As ever, two recommendations for you today.
One is an unfamiliar – possibly even niche – red wine from Northern Italy that can be a little too simple sometimes, but here represents a solid choice.
Better still, it benefits from a 35%+ discount for most of this month.
But our consideration of the unexpected does not end there.
Any list of revived and reinvented grape varieties (Vinho Verde, Beaujolais etc) has a new member.
It was the mainstay of German wines that sold by the tanker in the Sixties and Seventies.
We thought its “day at the races” was past, but this change of country and dramatic one of style may tell us otherwise.
Read on for details of them both.
Adopting my traditional format, images and, where possible, hyperlinks accompany the assessments of the wines.
First that unusual Italian red.
2022 Venturina Freisa D’Asti (£6.99 – instead of £10.99 until 26 November – at Waitrose and 12.5% abv):
Freisa, mainly found in Italy’s Piemonte region, is a relatively little known but versatile grape which can, in clumsy hands, exhibit intrusive bitterness.
No such problem here, where it delivers light, fleshy unoaked red wine full of juicy, mouth-watering red fruits, and represents great value at £7.
Despite that summery lightness, this is suitable for year-round drinking – although gentle chilling is advised.
Do so, and you will enjoy wine based mainly on strawberry and cherry flavours which are neatly embellished with bright acidity, a stoney edge and slightly flowery aromas.
Staying in Italy
2023 Taste the Difference Müller-Thurgau (£8.50 in Sainsbury’s and 12%):
Many will remember müller-thurgau as the grape that formed the backbone of last century’s very basic Liebfraumilch.
Forget all the sweetness and lack of complexity and authenticity that implies.
This version, from Trentino in the Italian Alps, is a million times more sophisticated.
Engagingly bright and floral, it is centred around smooth melon, greengage and crunchy apple flavours.
These are accompanied by firm grapefruit acidity with just the merest hint of sweetness in the background.
The next post (on Thursday) represents the start of my four-part series of Christmas recommendations so join me then.
8 responses
Dear Reader,
I know many of you are enthralled by my digressions on things historical, scientific and especially alcohol duty; but I thought from time to time, I would enter the hallowed, mysterious world of the Circle of Wine Writers (with indulgence from Brian?) and write about wines that have impressed me – in some depth and with a dollop of research.
Last week I highlighted a great Greek white.
This week a Spanish beauty.
Far del Sud Garnatxa Blanca Terra Alta 2023 13% £8.50 Wine Society
“The Southern Lighthouse”where Spain’s longest river the Ebro* meets the Mediterranean sea in the Ebro Delta wetlands. A terrific organic Spanish dry white wine from a small rugged hilly region near Barcelona.
The winery, Herència Altés, is modern and virtually underground, powered by of solar panels; the local wine maker is Jamie Cluma, with help from a Languedoc luminary-Claude Gros.That’s how high they are aiming.
There are two winds ( Cerç and Garbi ) that doth blow and moderate the heat and keep vine pests/diseases at bay.
The Garnacha grapes are hand picked in tiny amounts which results in intense and complex flavours of peach , citrus and apricot with a long chalky refreshing brioche finish.
I used to work during student holidays at Cadburys in Chirk and detected cocoa butter on the nose, but definitely no oak and clear as a Roxy Music whistle.
Smooth, rounded and somehow? a hint of single Elmea. Garnacha Blanca putting its best foot forward.Extra points for stylish bottle label.
* Yes, the same river that flows through Rioja and nearly 1,000km long.
No indulgence needed from me. Your detailed and entertaining contributions are always welcome
It’s delightful when a disdained grape variety turns out an impressive wine. Willi Opitz made a delicious trockenbeerenauslese from Muller-Thurgau. However I don’t see any sign of Ugni Blanc/Trebbiano losing its crown as the world’s most boring white grape.
I can forgive ugni blanc for its blandness because of its role in making cognac
I bet Dave Cronin is pleased to see your recommendation of the Müller-Thurgau from Trentino today Brian. It was he who convinced me to search it out in a larger Sainsbury’s on 21 October when I commented that I had my eye on it from the website but couldn’t track it down. Totally agree with Dave, you and others that this is a cracking bottle. Am I right that M-T was planted by many pioneers of English wine 30-40 years ago? If so, I don’t recollect outcome being quite as compelling as this from the heights of Northern Italy.
