WINE
WHEN it comes to the weather, April really can be the cruellest month. The door is open for summer but winter still hangs around making a nuisance of itself.
One thing that has been welcome during the recent sunnier conditions and lighter nights is some summery fizz.
English sparklers are one of the in-vogue stars of the moment, even trumping some Champagnes in blind tastings.
Growers such as Nyetimber, Henners and Gusbourne really have proven the point that, given a decent summer, England possesses perfect conditions to make wines that are similar in both quality and style to Champagne.
Wiston is another producer that takes advantage of the South Downs terroir where limestone soils and south facing slopes make for some remarkable wines when the summer provides the best conditions.
If English fizz provides a current trend, the availability of good quality Crémant wines from France’s regions is another notable area of growth in the wine world.
The Loire produces some interesting white fizz from Chenin and Chardonnay but it is a rosé I include here, made from Cabernet Franc, with excellent results.
Away from ‘serious’ sparklers are the lower alcohol Lambrusco style wines which I normally avoid like the plague.
French wine brand giant JP Chenet produces a few of these and I’ve never been impressed, until now.
Wiston Cuvée Brut 2013 (£32.95 www. wistonestate.com www.
booths.co.uk)
If there’s an English answer to Champagne this wine has a very good point to make. It’s made, in classic Champagne style from Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier. The Pinot dominates to some degree which perhaps accounts for the biscuity, brioche aromas. There’s richness here but it’s the precise, mineral fruit that impresses the most, giving the wine an undeniably high level of crisp elegance.
Lacheteau Crémant Brut Rosé (£9.99 down from £14.99 Ocado)
Crémant de Loire is best known as white fizz made from Chenin with Chardonnay increasingly evident in blends.
But this more unusual offering is made from one of the Loire’s most alluring grapes, Cabernet Franc. The result is a very attractive wine for sunny days with aromatic rose petal aromas, red berries and fruit salad flavours.
All in all it’s fantastic value and makes a great match for Cantonese or even Szechuan dishes made from pork or chicken.
JP Chenet Smooth & Fruity Sparkling Light Rosé, (£3.99, Ocado)
I’m not sure exactly how this low-alcohol wine is made.
It appears to be a ‘frizzante’ style wine where carbonation plays a part in favourably masking the sweetness of the wine to produce a less serious, party-type wine that’s much lower in alcohol.
It’s not a style I’m drawn toward but occasionally, on a warm day on the beach, for instance, it makes perfect sense.
Here the balance between the fizz, the sugar, and the bon-bon style yeast flavours is quite appealing and given the right circumstances I would not be turning my nose up at it.
‘There’s a richness here but it’s the precise, mineral fruit that impresses the most giving a high level of crisp elegance’