RAISE A GLASS
NOW the football season is underway, I decided to celebrate with a special wine tasting for friends calling it Premier League wines at Second Division prices. I’m nothing if not topical. Here are some of the wines I chose for my little sipping guinea pigs; a white, a pink and an unusual red.
Make the most of them and pour when you enjoy a late summer barbecue because soon we’ll be talking about warming reds to put life back into your toes after an afternoon sitting in chilly football stands. VDV Organic Verdejo 2016
(£7.99, the Co-op, 13% abv) is a lovely white from the Castilla y León region of Spain, a place I was lucky enough to visit last year. The grapes grow south of Valladolid (a one-time capital of the country and the place where Christopher Columbus died) on 800m-high windswept plains. The wine has notes of stone fruit, flowers, and a lemon freshness, and to taste it is crisp, fruity, dry and very drinkable.
“Ooooh, that’s pretty” was the general exclamation at the elegant embossed bottle of Fleur de Prairie Côtes de Provence Rosé 2017 (£7.29, Aldi, 13% abv).
It is indeed pretty, and the wine inside is pretty too. It’s a pale blush of a pink, with layers of aromas which include red fruits and sweet strawberry, a touch of nectarine and peach, and a brightness of citrus. The flavours are more of the same, but it was the nose which kept us all talking and exploring. Flowers! (someone said) and indeed there was a brush with honeysuckle.
Solato Lambrusco (£7.50. Asda, 11% abv) was a bit of a curve ball and was definitely a Marmite wine – my tasters either liked it or they didn’t.
This sparkling red has been a wow with the blind-tasting people at the International Wine Challenge, where it won a silver award. Not only that, it picked up the trophy for great
value sparkling under £12.
It is a rich, deep, purply-red colour and the aromas are of ripe, plump, summer fruits – delicious damsons, blackcurrants and strawberries. In the mouth those same fruits are reflected, but there’s also a note of dried herbs, made tingly by the excitable bubbles.
■ Also in my glass… If you think of rum I bet you think of the Caribbean; but in the case of Dead
Man’s Fingers (£22, 70cl, Asda, 37.5% abv) you should think Cornwall.
This spiced rum has been created by the team at the Rum & Crab Shack restaurant in St. Ives and is now picking up quite a following.
It’s a blend of Caribbean rum and spices and I’m told it
is inspired by such Cornish flavours as saffron cake, spiced fruit and the Shack’s own Pedro Ximenez ice cream (sounds yum! PX is a lush, unctuous delicious sherry).
The aromas are great – vanilla, caramel, orange, a tingle of pepper, raisins and baking spices. It is soft in the mouth, with a good bite of spice, but coated with creamy vanilla. Yes – I definitely understand the inspiration of the PX ice cream.
Sip Dead Man’s Fingers with pineapple juice or ginger beer to complement the spices.
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Jane is a member of the Circle of Wine Writers. Find her on social media and online as One Foot in the Grapes.