Wine
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Wine Enjoy now or over the next 5 years, and partner with venison, duck, or fillet of beef.
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Wine The Clos de Danzay vineyard is acknowledged as being one of the finest and most well-established plots in Chinon, with both young vines and others aged over 100 years. Pierrre Jacques Druet's wine is matured for 18-24 months in barrel. Superb quality mature Chinon. This wine has heady aromas of blueberry, vanilla and tobacco leaf, a dense core of blackberry and black cherry fruit, and ripe, fine textured tannins. A fine partner for pheasant or guineafowl, rich pâtés or strong, savoury cheeses.
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Wine This classic bone-dry sherry hails from the 140-year-old Sanlucar de Barrameda wine cellars of Pedro Romero, husband of the eponymous 'Aurora'-Dona Aurora Ambrosse y Lacave-who valiantly took up the reins of the business on behalf of her sons in 1911. It's subtle, dry and fragrant with the tang of sea air, hints of the finest salted almonds and lovely depth of flavour. Best enjoyed chilled as an aperitif or with shellfish, squid or gazpacho.
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Wine Bruno Fina spent the 1990's running Sicily's experimental cellar at Alcamo, applying radical techniques to Sicilian varieties in pursuit of their true vocation. He advised growers making plantings - so he knows where the best grapes are, and what they can do. His cellar, near Erice, was ready for the superb 2005 vintage. Nero d'Avola is also known as Calabrese, given its apparent origins in Calabria. Big, rich blackberry and dark cherry flavours make this a great wine for game.
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Wine John and Brigid Forrest have been quietly making themselves into the foremost private estate in the famous Marlborough region of NZ. Their extensive vineyards are to be found in the valley's prime locations and this gives them the ability to blend wines to a consistently high standard. Not content with producing wines from just the one region they have aquired land to the south in Otago and Waitaki and also in the Hawke's Bay region of the North Island. Diversity and quality are theirs.
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Wine The vineyards of Corte d'Aibo lie at the heart of the beautiful Monteveglio Abbey regional park, a short hike from Bologna. Advocate of 'doing your own thing', Antonio Capelli produces wines organically because he lives amid his vines: "It is not for you, it is for me". He says. In 1989 (just after Antonio bought into the place with friends), production was endorsed as organic. Barrique-aged for 12 months, this is a bold Cab. with spicy oak and meaty, herbal flavours. Classic roast lamb wine.
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Wine Reach for this if you're cooking up something spicy. Well-made Grenache has a vibrant, peppery edge and you won't find one better built than Tim Gramp's. Heir to a winemaking dynasty dating back to 1847 (his forebears planted the first Barossa Valley vines, near now-notorious 'Jacob's Creek') Tim has carved a niche as South Australia's Grenache supremo. Successive vintages of this wine has always won plaudits for its resounding raspberry fruitiness and sheer oomph.
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Wine Suffolk-born Chris Pask and daughter Tessa McKay set up their estate in 1985 on the gravelly soils of the North Island's Gimblett Road and have triumphed ever since. Thanks to the efforts of winemaker Kate Radburnd, the winery has reeled in scores of awards, including a Wine Challenge trophy, for wines like this full-bodied and fragrant red blend comprising vivid, cassis-rich Cabernet, soft, plummy Merlot and spicy Malbec.
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Wine Ripe Chardonnay with plenty of the classic ripe melon flavours enhanced by the addition of 18% Viognier which gives this a fresh, spicy dimension and an appeal well above the norm.
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Wine John and Brigid Forrest have been quietly making themselves into the foremost private estate in the famous Marlborough region of NZ. Their extensive vineyards are to be found in the valley's prime locations and this gives them the ability to blend wines to a consistently high standard. Not content with producing wines from just the one region they have aquired land to the south in Otago and Waitaki and also in the Hawke's Bay region of the North Island.
