What to drink this week

Time to stock up

This column doesn’t usually employ the generally despised technique of the hard sell, but I do feel that, if you have any gaps in your cellar, or even if you do not, now is the time to stock up. There may be many reasons to despair of the world, but a lack of availability of wonderful wines at reasonable prices isn’t one of them.

Harry Eyres

Why you should be stocking up

How long the last of these elements— the reasonable prices—will continue is anybody’s guess. A great, late summer saved 2016 (vintners in Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Douro are all bullish), but quantity is sharply down in many places. A depressed pound doesn’t help.

What to buy

I’ve been banging on about 2014 white Burgundies, but they’re truly marvellous and worth snapping up. The Chablis Premier Cru Beauroy 2014 from Benjamin Laroche is subtle, stony and long—it’s worth buying at the usual price of £24.99 from www. nakedwines.co.uk and a steal at the members’ price of £17.99. A little further south, in Beaujolais, 2015 was an exceptional vintage: Morgon 2015 Château de Pizay (below right, £10.99; www.majestic.co.uk) is deep, velvety and delicious. In Bordeaux, the 2014 vintage produced lovely, sappy and quite forward wines: try the fragrant, complex and substantial cru bourgeois Château La Croix de Marbuzet 2014 (right, £18.99; www.waitrose.com). It is possible 2015 and 2016 might turn out to be better vintages, but they will be pricier. And there is more out there: the classic 2015 vintage in Germany, to name just one.