Offbeat England
Sylvia Wu
English and Welsh vineyards offer many more grape varieties than just the Champagne trio and Bacchus – a fact I’m reminded of every year at the WineGB tasting, where the hunt for what’s new is always rewarded. Biddenden’s speciality, Ortega, displays citrussy, refreshing charm as a sweet wine (try the Late Harvest 2018, £122/ 37.5cl Bibbenden), but also shows potential as a dry wine, with solid peachy weight and Mediterranean perfume (Ortega Dry 2022, £14.90).
The estate also makes a Dornfelder red (2022, £16.40), a juicy treat with ripe bramble berries and mineral traces. Also in Kent, Balfour Winery is always at the forefront of innovation – the first release of its Albariño (2022, £25) features smoky stone fruits with a tight, saline palate, and a touch of residual sugar. From Surrey, Denbies’ Redlands (£15.99 Grape Britannia) is a non-vintage red blend that features two hybrid varieties, Rondo and Regent; its soft, sweet blackberries are easily crowdpleasing. I
n central Wales, where many are also trialling hybrids, Whinyard Rocks has opted for Phoenix, of German origin, to make its Bubbly Bubbly (2022, £35 Whinyard Rocks), the 2021 a cheerful fizz rich in green fruits, perfumed herbs and plenty of umami. Lastly, the newly launched Leonardslee, based in West Sussex, used a dash of Pinotage in its Brut Rosé 2021 (£45 Leonardslee), a nod to the owner’s estate in South Africa, Benguela Cove Lagoon.
Sebastián Zuccardi: Modern classics and traditions reinvented
Ines Salpico
The autumn tasting schedule is always an exciting mix of discovery and familiarity. Ideally, you’ll get both in one sitting. That was precisely what Sebastián Zuccardi, head winemaker at Zuccardi (Uco Valley, Mendoza), delivered at a recent tasting in London. The main item on the agenda was the 2021 vintage of the La Place-released Finca Canal Uco, a true Argentine modern classic showing balance, focus and outstanding ageing potential.
Also singing were the Fósil Chardonnay 2023 (2022, £55 Vagabond), a nuanced, vertical expression of the variety, and the Aluvional San Pablo 2021, an exciting new addition to the collection of paraje-specific Malbecs. But Zuccardi is also behind an exciting personal project, Cara Sur, recovering old vines of Criolla varieties in the Valle de Calingasta GI, north of Mendoza.
Among the project’s exciting collection are the dangerously drinkable and intriguing Moscatel Tinto (2022, £25.20 Les Caves de Pyrene) and Parcela La Totora (2021, £62.50 Les Caves de Pyrene) – Criolla Chica, from 80-year-old vines, like I’d never seen, moreish and complex with an endless finish.
Champagne beyond the toast
Tine Gellie
Oliver Grieve with quail, nam jim and carrot.
The ultimate wine for toasts, an ace aperitif and a flexible fizz for entrées, Champagne tends to defer to still wine by the main course. It needn’t, however, as demonstrated at a recent food and wine pairing competition. Now in its ninth year, Gosset Matchmakers, run by the oldest wine house in Champagne, founded in Aÿ in 1584, asks five sets of young chefs and sommeliers from the UK to match a savoury dish with one of its cuvées.
This year it was Gosset’s Petite Douceur Rosé (£60 Ocado, Waitrose Cellar). It’s an extra dry – a confusingly named style that sits between brut and the sweeter sec – with 12-17g/L of residual sugar and very long maturation. It’s rich more than sweet, so the red berry, Asian pear and mandarin notes make it an ideal match for afternoon teas or fruit desserts. But after judging the wine with Indian-spiced red mullet, scallop with plum and radish, lobster with carrot and almond, and deer tartare with nettle chimichurri, it opened my eyes to how versatile this misunderstood Champagne style is.
The competition winners were sommelier Camilla Bonnannini and chef Oliver Grieve from Albatross Death Cult in Birmingham, whose quail, nam jim and carrot dish was an elegant sweet…
Source : https://www.decanter.com.master.public.keystone-prod-eks-euw1.futureplc.engineering/wine-news/editors-picks-november-2024-543267/