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Wine Chiroubles. The very name evokes romance and charm. This is one of the most fragrant, appealing Beaujolais wines on our list, made at a family-run domaine in one of the ten 'cru' villages in rolling hills to the north of the region. Enjoy the array of delicate summer fruit flavours cellar cool, with soft cheeses, chicken or charcuterie.
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Wine From cousins Sebastian and Geraldine Ratron who took over from their respective fathers two years ago. This is a light bodied red produced from 100% tank fermented Cabernet Franc
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Wine Leaving behind careers in medicine and molecular biology, Doctors John and Brigid Forrest established Forrest Estate in Marlborough's stony Wairau River Valley in 1989. This cheery pair won a coup at their first vintage, scooping a trophy at NZ's national wine awards. Their Gewürz offers beguiling scents of Turkish delight and lychees, and a soft, rich palate of grapey fruit, rosepetals, ginger, cloves and cinnamon. Spicy Chinese dishes would suit this.
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Wine Surprisingly structured for an unoaked wine: dark, brooding and full of plum and wild berry flavours. Drink with chunky stews. Mathieu Cosse, local to southwest France, settled in Cahors in the late '90s. He took on several vineyards, working them biodynamically. His super-ripe, hand-picked Malbec grapes make surpassing Cahors: intense and ageworthy. 'Solis' ('the sun') is the Cosse organic 'house red' - a wine many would happily describe as their top cuvée.
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Wine Subjects of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Endrici (Endrizzi in local dialect) family arrived in northern Italy in 1885 and established a formidable estate at the foot of the Dolomites in now coveted Saint Michele All'Adige. Enthusiastically biodynamic, they offer an impressive array of wines. This classic style from the region's Teroldego grape is deep in colour and firm-structured, yet soft and appealing, with warm, rustic summer fruit flavours; ideal with meaty, mushroomy dishes.
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Wine Chunk of mature Cheddar left in the fridge? Steak or casserole on the stove? Here's what you need. Deep, brooding black fruit flavours with hints of spicy American oak - the forgotten grape of Bordeaux hot-housed to perfection on the Adelaide Plains. Home to Italian market gardens and vineyards since the 1950s, the Plains have covertly contributed to wines the calibre of 'Grange'. Joe Ceravolo is bringing the region into view with prodigiously bemedalled wines like this.
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Wine Suffolk-born Chris Pask and daughter Tessa McKay set up their estate in 1985 on the gravelly soils of the North Island's Gimblett Road (underlain by an old riverbed of the Ngaruroro River) and have triumphed ever since. Thanks to the efforts of winemaker Kate Radburnd, the winery has reeled in scores of awards, including a Wine Challenge trophy. Their minerally, elegant Sauvignon has currant-leaf aromas and vibrant lime-zesty flavour with hints of tropical fruit richness.
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Wine The clue's in the name: Barefoot Wine Company. Cathy Marshall set up her 'garage' winemaking outfit (i.e. cellars on a rental basis; bijou output) in 1997 with a view to vinifying prized parcels of fruit wherever she found them, hence BWC's nomadic progress from Franschhoek to Swartland to Paarl. Her iconoclastic range formerly focused solely on reds; this welcome Sauvignon addition has elegant, vibrant flavours of gooseberries, fresh cut grass, asparagus and lime peel.
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Wine Carignan's young vine 'second wine' is excellent, with full black fruit flavours and a hint of burnt orange peel. A wine for roasts. The misdeeds of the estate's founder, Jean Poton de Xaintrailles (comrade in arms of Joan of Arc and crusher of the English at the Battle of Castillon) is redeemed by the organic winemaking of Mme Marie Claude Deville. On the right bank of the Garonne, Merlot is in its element on the estate's clayey hills, fertilised by Limousin cows.
