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!

O for a beaker full of the warm south...

Etna is Europe's largest volcano and still most definitely active, forever puffing out noxious clouds of sulphurous gases and sending out molten lava flows.

Not, you might think, a prime spot for grape-growing. Yet Etna is home to many vineyards and winemakers, who casually point out lava outcrops which have encroached on their vines.

This is just one of the many surprises awaiting the wine-lover in Sicily. Vines have been grown there for millennia, first brought by those ancient traders the Phoenicians in the 6th-8^th century BC, then added to by successive waves of invaders including Greeks, Romans, Moors and Normans. Even the Brits have left their stamp on the Sicilian wine scene, being responsible for the popularity of the sherry-like fortified wine, Marsala. Its ability to keep without spoiling made it infinitely suitable as a tonic for the Royal Navy on their trips round the Med.

Today, Sicily has as much land under vine than Chile and produces a mind-boggling 11 million litres of wine each year. Along with Puglia, the heel of the boot of Italy, these two regions easily produce more wine than the whole of Australia. Where does it all go you ask? As less than 20% of it ends up in bottle, much of it is destined to be sold anonymously in bulk. And there has long been an invisible trade in deeply-coloured southern reds which have been used to beef up Italian wines from further north.

In recent years, however, Sicilians have been taking more pride in their treasure trove of indigenous grape varieties and the best producers are using them to make wines which are proudly and uniquely Sicilian in flavour.

Try these on for size:

Donnafugata Vigna di Gabri Contessa Entellina 2009 - £18.99 from Haslemere Cellar, Noble Green Wines (Hampton Hill) and slurp.co.uk

You might assume that somewhere as undoubtedly hot as Sicily would struggle to produce elegant white wines, but here's the proof that they can. This is two thirds Ansonica (confusingly also known as Inzolia, as if there aren't enough new grape names to get to grips with) with some Chardonnay. Nutty, mineral flavours and ripe fruit.

Cottanera Barbazzale Rosso 2010 - £10.23 from Astrum Cellars (Mitcham)

This is from the northern flank of Etna, which is cooler and wetter than much of the island – indeed they can get more rain in a year than Surrey. This is a blend of the delightfully-named Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio, who sound as if they could be brothers from a Mafia family. Sniff it and that hint of tobacco leaf might remind you of a red wine from Bordeaux. However the palate has the kind of soft and ripe tannins that you would never find there. The lively red fruit and leafy character make this a wonderfully refreshing food wine.

Fondo Filara Etna Rosso - £10.95 from The Wine Society

Compare and contrast: the same two varieties as the wine above, but this one has seen some oak ageing. It does have a glossy oak sheen on it, but also a delicious liquorice, mineral character. The plush fruit is balanced by a ripe tannic underpinning. Do not attempt to drink without food!

COS Cerasuolo di Vittoria 2008 - £17.49 from Les Caves de Pyrène

Cerasuolo di Vittoria is a traditional blend of two native varieties: Frappato and Nero d'Avola, which complement each other perfectly. Nero d'Avola gives weight and fragrance and the Frappato a distinct sour cherry bite. This is beginning to mature and has a wonderfully laid back feel, with the fruit being given space to evolve and open out.

Planeta Santa Cecilia 2007 - £19.95 from greatwesternwine.co.uk, £21.75 from slurp.co.uk

The Planeta family (yes, a real name, not a made up brand name) have probably done more than any other winemaking family to blaze a trail for quality winemaking in modern era Sicily. This wine, 100% Nero d'Avola, is a great example of a deceptively simple drink – the fruit it bright and clean, it could never be described as heavy bodied, yet it doesn't lack for perfume and flavour. A surprisingly delicate expression of the heat and exoticism of Sicily. If this is a stretch for your wallet, the Planetas are also involved in the wines of the Settesoli co-operative, including their good value brand, Mandrarossa.

In our stop-start summer, a beaker of these wines could be as close as we get to the heat of the warm south this year – enjoy.

Anyone for tonic?

Heather D ponders the appeal of quintessential summer drinks.

