerons searching out long-forgotten vineyards in dangerous and remote areas of Chile . The truth is doubtless more prosaic, but the wine delicious, like a walk through damp woodland with the scent of bonfires on the air, juicy, ripe berries in your hand.

If you thought September marked the end of summer festivals, then joyfully seek out your wellies once more and head for Weyfest at the Rural Life Centre in Tilford this weekend, 3^rd to 6^th September.  Celebrate the countryside while you listen to new local bands and nostalgic giants of the past such as Focus (remember the yodelling?), The Zombies (still the epitome of ageless cool) and our very own Stranglers (Guilford's local gone global band). A “Strange Little Girl” might suggest a bottle of homemade Rosehip and Sage wine to accompany the day's rustic frolics, though we think that around your “Golden Brown” campfire, “Nice N Sleazy” and snugly wrapped against the damp, reminisce with wine to match the music, try the Domaine des Anges as you indulge your senses in this Surrey heaven.

“No Spring nor Summer beauty hath such grace, as I have seen in one Autumnal face.” John Donne

Walks with Wine

...or how to Indulge your passion and feel smugly righteous at the same time!

SATURDAY 11^th SEPTEMBER 10.30

Our first "walks with Wine" event will be this Saturday 11th September - meeting at 10.30 am at The Parrot pub, Broadford Road, Shalford, Near Guildford, GU4 8DW. (Tel: 01483 561400).


The walk will be approximately 2 hours and around 7 to 8 kilometres, it will be at a comfortable pace to suit most people and levels of fitness -something more than a stroll but certainly not a power walk. On this particular walk there will be gentle hills, but nothing too strenuous. Please wear comfortable walking shoes/trainers and bring water in case it is hot.

When we return to the pub we will be conducting a fun informative wine tasting followed by lunch.
Our charge for the event is £20 payable upon arrival by cheque to Red White & Rosé which is for the conducted walk, wine tasting and pub lunch. Please look at our website "Events" section.

We hope this appeals to you and we would love to hear from you to discuss further and/or confirmation of numbers as places are strictly limited. PLEASE DO PHONE TO BOOK - 01483 892678

A bunch of rosés

The psychology of summer: sunlight lifting the spirits, warm days, short nights, perfumed gardens, the happy social scene, the lightness of being; and sipping rosé wine.

We Brits have taken to the pink drink like the proverbial ducks to water and many of the bottles we buy are slung into the supermarket trolley along with our sausages, burgers and beans. There's nothing wrong with this, but it can be much more satisfying to search out quality and diversity and to buy from people who can advise you, and often give you a tasting too: our local independent wine merchants.

We are really lucky in the Guildford area to have three good wine shops, run by knowledgeable staff who are in the business because they love their product.

Our quest this week:  to find the perfect rosé wine, so we asked them all to recommend rosés that they thought were good value and that they felt happy to represent as their choice.

Rupert Pritchett of Taurus Wines near Bramley belies his years, as he tells us he has “been around for a long, long time”! It is a delightful experience to visit Rupert in his converted cowshed at Whipley Farm. Useful too, as, after stocking up on the wines, you can buy your animal feed next door. We were offered a whole host of rosés to try, but decided on one classic Provençal and one trendily dark-skinned Chilean.

M de Minuty 2009 is £12.99 and has the lovely and distinctive shapely bottle of Provence rosés, which was modelled, of course, on a woman. Or more prosaically it could be said to have a handy waist to hold on to. In southern France wine is often drunk “on the rocks”, further diluting the alcoholic content and flavour, so the fine but clear acidity of this wine has to be well pronounced to hold up to this treatment. The quintessentially Provençal pale shell pink colour, aromas of rose petals and flat stones baked by the sun and a clean minerality combine to make this a taste of holidays. Drink with or without food - great with grilled fish.

Torres Santa Digna Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé - £7.99. The Torres family name has been linked with Spanish wine for more than three centuries and in 1979 they opened a winery in the wine-grower's paradise of Chile. This rosé is a pale cherry colour with intense and exuberant aromas of red fruit and a hint of blackcurrant. It still retains Spanish roots and makes a great marriage with tapas, salamis - or butterflied lamb on the barbecue.

“Real men drink rosé” is a sentiment that Ben Watkins of The Guildford Wine Company in Shalford subscribes to and he is happy to prove this with his wide range of samples chilled and ready to taste.

His Les Cerisiers Côtes du Rhône Rosé- £8.49 or £6.99 if you buy 2 bottles is not as pale as a Provençal rosé and has more oomph. The weighty stone fruit and herbal flavours, together with a definite acidity, show this wine means business.

Canforrales Garnacha Rosado 2009 from La Mancha in Spain, £7.99 a bottle, is a lively translucent red, just the shade of Heather A's favourite lipgloss. Its delicate bouquet of tinned strawberries might not sound complimentary, but is a classic description of garnacha-based wines and rather delightful. It has a robust dryness and is the rosé to accompany barbecued bangers – a bloke's rosé.

“And now for something completely different”, Ben brought out a dinky little half-bottle called Innocent Bystander (£5.99), an Australian sparkling pink muscat. This quirky wine, crown-capped like a beer bottle, is bursting with effervescent tutti -frutti flavours and would be a wonderful gimmick to bring out for parties....with a straw! Sweet, pink, fizzy and only 5.5% alcohol, it could be just the thing to splash around with a picnic fruit salad.

Les Caves De Pyrène on the Old Portsmouth Road, Artington, always seem to be in a state of chaotic upheaval , but then “busy” is their middle name as one of the premiere suppliers to the restaurant trade, including Terroirs, their own vinous eatery in London. Our man on the spot, Adrian Scholes, when not engaged in endlessly complex conversations with suppliers and clients, unfailingly guides us towards unusual items for our opinion.

Unusual is perhaps just one of the first words that comes to mind when sipping Alquézar Tempranillo-Garnacha Rosado 2009, £7.99 a bottle. The colour and flavours call to mind sour cherries, so an acquired taste or perhaps one for those who want to get away from the “cute” label of many rosés. Treat it more like a summer red that you can chill down for full-flavoured refreshment.

By contrast and oh, such an easy quaff, is Bergerie de la Bastide Vin de Pays d’Oc Rosé 2009 - £6.49. A delicate shade of pink with good, balanced acidity, light and floral, but not at all cloying. Easy and undemanding drinking.

Do seek out your own local wine merchants, buy from a real person and you will get so much more enjoyment from your wine shopping.


Think pink
Most rosé wines are made pink in one of two ways:

• Lightly crushing black grapes and letting the grape flesh remain in contact with the skins for just long enough to colour the juice pink
• Blending in some red wine to some white wine, to make pink. Sounds simple (not to mention cheap) but this is the way that most pink Champagne is made
•  Always seek out the most recent vintage of rosés, as they don't improve with age. Look for 2009’s Europe and California – and we will soon be moving onto 2010s from the southern hemisphere.