Blimey, British weather, eh? Growing up in Scotland I used to naively assume that all of the UK experienced much the same weather. Then I moved to London and discovered it can get much hotter in the south of the England than it ever does in Scotland. This week my son's London primary school closed at lunchtime every day to escape the worst of the heatwave. The only time my own primary school in Edinburgh ever closed due to temperature was the time the road ice was too bad for the heating fuel lorry to come and the toilets froze.
Heat can spoil wine. That's why wine is made in cool cellars, and why if we have to ship wine from abroad during summer, we use reefers (refrigerated shipping containers). And it's why Andrew is so gleefully proud of the bone-chilling aircon he likes to inflict on us. You may see some of us wearing jumpers in the store this summer - come and have a slow browse and you'll start to get a sense of why.
What's new
It's a big welcome back for the characterful wines of Luis Pato. Portuguese Luis works in Bairrada, where he specialises in Baga. Baga is powerful and tannic, but grown in good sites and made by a skilful winemaker, the wines can be sublime. And from South Africa, we have secured a parcel of Fogwell, a top-site Syrah made by Chris Alheit (most known for his masterful Chenin Blancs).
If you're in the mood for some Château Latour but the month has been hard on your finances, then we have some 2019 Pauillac de Château Latour. As Neal Martin writes, 'Difficult to believe this is in fact the third wine!' And for the historically minded among you, we've got some of the lesser-seen Palmer Historical. That’s Château Palmer, but made the way it was in the 19th century: with the addition of some northern Rhône Syrah. The original idea was to add a little southern structure to the claret. Palmer Director Thomas Duroux was inspired to revive this historical practice by a glorious bottle of nineteenth-century Palmer.
If you're a little less silk scarf and a bit more bandanna, then we've got a great new orange wine from the Gredos Mountains in Spain. Zephyros ('the west wind') is made from Albillo, a white grape variety that takes skin contact well. The wine is bone dry, but bursting with a honey, spice and orange zest character.
What have we been drinking
Andrew's desperate to get away from pesky, griping employees. Some of this lot even want their expenses paid. Can you believe the outrageous sense of entitlement in the modern workforce? He's been dreaming of a holiday on the Tuscan coast, with the help of a bottle of Argentiera Villa Donoratico. The style is Mediterranean-herb-meets-cassis-and-chocolate, with a nice Bordelais touch of pencil shavings. It shows why Bolgheri has become so renowned for Bordeaux blends - and it won’t bust the bank.
Zoë loved a bottle of 2023 Evening Land Chardonnay. It comes from the Eola-Amity Hills, which is prime winemaking territory in Oregon, and it's made by Sashi Moorman of Domaine de la Côte fame. Oregon wines are usually not cheap, but this clocks in at a very reasonable £26.95 a bottle. It's all ripe yellow fruits with a good, nervy acidity, and it now rivals the Kumeu River Estate Chardonnay as Zoë's favourite value New World Chardonnay.
Jabu's also been on the Chardonnay, but his was Burgundy. 2022 P&M Jacqueson Rully Blanc 1er Cru Gresigny has lovely energy and character, and it's seriously good value for premier cru white Burgundy. The reasonable price is due to the less fashionable Chalonnaise address, but who cares, it's lovely wine.
I adored my bottle of 2023 Casa Castillo Jumilla Monastrell. My tasting note on this perfumed, complex Spanish red says, 'burning roses, strawberries, herbs in the sun'. Monastrell is a Spanish name for the grape variety more widely known by its French name, Mourvèdre. It excels in Bandol and plays a supporting role in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but its original home is here, in eastern Spain (so sorry, south of France).
Niall had a bottle of the Ottin Pinot Noir. This bright Alpine wine comes from the Valle d’Aosta, the bit of extreme north-western Italy tucked under Switzerland. It's distinctive and pretty - and cracking good value for quality Pinot. It could easily be served chilled as well, which brings me to...
Chilled reds for summer
'Serve reds at room temperature', goes the dictum. But that dictum was coined before the modern era of central heating, so if your thermostat sits at 22°, you might like to put your bottle of claret in the fridge for 15 minutes before you serve it. Full-bodied reds are ideally served between 16-18°, but summertime is upon us, and warm weather may call for light, chilled reds. If so, we have a lot of good options.
The Corte Sant'Alda Ca Fiui is a crunchy, sour-cherry Valpolicella that works very nicely straight from the fridge. Or from Piedmont, the Ferraris Ruche Sant'Eufemia has an almost fizzing zestiness to its raspberry-ish fruit. Ruche is a rare Piedmontese red grape variety; wine writer Ian d’Agata has called it 'one Italian grape variety that wine lovers really ought to know'. Criolla Chica is a pale red grape variety you can find in the Americas, descended from the first grape varieties European settlers brought over, and in Argentina Durigutti make a fresh and expressive example that is delicious chilled. Or from South Africa, the soft, fine tannins in Catherine Marshall's Sandstone Soils Pinot made it an ideal Pinot Noir to put in the fridge.
Island life: Tenerife
Summer seems an ideal time to start touring round some of the islands on our shelves, so this month: Tenerife. It belongs to Spain and it's the largest of the Canary Islands, but it lies off the west coast of Africa, and it's got a huge volcano in the middle. Since the nasty vine louse phylloxera, which devastated European viticulture in the nineteenth century, doesn't like volcanic soils, many old, local and indigenous grape varieties survive here. Bodegas Viñátigo are an island specialist in these old varieties. Vijariego is a rare white variety that tends to make highly acidic wines, so Viñátigo ferment and age it in barrel, with extended lees contact, to bring a richer roundness. Negramoll is a zesty, smoky red with a blood orange and raspberry character. Both are lovely wines with a marked volcanic character.
It was the year when...
Was that a good year? Rain, hail, damp, or summer scorcher? Are the wines richer or fresher? Longer-lived or for early drinking? If you haven’t already done so, check out the vintage guides appearing on our website. So far we have Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, Piedmont and South Africa. More to follow.
And the winner is
Each month we run a prize draw, and the winner gets a magnum of Champagne. To enter, you need to be on our mailing list and you need to make a purchase in store. Every purchase counts as one entry in the draw so you improve your chances the more purchases you make. Congratulations to this month's winner Matthew, who takes home a magnum of Roederer Collection.
Hope to see you soon on Copthall Avenue. Come and chill in our aircon. /NT