Is it Pimm's o'clock yet? Truth be told I don't care overmuch for the over-priced, gin-based drink, but I have immense respect for the marketing. Pimm's has so inveigled its way into our notion of the English summer that it feels as though the season hasn't properly started until you've downed your first pint of it. And with the accompanying cucumber, strawberry, mint leaves and such, it must include at least two of your five a day, surely?

But once we've got our obligatory glass of Pimm's out of the way, it's time to ponder which drinks offer just the right note of refreshment and a little celebration of summer.



Top of any list has to be a really good gin and tonic. The best G&T I've ever had was at the cocktail bar of Orient Express-styled, English/Russian restaurant Bob Bob Ricard in London. However, you'd need a cabinet full of specialist ingredients to reproduce it at home. Best to keep it simple and stick with quality gin and the best tonic. In fact simplicity is surely the key to the enduring popularity of G&T – how many of us would have the ingredients for and inclination to throw together a Cosmopolitan or a Harvey Wallbanger when we get in from work? A bottle of gin, some tonic, ice and either a lemon or lime – that'll work.

Big bottles of tonic are fine if you use them up the same day, but there's nothing like a slightly flat tonic for ruining your G&T. For perfect freshness, small bottles or little cans are the solution and, if you want to drink the best, then get hold of Fevertree tonic (£3.05 for four 200ml bottles from Waitrose and Tesco). Tasting this alongside Schweppes can be compared to watching a film in the cinema versus on your TV screen at home. The Fevertree has an extra dimension and great depth of flavour which will turn a simple drink into a cocktail.

The gin: whatever I say here, I'm going to get into trouble, as people can develop fierce loyalties which are not to be challenged. I will simply offer my own opinion, for what it's worth, make of it what you will.



My personal favourite is Tanqueray, which is from the same stable as market leader Gordon's and can be likened to the same gin, with the volume turned up. One of the key differences is that the alcohol level is higher – but it's not just that a stronger gin makes a better drink. Gin is really all about the various flavourings, known as botanicals, most notably juniper berries, but which can also include exotics such as coriander seeds, citrus peel, angelica and orris root. The exact mix of botanicals which each distiller infuses into the gin during its second distillation will influence the flavour profile of the final drink. The more botanicals used, the greater the complexity of flavour – but higher alcohol allows a greater range of the aromatics produced to be expressed in the gin. So a higher alcohol gin is a more high definition experience, to continue the television analogy.

Tanqueray (£20.49 recommended retail price) is,for me, the archetypal London Dry Gin: dry, with bright, citrus and herbal-medicinal layers of flavour which evolve and linger on the palate.

London Dry Gin, incidentally, is not necessarily distilled in the capital. Practically all the gins we see on supermarket and wine merchant shelves will say “London Dry”, but they can, in fact, be distilled anywhere. This may change in the future, but for now the term denotes a style of gin, rather than anything about its origin.

The water used to make any spirit is going to have an influence on its flavour. You only have to try a cup of tea in another part of the country to know that water is not really neutral at all and can be surprisingly variable in flavour. If you would like to explore the influence of water on gin, then look for a bottle of Plymouth Gin, made in, yes, Plymouth using the soft water of Dartmoor. This results in a softer, smoother gin than the London Dry – but importantly Plymouth (£17 recommended retail price) is also a higher strength spirit, allowing the seven botanicals used to shine.

But man cannot live by gin alone. Or probably shouldn't. If you tire of the grassy, citrussy kick of the G&T, who are the new pretenders, hoping to become the hit summer drink of 2011?

Croft Pink Port is a pretender to the summertime drinking crown. Port is making a play for a new, younger (not to say female) market rather than aged, pass the port to the right gentlemen's club frequenting, cigar-smoking oldies. The ladies have shown their fondness for all things pink, so why not a pink port?

They have cleverly overcome the potential problem of any fortified wine, which is naturally high in alcohol, by suggesting the use of port as a mixer. Why not try whipping up one of these at home?

