(2025) An elegant Chardonnay blended from vineyards in various Australian regions, this is delicately oaked and weighs in with just 12.5% alcohol. Immediately attractive on the nose with its sheen of almond or oatmeal over peachy fruit hinting at apricot, the palate follows through with charming, easy-drinking fruit sweetness. The lemon jelly acidity and touch of creamy oak makes for a pleasing, well-balanced finish. Watch the video for more information.
(2025) Virgen del Galir winery is located in Éntoma on Galicia and has been part of the CVNE family since 2018. This Godello comes from premier cru vineyards, and sees no oak. There's an immediate firmness, the nose herbal and reminiscent of fruit skins and peel. In the mouth that strict and mouthwatering quality has real definition: there's a citrus and salts acid drive to this wine, which is grippy with a phenolic presence. It tingles on the tongue with minerality and pithy but rich texture and substance.
(2025) This is a Bourgogne Chardonnay, fruit sourced from across the Côte d’Or and Mâconnais, one-third barrel-fermented while that and a portion of the stainless steel ferment is also barrel-aged. That gives the wine creaminess and nuttiness, rather than overt 'oakiness', with a succulent peachy fruit cut by a bit of green apple strictness. It's really rather stylish this, the palate treading a similar line between juicy and ripe stone fruits and a rather more linear acid tension. The barrels give just a little rounding nut husk sense of savoury dryness in a rather nice overall package. Note that Noble Rot Fine Wines has this at £16.95 currently. Most other retailers are around £20, including Morrisons supermarket. Watch the video for more information.
(2025) Made from Malvasia Puntinata, this wine has loads of honeyed opulence, loads of texture, in a succulent style. Touches of that honey over sherbet lemon and peach bit with a dry extract savouriness. it's an intriguing wine in some ways, fresh and appetising with only 12.5% alcohol, and yet with texture and mouth-filling presence. Full flavoured, Commice pear into peach, with fine acidity to freshen the finish. £13.49 as part of a mixed dozen.
(2024) The first still wine from sparkling wine maestro Dermot Sugrue and his wife Ana is as quirky as its name. It is in fact the first issue of a solera of Chardonnay, the 2022 component aged in small barrels, the 2023 in large barrels, with a proportion made in an oxidative style. It displays a flinty, herbal character but elegantly smoothed by almond and creamy ripe, honeyed apple. The palate shimmers with vibrant sherbet lemon and ripe grapefruity vivaciousness. It has a flinty drive and freshess, a bittersweet ripple of citrus, the finish long and intense like a blood orange straight from the freezer.
(2024) From various plots in Salnes, some vines 100 years old, this was fermented under controlled temperature using indigenous yeasts. It's a wine that at first seemed underpowered to me, but it's definite edge of salinity to crisp, lemony fruit was good and it grew on me as I tasted. There's a pithiness and saltiness, light bodied and very dry, all about citrus and apple cores. It's a delicate wine and very composed and restrained, but has vivid clarity too.
(2024) A blend of fruit from the warmer soils of the Wairau Valley and cool, dense clay of the Southern Valley, this was fermented with wild yeast in French oak barriques and matured for eleven months. Oak seems restrained this vintage to very nice effect, just a sheen of buttered toast and oatmeal over pear and lime fruit. The palate has textural richness, hinting at exotic nectarine and mango, but that balanced by fresh, zippy lemon acidity. The majestic 'mixed six' price of £28.49 is the one to be on. Independent merchants also have it for £30 - £33. Watch the video for more information.
(2024) A slightly firmer style in this lees-aged wine, the nose hinting at passion fruit and lime peel, a ripe peachiness beneath, fermentation with wild yeast adding a savoury note. On the palate that concentrated, zesty concentration drives this, a pithy lemon grapefruit towards the finish making it gastronomic and dry, with good, precise length.
(2024) From vines at 400 to 600 metres altitude, this was partly fermented in large oak casks, and partly in smaller barrels. It was matured in large French oak casks. Surprisingly aromatic, a sheen of almond over nectarine and lime, a smoke, cracked river stone background. Just off-dry, this is very much more Alsace Pinot Gris than Pinot Grigio, rich and full, luscious mango to nectarine, with a rasp of grapefruit and lemon acidity to give balance and definition.
(2024) From the 'classic' range, vineyards on calcareous clay and gravelly soils lie at an altitude between 250 and 400 metres. It's a deliciously dry and relatively full-bodied wine, honeysuckle-touched aromas of citrus and poached pear combine. In the mouth it is textured and rounded, more pear and a hint of lush peachiness, but then a strict and quite mineral acid drives through to give freshness and real sippability.