For me Freisa is very much a holiday memory wine (as indeed are most of my off-beat Italian choices). It reminds me of Le Vitel Etonné, a lovely friendly Piedmonese restaurant just off the Via Po in the centre of Turin. Tables in the basement are surrounded by shelves of wine and I chose a Freisa because I had never come across it and it seemed an attractive name. On that occasion it was a ‘Vivace’ wine. As a musician I knew this meant ‘lively’ and in the case of wine, just slightly sparking; not even as lively as ‘frizzante’. Just perfect at lunchtime on a hot summer’s day which is why we were in the basement in the first place.
The RISHI* wines are here!
Hiding in plain sight…
“Blossom Hill red from 12.5 to 10.5 per cent ABV and even changing where it is made – it’s now Spanish and not Californian, as the brand heavily suggests. Hardys has also made some pretty hard-hitting changes – its Stamp Shiraz Cabernet was reduced from 13.5 to 11 per cent in 2023”.
(Rosamund Hall, Independent)
It seems to me these changes are purely for duty and tax reasons.
Please look out for a petition early next week by Tim Atkin about the damage to the wine industry, wine drinkers and any hospitality setting selling wine, of our new alcohol duty and tax regime**, and if you are as annoyed as me, perhaps consider signing it?
*A nightmarishly complex incremental increasing levels of alcohol duty legislated for by our former teetotaller PM and disappointingly adopted by Rachel Reeves MP and Chancellor, from February 2025, who also wants to add a further 2.7% inflation tax increase.
** Tim reckons that the UK will have the highest alcohol taxation in the whole of Europe.
Hi Brian …
As yet I have not made it back to Sainsbury’s where I had every intention of getting their House Soave to try, so cheap at £4.75. When I first mentioned it I pointed out that it’s ‘low everyday price’ was not mirrored by a pro rate costing of the £15, 2.25l wine box version.
OK, only 25pence a ‘bottle’ difference. I bet many would say that for 75p more than a 3 individual bottle purchase they actually like the convenience of the box so y’pays y’money …… And then it presupposes we will buy this very cheap-end stuff in the first place and discover its quality, value for money, etc, or not as the case may be. So we buy one bottle first, try it, and get more bottles or the box if it works.
All a way of saying I will go to Sainsbury’s to get the House Soave and at the same time buy this TTD Müller-Thurgau too, coming as it does from one of my most favourite places in Europe of Trentino and the Süd Tirol, Alto Adige/Dolomiti. It sounds interesting and right up my street.
Brings me to ‘boring wine/grapes’ versus just poorly crafted/produced wine, yet this mixes the subjective with the objective. The latter being the inferior nature of ubiquitous Liebfraumilch as many might agree. Yet subjectively the great British wine drinker voting with their feet keeps bottles on the bottom shelf everywhere, for 50 years or more. So somebody is buying it even if it isn’t me! An entirely different opinion that is of course very welcome where wine appreciation is concerned!
Mel Crann says the responsible grape in question here Müller-Thurgau in the hands of an ‘expert’ can actually work. I agree, just as Trebbiano can as well as a component with Garganega in producing the ‘lighter end’ of Italian white drinking like Soave.
I’d like to give that Willi Opitz trockenbeerenauslese a try mind. I suspect unfortunately my usual budgeting allowance for any wine would exclude me from affording that particular bottle!
A bee in my bonnet here that with Germany being the largest western European country by population, producing masses of terrific wine, what a paucity of the stuff on shelves everywhere in Britain. The BMWs and Mercs are here in numbers … why not their wine? Pleased I ever was I got the opportunity to work there so often with the locals and they were able to educate me about their wine first hand.
Then to close for you, anybody, but maybe Dave Cronin especially as we have discussed for years and strived to find ‘that’ claret for under £10, we could say well satisfied our requirements, I drank a TWS bottle this weekend (alongside the CduR Guigal also from TWS!) of what is considered a very good vintage, 2022. Their Château Camarsan at £7.95 is a cracker both in quality and value punching well above its price point. Perfumed, clean, fresh, fruity, balanced, predominantly merlot … but typically some added cabernets ..it’s from an area east of the city, small communes of Grézillac, Moulon and Tizac de Curton, arrondissement Libourne en route to Bergerac, where else, and … well nuff said for now. But I’d have it all day long. Salut …
Thanks Eddie
I shall look into that ‘Château Camarsan’, haven’t ordered from the Wine Society for a while now, maybe a case for Christmas?