Bubbles & Pink




 

9cl chilled Croft Pink

12cl Prosecco or Champagne

1.5cl Cointreau

Dash of bitters

Pour into a Champagne flute and garnish with a lemon twist

Croft Pink is available from Sainsbury, Morrison's and the Co-operative for £10.72 a bottle.

Pilgrimage among the vines

Sometimes it must feel like the French are doing it deliberately. Making life difficult for people trying to get to grips with their wines, that is.

Leaving aside the whole business of region names rather than grape varieties, no back label explaining what sort of wine might be in the bottle and an impenetrable Appellation Contrôlée system – is a Saint-Emilion Premier Grand Cru Classé better (in theory at least) than a Burgundy Grand Cru? We'll let all that go, but let's talk names.

You pick up a bottle, not cheap, and it says Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh on the label. Is that a grape variety that you've never come across before? A region? And while we're at it, how on earth do you pronounce it?

In fact there's nothing bloody-minded or contrary in the story of how things got so confusing in the world of French wine. It's simply a perfect illustration of local produce, consumed locally, with names, rules and customs that evolved over centuries when, for the most part, people were born, lived and died within the same small corner of the country.

If you lived in the Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh wine-growing area (yes, a place, rather than a grape) you would know that its white wines are so labelled. The grapes involved would probably be a blend of gros and petit manseng, possibly with some petit courbu or arrufiac as well. Travellers from elsewhere in France would be every bit as confused and intrigued as you or I if they ever found themselves in Southwest France, home to Pacherenc and a host of other little-known wines and grape varieties.

Southwest France is the name given to the rather rag tag band of wine appellations lying roughly between Bordeaux, Toulouse and the Pyrenees. Sometimes it's hard to see what unites them – and in truth, sometimes, there is no real link between the wines you find here. However, one thing that all these little mini regions share is that they lie on the ancient pilgrimage route south towards Santiago di Compostella – and where there's pilgrims, it seems, wines will follow. Now, wine pilgrims with an adventurous bent will find it a rewarding area to explore.

The same vineyards which produce white wines labelled Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh also make red wines, this time called Madiran, from the aptly-named tannat grape. As you might imagine, this grape is naturally high in tannin (and acidity) and makes some of the densest, monster reds you will ever encounter – though they can also age surprisingly gracefully.

Or you can stop off in Fronton, which supplies sappy, robust and spicy reds and rosés made from the Fer Servadou grape to the thirsty inhabitants of nearby Toulouse.

Beyond Toulouse is Gaillac, where Fer Servadou is known as Braucol (still with me?). This same grape is also known as Mansois in the tiny appellation of Marcillac. Confused? And we haven't even touched on Negrette, Pinenc or Duras yet.

Heather D had the chance to immerse herself in the wines of the region (not literally you understand) while working on behalf of Southwest France at the recent London International Wine Fair. Having tasted her way through 77 wines, these are her picks of the Southwest.

Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh 2010, Domaine Capmartin, £10.30 from www.greatwesternwines.co.uk

There has to be a Pacherenc in the list and this one typifies a modern, fresh style. Light bodied, floral, crisp, dry and tangy – and somehow unlike anything else you've tasted. This is mostly gros manseng with a little arrufiac and petit manseng.

Côtes de Gascogne, Les 4 Réserve, Domaine du Tariquet 2009, £9.40 from Wineservice of Lingfield

Gascony, famously the home of d'Artagnan, the fourth musketeer, is also home to the family-owned Tariquet winery. Most Côtes de Gascogne is pretty simple, fruity and crisp stuff. This one, an intriguing blend of gros manseng, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and semillon has a hint of floral, slightly peachy fruit – a gentle introduction to the region.

Saint Mont, Le Faîte 2009, £14.99 from Adnams (branches include Richmond)

Gros manseng makes another appearance here, this time joined by arrufiac and petit courbu. Save this wine for food – for a white wine it's surprisingly beefy, but the crisp acidity keeps the fruit nice and juicy. An interesting alternative to oaked chardonnay.