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Wine Leaving behind careers in medicine and molecular biology, Doctors John and Brigid Forrest established Forrest Estate in Marlborough's stony Wairau River Valley (not a million miles from Cloudy Bay) in 1989. This cheery pair won a coup at their first vintage, scooping a trophy for their Sauvignon at NZ's national wine awards. Their dry, finely-balanced Riesling, delivers appealing aromas of fresh ginger and citrus fruits, flowers and a hint of spice.
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Wine If you've preconceived notions about Beaujolais being weak-willed and girly, then here's the wine to change your mind. We've always admired the robust, fleshy, forceful and full-bodied styles made in Brouilly, southernmost 'cru' (one of ten quality enclaves on granite hills to the north of the region). This is the Gamay grape at full throttle, with notable earthy substance balanced by ample, vibrant, juicy fruit. At its best with roasts, grills and charcuterie.
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Wine Leaving behind careers in medicine and molecular biology, Doctors John and Brigid Forrest established Forrest Estate in Marlborough's stony Wairau River Valley in 1989. This cheery pair won a coup at their first vintage, scooping a trophy at NZ's national wine awards. Their late-harvested Riesling is intensely perfumed with scents of spice, honey and raisins. Sweet yet beautifully balanced and silky- textured, it's delicious with baked apples.
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Wine Great wines have a basis of fruit concentration, length and sense of place - characters which can be formed only in the vineyard. The team at Neudorf believe their primary task is to grow grapes which express the site, to take the essence of that fruit and then preserve it as wine. On the way they may fine tune the balance and complexity in a number of ways but the aim is always to allow the site to speak. Tim Finn, winemaker This is a supremely elegant Sauvy with creamy length yet fresh, ripe fruit flavours.
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Wine This chardonnay has ripe stonefruit and citrus characters subtly enhanced by fermentation in seasoned oak barrels, lees contact and a creamy malolactic influence, to create a well balanced, elegant wine. Partner this with pan fried pork medallions or pot-roast fowl.
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Wine Made in the village of Givry which was the preferred wine of Henry IV, maybe because this town in southern Burgundy's Côte Châlonnaise (a low ridge running from Beaune, recently granted its own appellation) was the birthplace of his mistress Gabrielle d'Estrées. Guy Chaumont's holdings are now certified organic by 'Nature & Progrès'.
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Wine Domaine Vacheron has some of the best vineyards in Sancerre, comprising equal measures of limestone and flint - the first lending wines 'tang', the latter minerality. In the dream Loire vintage of 2005 (a year of ripe yet perfectly-balanced wines), organically-oriented cousins Jean-Dominique and Jean-Laurent Vacheron kept yields one-fifth lower than typical local harvests, resulting in Sauvignon of real concentration. Incisively citrusy; hints of herbs; a fine match for river fish.
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Wine Heady orange peel and apricot aromas. Classic Muscat richness and lingering sweetness.
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Wine The Scotto family hail from the island of Ischia in the bay of Naples. The first Scotto in the US, Domonic, worked as a caulker in the shipyards and made wine at home. The wine making tradition has been passed down the generations to his grandson Anthony who now runs the family wine business.
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Wine Pitted with deep valleys and sheltered by the Aragonese Pyrénées, high-altitude, rough-textured Somontano, north-east of Rioja, offers protection from bitter northerlies, Zaragozan dryness and Mediterranean humidity. Natural advantages exploited by the Otto Bestué family, resident in the village of Enate since 1640, and now owners of sizeable Tempranillo and Cabernet vineyards. This glorious rosado is big and juicy yet fabulously fresh, with red plum and cherry flavours
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Wine Appetising aromas of Provençal herbs (bay leaves; thyme); generous black cherry and raspberry flavours. Mas de Gourgonnier is a star of Les Baux de Provence, a sleepy little appellation south of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. At their 100% certified organic vineyard, amid aromatic herb-scented scrubland ('garrigue') in the ancient hamlet of Mouriés, Luc and Lucienne Cartier consistently produce wines to challenge the finest from Rhône and Bordeaux.
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