Wise Owl Cider

So many bottles arrive at the door (no, I don’t expect you to sympathise) that it sometimes takes me a while to get round to tasting them but this week I finally got to try Wise Owl’s sparkling cider which they’d been patiently nudging me about.

And it’s delicious.

Cidermakers Richard and Paula Wise, who are based in Ashford in Kent use a 8 different apple varieties, some from a friend’s farm and other bittersweet varieties from near Bodiam Castle, all of which they mill and press themselves.

It gives the cider a really intense natural appley taste - gentler than a West Country cider but at a robust 6% by no means too sweet. After only one year of commercial production they were nominated as Cider of the Festival by their local branch of CAMRA in the Kent & East Sussex Railway Beer Festival last year

You can buy the cider direct from their online shop for £38 a 12 bottle case including VAT and postage. It’s also widely available in Kent and Sussex - see their stockists page for details.

For some inspiration as to what to enjoy it with see my Top Food Matches for Cider. I'd go for a chicken pie myself!

Wine of the week: Colomé Torrontes 2015

The last couple of weeks have passed in a flurry of tastings marked by a number of standout (and some depressingly bad) wines.

This is emphatically one of the former from an impressive tasting from the northern supermarket Booths whose buyer Victoria di Muccio manages to offer a good deal of really attractive everyday drinking with some really interesting bottles for wine enthusiasts.

I’ve always been a bit lukewarm about Argentina's signature white Torrontes but the Salta region is the place to go for it and this bottle from Colomé is an absolute cracker. Not as full-on as a gewürztraminer but weightier than a riesling, it would make a delicious aperitif and a great pairing for south-east Asian food and tricky-to-match ceviche.

The winery, which was founded in 1831, is the oldest working winery in Argentina but was bought by Donald Hess in 2001. The vineyards are exceptionally high at between 5,600 and 10,200 feet above sea level which gives the wine its fresh acidity

Booths normal price for the wine is £12 - a price I’d actually be happy to pay for a bottle of this quality* - but they’re offering a 3 bottles for the price of 2 deal until Tuesday October 4th on all wines over £10 (except champagne) which brings it down to a bargainous £8.

If you’re unlucky enough not to live in the north-west of England where Booths has most of its branches, Brook & Vine is selling it at the moment for a very reasonable £9.99 and Eclectic Tastes for £9.75.

*although it does prove, what I've said before, that supermarkets are not necessarily cheaper than the indies unless they've got a promotion on. Always worth checking!

Blankbottle Limbic 2015

One of the most original and inventive wine producers I’ve come across is Pieter Walser of Blankbottle in Stellenbosch, South Africa but this is his zaniest concept yet.

It’s a wine whose exact blend was determined by his brain patterns while he was tasting 21 different blending components, an experiment which followed a chance encounter with a neurologist on a plane*. (The blend was 49% chenin blanc, 17% clairette blanche, 13% viognier 13% pinot gris and 9% vermentino)

He then made another wine called Orbitofrontal Cortex following his normal procedure of choosing the from the same samples himself and came up with 34% grenache blanc, 17% fernao pires, 17% chenin blanc, 13% verdelho 11% clairette blanche and 8% semillon.

The two wines are fascinatingly different. The Limbic, which he refers to as a ‘neuro’ wine is very clean and precise - a taut, mineral white that would be great with seafood and salads. The Orbitofrontal Cortex is more Rhone-ish - much fuller and weightier and would be better suited to white meats such as roast chicken or veal. While delicious now I think it probably needs another year or so to show at its best.

Interestingly the Limbic took just a day to blend (you can see the process on YouTube) while the Orbitofrontal Cortex took a week.

If you want to compare them you can currently buy both from his importer, Swig for £22.50 each. But be quick - after last week’s brilliant Wines of South Africa tasting I’m guessing there won’t be much around.

*There’s a more detailed account of their encounter on the Blankbottle website. And if you want to know more about the role of the brain’s limbic system, something I must confess I was completely unaware of, you can find it here.

Planeta Alastro 2015

If you’re a fan of sauvignon blanc you’re going to love this fresh, aromatic Sicilian white from one of the island's best known wineries, Planeta.

Admittedly the weather in England right now isn’t quite as gorgeous as it was when I tasted it in a beachside restaurant in Ragusa in sweltering 34°C heat (below) but I still think you’d enjoy it

It’s based mainly on the island’s indigenous grecanico (70%) with 15% each of grillo and sauvignon blanc and is really quite sauvignon-like but with more of a zesty citrus than a gooseberry/elderflower flavour. It went brilliantly well with a vast array of different seafood dishes from salads to grilled fish.

The reason I’m recommending it at this particular moment is that Great Western Wine has it on offer, reducing it from its usual £13.75 to £9.95 which is an incredibly good deal. You get a further 10% off if you buy a case which reduces the cost per bottle to £8.96.

Alternatively you could split the order between the Alastro and Planeta’s very attractive, crisp rosé which is also on offer at £9.25. (That should appeal if you’re a Provence rosé fan.) The deal lasts until the end of the month.

I travelled to Sicily as a guest of Planeta.