Irouléguy, Xuri 2009, Cave d'Irouléguy, £15.49 from les Caves de Pyrène of Guildford

This may look like an incomprehensible list of names from a Tolkein novel, but in fact this is simply our, by now, old friends gros manseng, petit manseng and petit courbu – but grown in the Basque region of Irouléguy, literally in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The aromas are honeysuckle and exotic fruits, while the palate is bone dry and bracing – a real original.

Marcillac, Lo Sang del Païs 2009, Domaine du Cros, £10.99 from les Caves de Pyrène

Marcillac is the region, the grape is fer servadou (often also called mansois here). Lo Sang del Païs means blood of the land in the local Occitane language, so the rather delicate nose ,with a whiff of violets, might surprise. The palate, however, is indeed earthy, with a refreshing acidity. This is what you might call a wine bar wine – great with some rustic finger food.

Saint Mont, Le Faîte 2007, £16.99 from Adnams

The red twin to the white above, this is similarly big-boned and needs decanting, or at least opening well in advance, in order to open out and soften a little. This is mostly the fiercely tannic tannat grape, with some pinenc and cabernet sauvignon, and has big, bold flavours of liquorice and chocolate.

Madiran, Château Bouscassé Vieilles Vignes 2006, £29.99 from les Caves de Pyrène

Bouscassé is one of the top estates within Madiran, and this is a great illustration of the power and poise of the best wines that the tannat grape can make. Smoky, fragrant, full-bodied but with succulent fruit. This will keep on developing for a few more years to come.

Madiran, Château Montus Prestige 2002, £44.99 from les Caves de Pyrène

Both these Madirans are made by the same man and both are 100% tannat, so this is a chance to explore the influence of terroir. The extra age also gives you a chance to see how tannat ages – this wine is full-bodied, rounded, satisfying, long-lasting and is a truly authentic expression of a unique wine style. A word of warning – decanting is needed as there is quite a sediment in the bottle.

Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh, Brumaire 2007, £22.49 for a half bottle from les Caves de Pyrène

Back where we started, with Pacherenc. Brumaire is the name of one of the months from the French revolutionary calendar and equates, more or less, to November, when the grapes for this dessert wine were harvested. Brume means mist, which conjures up images of ghostly figures moving through the vineyards, their cold-numbed fingers searching out bunches of nobly rotten grapes. That may be poetic licence, nevertheless the wine is hauntingly delicious, with layers of honey, tropical fruit, caramel and beeswax in a lusciously sweet mouthful – but with a beautifully fresh, clean finish.

Australia's royal family

The Aussies may not have a queen of their own (Dame Edna Everidge excepted), but they can claim to have some wine royalty in the form of the self-styled Australia's First Families of Wine.

Heather D had the pleasure of meeting quite a few of them as part of a “speed tasting” event recently. Each producer had just three minutes to talk about their winery and to conduct a tasting of one of their wines for a group of wine writers and bloggers. It wasn't relaxing for anyone involved, but certainly forced us to talk to many more winemakers than we normally would in one day, never mind in 45 minutes.

Ross Brown of Brown Brothers

Luckily, there then followed a much more leisurely lunch, courtesy of wine bar/restaurant Vinoteca at foodie hotspot of Smithfield market in the city of London – accompanied of course by more of the First Family's wines. As the saying goes, it's a dirty job...

Far too many of us wine drinkers think that Australia's wines are nothing more than over-oaked and over-here chardonnay and cab-shiraz produced by big brands with no real connection to a particular place. The mission of the First Families is to encourage us all to explore the wealth of wines made by family-owned wineries, who have a real connection to their region, giving their wines a sense of place. In short, they are not simply the wine equivalent of an alcoholic fruit jelly.

That's not to say that these are micro-wineries, lavishing attention on tiny quantities of hard to find wines that they make in their garage and then sell at astronomical prices. Many of the names involved are well known to UK drinkers and represent sizeable concerns whose wines are widely available in this country – the likes of Brown Brothers, Yalumba and d'Arenberg. So get thyselves to a wine merchant and seek out these blue-blooded Australians.

