Viña Indomita Gran Reserva Carignan, Maule Valley Chile, 2019(£8, The Co-op)If a few of us have been persuaded of the deserves of treating January as an experiment in abstinence (as much as 6.5m, or one in 5 UK adults, in line with a ballot taken earlier than final 12 months’s ‘Dry January’ marketing campaign), there are various extra who would make a convincing case for the alternative plan of action. I’m not advocating that everybody maintains Christmas-level tippling day by day and night time previous New 12 months’s Eve. However there's a cheap line of considering that claims that this darkish, chilly, skint time of 12 months might not be the very best second to deprive ourselves of one in every of life’s less complicated pleasures. Moderation could also be a more practical path to long-term wholesome ingesting, permitting us to elevate our spirits with a glass or two of a reasonably priced, scrumptious southern-sun stuffed crimson comparable to Indomita’s.
Tesco Best GSM, McLaren Vale Australia, 2017 (£9, Tesco) Chile stays some of the dependable sources of cheap crimson wines of the softly textured sort which can be the antidote to seasonal dankness – the kind that works as effectively on the couch because it does on the desk, comparable to Morrisons The Finest Chilean Carmenère 2020 (£6.50), which makes it a superb match for pizza. Additionally doing the job within the very particular class of ‘wines for TV and takeaway’ is the perfumed malbec from Argentina. Aldi Argentinian Malbec, Mendoza 2020 (£5.79) is among the best-value variations of the model. Australia, too, has its approach with the fruity, warming style, though the very best of the Down Below grocery store bunch tends to come back seasoned with a lick of peppery spice, comparable to Tesco’s ever-excellent mix of grenache, shiraz and mataro.
Domaine Gayda Chemin de Moscou, IGP Pays d’Oc France, 2019 (£25.99, Cambridge Wine Retailers) The GSM mix primarily based on grenache and/or shiraz plus mataro and others is the bottom of a lot of Australia’s best reds. However its origins are in southern France, producing wines that may really feel like a transfusion of mood-boosting daylight presently of 12 months. You will get a few of that Mediterranean hillside really feel in bottles from the Languedoc, comparable to Sainsbury’s Style the Distinction Saint-Chinian (£9), or from the Rhône Valley, comparable to Marks & Spencer’s very good Les Closiers Lirac 2019 (£10). That’s true, too, of the newest classic of one in every of my favorite wines from one in every of my favorite Languedoc producers. The darkly concentrated, blackberry, black olive, pepper and rosemary of Domaine Gayda’s Chemin de Mouscou, served with roast lamb, is my prescription for seeing off the winter blues.
Comply with David Williams on Twitter @Daveydaibach
Post a Comment