Grape outsiders
Had your fill of the usual reds? Christine Austin picks out a few off-thebeaten-track alternatives to give your taste buds a break and a seasonal treat.
HOW many red grapes can you name? Most people can rattle off a mixed half dozen including Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Shiraz. The more adventurous can add Gamay, Grenache, Sangiovese and Tempranillo, while those with serious interest will add Nebbiolo, Primitivo, Zinfandel and maybe a few more.
But with over a thousand grape varieties in existence, many of them on the brink of extinction, while others are lovingly tended in their home regions, perhaps it is time to give our taste buds a treat and nudge them out of their comfort zone.
Wine producers and supermarket buyers tend not to inflict poor flavours on British palates, so you can pick up and add a new grape variety to your tasting repertoire with confidence. Here are a few to get started, most of them with light, fresh fruity flavours, perfect for this time of year.
■ Found Refosco 2022, Veneto, Italy,
Marks & Spencer, £7.50: M&S started the process of finding lost grape varieties which it bottled and labelled as its “Found” range. Naturally other supermarkets have followed but Marks still has the edge, discovering parcels of grapes that might otherwise get lost in a blend. Refosco, or to give it its full name, Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, is an old grape variety from northern Italy and Slovenia that produces juicy, red-berry flavoured wines, with an in-built freshness, rounding off with savoury notes. It goes well with pork chops or tomatobased pasta dishes.
■ Irresistible País 2021, Valle del Maipo, Chile, Co-op, £8.50: Across the heartland of Chile’s vineyards there are thousands of hectares of old vines, the remnants of vineyards planted centuries ago by Spanish invaders.
The grape variety is País, and traditionally it has gone into local wines, but there is renewed interest in these vines, not least because they can survive without expensive irrigation. Now the vines are being used for export wines and the value of the grapes has gone up, enabling the growers to improve their standard of living. The flavours are light and juicy with floral, cranberry and raspberry notes – similar in style to Gamay – with an earthy, herbal, savoury back note. This new wine at the Co-op that goes well with charcuterie or roast pork.
■ Brown Brothers Tarrango 2022, Victoria, Australia, Booths, £8.99: A welcome return to the UK market for Brown Brothers who disappeared around the time of lockdown but are now testing the waters again with their best-selling red. Tarrango is a cross between Touriga Nacional and Sultana, specially developed to cope with the hot weather in the Murray-Darling basin of Australia. It is a light, cherry and raspberry-filled wine with hints of spice on the finish and might even be thought of as a deep-flavoured rosé. Drink this slightly chilled if the warm weather comes around again or at room temperature with roast salmon or alongside lightly spiced dishes, such a spicy chicken pizza.
■ Found Agiorgitiko 2021, Peloponnese, Greece, Marks & Spencer, £9: Another M&S Found wine that deserves to be discovered for its robust cassis and plum flavours with a hint of chocolate and supple tannins. Perfect with sausages and steak.
■ Santa Tresa Organic Frappato 2022,
Terre Siciliana, Italy, Waitrose, £10.99: Often blended with other Sicilian grape varieties, this is 100 per cent Frappato shining out with light, fresh, juicy strawberry-style flavours that go perfectly with salads and grilled meats.
■ CVNE Mencía 2022, Valdeorras, Spain, Morrisons, £11: Mencía has been grown in Spain for over a century, mainly in the northwest where it makes fresh-tasting, raspberry and blackberry-filled wines with a hint of pepper. It can be made in a light, almost Beaujolais style or when yields are low, with more structured and powerful flavours. This wine is made by CVNE, otherwise known as CUNE as a result of a spelling mistake many decades ago. As a respected producer of serious wines, it can be relied on the get the best flavours from this grape. This Mencía wine is in a light, fresh, juicy style providing a great set of tastes at a value price.
■ Cannonau di Sardegna Tunila 2021, Cantina Dorgali, Roberts & Speight, £12.89:
The residents on Sardinia are convinced that it is the robust flavours of the Cannonau grape that has made the island one of the world’s “Blue Zones”, indicating the long life experienced by many of the population. It might also be the hills that many walk all their lives, or the healthy diet, but when I was on the island one resident declared that it was definitely the glass or two of Cannonau wine that he drank every day. He was 98, looked nearer 70 and beat me walking up the hill to the wine tasting. Although Cannonau is just the Sardinian name for Garnacha, the island wine has a chunky, vibrant style, full of blackberry and raspberry fruit, with hints of liquorice and a structured, ripe finish. Team this with meaty sausages.
■ The Dot Austrian Plum St. Laurent
2021, Niederösterreich, Austria, Latitude Wines, Leeds, £13.50: Some grapes and regions are more difficult to remember than others, so Roman Pfaffl and his sister Heidi Fischer produce Austrian wines that tell you what the wine tastes like. The Dot Austrian Plum is made from the St Laurent grape, and it has plums, blackberries, cassis, sour cherries and lots of strawberries on the palate.
■ Vismino Grand Saperavi 2020, Georgia, House of Townend, £15.49: Mentioned only a few weeks ago but still the best around, Saperavi is Georgia’s signature grape. Dark-skinned and full of juicy cherry, blackberry and cassis fruit with spiced, savoury undertones.
■ Lagar de Baixo 2018, Niepoort, Bairrada, Portugal, Winearray, Boroughbridge, £24:
Dirk Niepoort has a passion for old vine Baga grapes, and he found them at Quinta de Baixo in the Bairrada region of Portugal. This is a serious, well-structured wine, and with its age it has mellowed and softened to show herbal notes among spiced cherry and dark plum fruit.