Standout wines from the tasting:

McWilliams Lovedale Semillon 2005, £25 from The Wine Society, Berry Brothers & Rudd

Semillon from the Hunter Valley can rightly be claimed as a unique Australian wine style. In its youth, dry semillon resembles nothing more than (lightly) alcoholic lime juice and you could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. Give it around five years in bottle, however, and delicious honey, toasty and lanolin aromas and flavours emerge – this one is like tropical marmalade on toast. Sauvignon blanc lovers looking to widen their drinking horizons could do far worse.

Tahbilk Viognier, 2009, £11.99 from slurp.co.uk

The Tahbilk winery, north of Melbourne in relatively cool-climate Victoria, has long been famed for its delicious marsanne. To show they are no one-trick pony, this great value viognier is a wonderfully characterful mouthful, balancing the natural weight of the grape with lovely hay-like freshness. Many viogniers can be too weighty, not to say obese, and offer little refreshment – this one is different. Great for summer lunches in the sun.

d'Arenberg Money Spider Roussanne 2009, £11.99 at Bibendum or www.everywine.co.uk

Chester Osborn, fourth generation of his family to make wines at their McLaren Vale winery, is no shrinking violet, famed for his loud shirts as well as his esoteric (but also cannily memorable) wine names. Their reds are an exuberant expression of McLaren Vale terroir, but I was captivated by this deceptively delicious wine. There is no oak (in fact none of these whites has seen any oak) but instead many layers of flavour, from greengage plum to herbs to wax crayons. Lots going on, but light on its feet.

Jim Barry The Lodge Hill Riesling 2008, £9.67 from slurp.co.uk, Hennings Wine Merchants (branches in Pulborough and Petworth)

Calling all sauvignon blanc drinkers – get your chops round some Australian riesling and you'll wonder why you got so excited about the two-dimensional charms of most Kiwi sauvignons. Riesling shares the lively acidity and fruity-floral combination of sauvignon – but most sauvignon needs to be drunk up within a year of the vintage (not a problem in our house I hear you cry) before it becomes more like cat's pee and tinned peas than gooseberry. Riesling, by contrast, becomes only more interesting as it ages – this is beautifully fresh for a three year old wine, with limey, mineral acidity. Mouthwatering stuff.

Yalumba The Scribbler Cabernet Shiraz 2008, £12.95 at www.slurp.co.uk, www.everywine.co.uk, Berry Brothers & Rudd

Generally I find Yalumba's red wines too much in the mould of the typical Aussie fruit bomb, which have so much ripe, sweet fruit and alcohol that I can't imagine what you could possibly eat with them. Blackcurrant jam on toast, perhaps, though that could make for a hardcore breakfast.

This wine, though, has much more than just fruit going on – there is a medicinal edge, going towards mintiness, and a leathery whiff about it. The tannins are soft and there is a welcome herbal lift. Definitely a three-dimensional wine.

Campbells Bobbie Burns Durif 2006, £10.26 from New London Wine

Campbells are famous for their glorious, sticky, “dates in liquid form” liqueur muscats – but they are best saved for the winter months. If you are toying with the idea of a venison casserole, or looking ahead to the game season, then this durif could be your man. Durif sounds French and it was indeed created by a Dr Durif in Montpellier by crossing syrah (shiraz) with the little-known peloursin grape. It's rare in France, but seems to thrive in the hotter climate of Australia, where it transforms into a kind of über-shiraz. Dark, brooding, herbal and medicinal, reminiscent of port, though not overtly fruity. Its savoury style would make a great match for something seriously meaty.

Wine highs and lows

It's rare for wine to make it into mainstream news, but it has made a couple of daring incursions from its home in the food and drink pages in recent weeks.

One was to highlight the incredible prices being touted for Bordeaux's latest in a growing list of “vintage of the century” - 2010 in this case. Forget belt-tightening and talk of recession, the Bordelais can sell all they want of these super-premium liquid status symbols to cash-rich investors and just plain rich Far East wine lovers – even at £1,000 a bottle. That's a bottle.

