As I am forced to say over and over again, finding good-value wine in Britain has become a problem. Yes, I am sure that, if you are a hedge-fund manager you can get more or less anything you want, and won’t be overly aware of how much it costs, but for the rest of us, the situation is parlous. The problem is very largely Brexit-induced, emanating from the silly, yobbish, tit-for-tat duties introduced by Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak with an eye to spiting the European Union. This meant a quasi-infinite number of duty bands and endless, expensive paperwork for anyone wanting to export their wines to Britain. The little people simply gave up, and the only punters likely to remain in the game in the future are the big players who (as we all know) are not generally the people who make the best wines.
It is bad enough for those of us who eat and drink at home, but it is far worse for restaurants that want to use their margin on wine sales to make sufficient profit to remain in business. This means that a simple wine like a Piquepoul de Pinet, which they might buy for a fiver, will end up on restaurant lists at anything from £25 to £50. Those of us who know the value of a bottle of Piquepoul are unlikely to be happy with this. They might drink one bottle but not two. They might also decide they can’t afford to eat out.
These puerile duties have naturally had a knock-on effect on the supermarkets where most people have bought their wines since the better ‘offies’ like Oddbins went under. Aldi concentrates on the cheapest possible wines, some of which are really good for the price, but that is about all you can say. I don’t go to Sainsburys, Tesco or Morrison much, but Lidl has been disappointing lately too. Lidl has the advantage over its fellow German discounter Aldi of consultant Richard Bampfield’s ability to select from a very long head-office list. The better branches of Lidl had a weekly turnaround of really good wines at excellent prices. In the past month or so, however, my Holloway Road branch must have been downgraded, and now I have nothing to write home about – yes, there is a good Chianti Classico Riserva, and a decent Gavi, and a new ‘Deluxe’ selection, but to be honest, there is nothing really special in it. I, like most other middle-class shoppers, am now reduced to Waitrose.
Waitrose has very good wines, even in its smaller manifestations and there are frequent price reductions, not to mention 25%-off sales. For everyday wines I often buy from their obscure grape varieties selection which (I think) they bottle themselves, and get really good Gelber Muskateller, Trincadeira, Touriga Nacional and Piedirosso wines for just a little bit more than I used to pay at Lidl.
One thing Lidl’s Deluxe wine selection does have is an Amarone which they might get from Bolla in San Pietro in Cariano. Now that we have run out of old vintages of single-vineyard Masi wines for our new-year’s eve dinner, I am on the lookout for a cheaper alternative. We will see what Lidl’s is like, but I am not particularly sanguine. I want all that deep, powerful, coffee, chocolate, dried fig, morello cherry taste to go with my sausage and lentils. With new-year’s eve in mind I went to an extensive Amarone tasting at the Royal College of Surgeons. The best (in alphabetical order) seemed to me to be: Cantine di Verona (2016, also excellent Valpolicella Ripasso), Cecilia Beretta, Domini Veniti, Tenuta Santa Maria Valverde, Torre di Terzolan, Ugolini Vini, Villa Canestrari (which was as earthy as a zampone sausage, and none the worse for it) and Zyme.
In the second division were: Antiche Terre Venete, Azienda Agricola Borghetti Giampiero (lovely Valpolicella), Corte Figaretto, Falezze di Luca Anselmi, Giovanni Ederle, La Romiglia, Montezovo and Pieropan.
Colle Cerè was better for its sweet Recioto.
Last year they were trying to sell us the underperforming 2021 crus bourgeois from Bordeaux at the annual tasting. This year it was the 2022, and another pair of gloves altogether. Château Haut-Barrail came out top for me, followed by Châteaux Chantemerle (what a difference made by an ‘h’), La Branne, Lousteauneuf, d’Aurilhac and Le Crock. Finally, there were very good wines from Châteaux Tourteyron, Preuillac, Saint Ahon, Cissac, Dillon, Lalaudey, Paveil de Luze, and Tour Saint Fort. The best among them has a classic Médocain quality with lots of cassis or black fruits on the nose and will be drinking well two or three Christmases from now.
