I’ve been to a Christmas Fair tonight in the local Stately. I drank warm white wine and discussed cushions. I bought socks and a magnetic dartboard as presents. This is what warm white wine does to you. Stay clear.
This week’s white in the fridge: The Reach Sauvignon Blanc 2009, £6.49 on offer, Tesco
A reader – a reader! – told me they loved Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. Me too. Some are better than others, obviously. Some are certainly better value than others. This is one of those, made by a great producer called Vavasour in the Awatere Valley, part of the Marlborough region. Not too shouty, rather quietly confident with passion fruit flavours. I had this, very cold, with our Chinese takeaway last night and loved it.
This week’s red on the side: Ripasso di Valpolicella Classico Superiore, Fratelli Recchia 2006, £7.59 on offer, Waitrose
Italian reds are so varied and – when good – vibrant that I’m not sure why I don’t drink more of them. Too many wines, too little time, I suppose. Anyway, this is a really interesting one, made from a blend of red grapes including Corvina, Rondinella and Molinara. The term ‘ripasso’ refers to the practice of fermenting or macerating the juice with the expended skins of grapes already used to make the more robust Amarone wines. For me, it seems to add a note of Christmas to the resulting wine: nutmeg perhaps? Whatever it is, it works.
Chin chin x
Hiya darlin'
I seem to have stumbled across your blog. How mad is that?! Hope all good…
Lotsa love,
Mike
Mike! All good…you too I hope. I do a couple of wine reccs every week, come back again! I'll do a rose soon, just for you & Judy xxx
Totally love your blog. Normally find wine buffs really intimidating so this is great.
Could you recommend wines least likely to give you a hangover? (I'm finding that with the passing of time I really can't take my reds anymore, though I love them.)
Also if you had to pick a country/grape type which would be the most reliable and good value? I can never remember names of wine but a 'rule of thumb' rule might help.
cheers
Susan, see my post from July this year called 'Not Tonight Dear', it might shed some light on the headache thing…
If I had to pick one as most reliable/good value it would probably be Chile. Having said that, sometimes I don't want a safe bet, I want something that makes me sit up and say 'oooooh, what is that?'. France is a good place for that but you have to kiss more frogs to find a prince, if you know what I mean.
Helpful?
Welcome back to Blogger 🙂
Vinogirl – thanks! I know, I tried it over at wp as liked the layout/pages etc but prefer it back here. Much easier to follow other blogs.