Breakfast Wine

I’ve been drinking quite a bit in the mornings lately. For work obviously, most recently with Holly & Phil on This Morning. And one of my favourite wines in the line up was an organic red blend from Puglia that comes in what looks like a giant paint tin. It’s basically bag-in-box reimagined, holding three bottles. And it’s the kind of red you need on tap at a time like this so I’ve included it in this week’s recommendations below.

I’ve also been sent the ‘can anyone recommend a good breakfast wine?’ quote approximately 874 times since lockdown. The answer is, mostly, something fizzy. But it does depend on mood and food so I thought I’d ask a few of my favourite sommeliers and winemakers for their thoughts on the subject and they answered generously.

Laure Patry, executive head sommelier for Jason Atherton’s The Social Company suggests egg & bacon rolls with Pet Nat (basically, natural sparkling wine). She particularly loves this one. Winemaker Katie Jones has (understandably) got a match for every one of her lovely Domaine Jones wines but her favourite is fruit salad with her Muscat (available here). Victoria Moore, wine writer and author of The Wine Dine Dictionary has done every food and wine match in the book, literally. No messing, she went straight for Eggs Benedict and Chablis. Elly Owen, group sommelier for Paul Ainsworth suggests pastries or panettone (love her for that) with Moscato d’Asti or Brachetto d’Asti (the red version of this style) with overnight oats. And Fikayo Ifaturoti, sommelier at the scarily smart wine club 67 Pall Mall, suggests Champagne Bollinger RD 2002 with hash browns, poached eggs and mushrooms. Girl after my own heart.

Right, I’m off to find the tin opener.