Bouvet Ladubay is the biggest sparkling wine house in Saumur in the centre of the Loire Valley. It is run by the Monmousseau family, in origin the same as the Monmousseaus of Tourraine, but the Saumur branch has long since gone its separate way. The tasting was held at Noizé in Fitzrovia, a French restaurant with a Michelin star which prepared some delicious canapés to go with the range.
I really enjoyed the 100% Chenin Blanc Saumur Brut, which seemed to do all that it was asked to do. It had the right weight, was bready, following up with citrus tastes – lemon, grapefruit - and with a dosage of 9 grams per litre, was far from being exaggerated. The 100% Chardonnay Crémant de la Loire was more nervy by comparison, more angular, which might make it better with fatty foods. I liked the vintage wine Trésor which added some Chardonnay to the Chenin, making for a powerful, appley wine. Ogmius is rare, aged in oak and available in magnums at £80 a shot. This may only be ordered in Saumur. The rest you can get from Majestic. The Brut is good value at £14.
They all slipped down nicely with the restaurant’s interventions: gougère, mushroom arancini, sole fritters and chicken liver parfait.
It is good to taste sparkling wine ahead of the festive season, and even better to try champagne. A tasting at the Glaziers’ Hall allowed us to revisit many of the grandes marques and meet up with some of our old favourites in the different ranges of champagne. You generally judge a champagne by its brut, as that will make up the vast majority of the house’s sales. Henriot’s is first class, wrought in a Pinot Noir-dominated style. I also very much enjoyed the 2014 Vintage.
I have never been a fan of the Pommery Brut, which always strikes me as a bit too well-mannered, too neutral, but the rather grand Louise has always been one of my favourite champagnes and the most recent 2005 was no exception.
Charles Heidsieck is now one of the most sought-after grandes marques and makes a lovely brut and a fabulous 2013 vintage. The Chardonnay blancs de blancs are to look out for here, particularly (but not just) the 2013 Blanc des Millenaires. Piper-Heidsieck is part of the same family as ‘Charles’, but the styles are different. The Pinot Noir seems to work for them. Piper makes a lovely fresh figgy rosé and the Essentiel Blanc de Noirs is also good, as is their rose-petal-like 2018 vintage.
Deutz is a grande marque we see much less of, but it comes highly recommended. Its Brut is a Pinot Noir-dominated wine redolent of raspberries, plums and incense. Pinot Noir leads in the 2016 vintage, which is truly superb, as is the Cuvée William (77% Pinot Noir). Amor is either a pure Chardonnay Blanc de Blancs or a rosé with a lot of Pinot Noir. Both are excellent, but I think I prefer the rosé.
Gosset is similar to Deutz in that it is far less well-known than many other top champagnes. They do not perform the second, malolactic fermentation which means that the wines are much slower to come round, and can be sharp to start with. This is more a Chardonnay house, and Chardonnay predominates in the delicious Grand Rosé. Being a Chardonnay house, there is naturally a first-rate Blanc des Blancs and a wonderful 2016 vintage. Gosset also makes an Extra Dry with 17 grams residual sugar which is surprisingly seductive.
Billecart-Salmon is another less-well-known grande marque. I was most struck by ‘Sous Bois’ which spends six years in barrel but emerges with a delicate rose petal aroma and no obvious woodiness.
Louis Roederer was not showing its Cristal, but I was able to try a Collection 244, a blend of vintage wines. There was the aptly named ‘Starck’ Field Blend from 2015, which was made like a natural wine: little sulphur, no malo and no dosage. There was a rosé version too. It was predictably austere.
Ayala has been part of Bollinger since 2005. For me its top wine is the Brut, which (maybe because Bollinger has always been a Pinot Noir-based company) is Chardonnay dominated. It has a little taste of gooseberries. Bollinger itself used to be one of the nicest, if not the nicest, champagne houses and you never had anything to complain about the wines either, but in recent years they seem to have disappeared down the rather parvenu ‘celeb’ route, in stark contrast to the old-world charm of the company I knew and loved. I can’t say the champagne has suffered, however: their brut has a nicely herbal character, but the real stars were the 2015 Grande Annee and the 2019 Pinot Noir. Of the two, the Pinot Noir has the edge. It seems to go on for ever. I didn’t ask the price. I reckon it will be pretty well reserved for hedge-fund managers
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