No wine can ever truly be “worth” £1,000. And the sad thing is, these precious commodities may never actually be drunk, merely traded and sold on over the years in order to realise a profit. What a fate to befall a drink that is made to give pleasure – although financial gain can bring pleasure in its own way.

The second wine ripple in the news pond was caused by the results of an “experiment” at the Edinburgh Science festival, where wine drinkers were asked whether they thought the wine they were tasting cost under £5, or between £10 and £30 a bottle. Overall, most people were right only half the time – which suggests that they were either guessing at random, or that most people truly can't tell the difference between the posh and the plonk.

We have our own perspective on this story. A popular format for the wine tastings we run is a blind tasting, where our guests can't see the identity of the wines they are drinking. And a popular question is to ask if people can spot a more expensive wine. We do this, not simply to identify the cheap dates in the group (though that is useful to know), but to see which wines people really prefer, when they can't see the label.

Very generally speaking, there's a 50/50 split between those preferring the posh stuff to the everyday. Heather D's highly unscientific conclusion is that it is mostly guided by familiarity. If someone is used to drinking classed growth claret, they are going to be attuned to its characters and be able to spot them in a blind tasting. If they are more used to full-on, straightforwardly fruity wines that you can pick up for around a fiver, again they will recognize those same characters blind. And probably react with horror and face-pulling at the level of tannin and lack of overt fruit in a “posher” wine that costs many times more.

So what are we to make of all this? Is it pointless for us to spend more than £10 on any bottle of wine? We can't really tell the difference and the most expensive stuff has more in common with a piece of fine art than it does with anything that you might actually drink.

Looking to the positive, there are plenty of wines to be had for under £10 that are actually undervalued. Look for the out of fashion, the unfamiliar and, mostly, the Old World for value for money refreshment over the summer months.

Sherry

Sherry has got to take the biscuit in the value for money stakes. These fortified wines take years to produce and have a unique combination of flavours that can't be found elsewhere. Banish thoughts of dusty bottles of sweet brown gloop and grab a bottle of Fino or Manzanilla – the lightest bodied, palest coloured and driest sherries of all. Some salted almonds, a few tapas and an ice cold glass of this and you could be in sunny Andalusia instead of Surrey.

Sainsbury's Manzanilla Superior is practically given away at £5.49 a bottle.

Waitrose have the iconic Hidalgo La Gitana Manzanilla on special offer at just £6.99 a bottle until 24^th May.

Muscadet

In the same, whiff of bracing sea air vein as dry sherry, Muscadet can make a perfect aperitif wine, or is wonderful with white fish or mussels.

Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine sur lie 2009/10, Domaine de la Tourmaline - £6.99, down to £6.49 when you buy two bottles at Majestic is a good example of the combination of tangy acidity and ripe, slightly tropical fruit style of modern Muscadet. A must for a plate of moules marinières.

Beaujolais

Like Muscadet, you might reach for a bottle of this only if you're pulling on your Top Gun jumpsuit and aviator glasses, en route to an Eighties party. But overcome your aversion and you'll find Beaujolais has much to offer and makes perfect summer drinking, especially chilled on a summer evening. Its soft, cherry-raspberry fruit is super with some rustic charcuterie, beret and string of onions optional.

Hospices de Beaujeu Beaujolais Villages 2009/10 is also on special offer at Waitrose for £5.99 until 24^th May. Its gentle tannins and exuberant fruit make it a great match for cold meats and duck with Asian flavours.

Southern Rhône

We've all heard of Chateauneuf du Pape – but be prepared to part with at least £15 a bottle and, all too often, prepare to be disappointed. The value in this region is to be found in outlying areas that don't trip off the tongue in quite the same way, such as the Costières de Nîmes. The grape varieties are familiar, even if the region isn't – Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre, sometimes a little Carignan. The whiff of the wild herbs of the garrigue, a twist of black olive, ripe, spicy black fruit – and voilà, southern France in a glass.

Château Mourgues du Grès, Les Galets Rouges 2009, £8.84 from Les Caves de Pyrène of Artington, Guildford has all the herby, black fruit you could wish for – great for serving alongside a classy barbecue banger.