Alheit Limited Release Red Blend 2018

'Dry red wine' doesn’t sound the most compelling description for a wine, especially one that costs £14.99, but when it comes from Chris and Suzaan Alheit, two of the most highly regarded winemakers in the Cape you sit up and take notice.

They’re better known for making the cult wine Cartology, a chenin-based blend which fetches around £35 a bottle. There’s a chenin in this lower-priced range too which they’ve named Paxton Kellerman but I don’t think it’s as interesting as the red, a joyous, vividly fruity cinsault-based blend that you’ll love if you’re a Beaujolais fan. I’d chill it lightly and drink it with summer barbecues and other grills - fish or meat.

As always with Majestic it makes sense to buy on their Mix Six deal on which it costs £14.99. A single bottle is £19.99 and much though I like it I don’t think it’s worth that.

Wine of the week: Millton Te Arai Chenin Blanc 2015

This is not so much a new find as a rediscovery. I’ve been a fan of James Millton’s wines since the early 1990s when he was virtually a lone pioneer of biodynamics and each time I revisit them they get better and better.

This is one of the cheaper bottles in the range but just gorgeous with all the opulent peachy fruit you find in chenin but a beautifully balancing salty edge and a streak of green apple acidity on the finish. Rich and refreshing at the same time - and surprisingly light at 12.5%. If you’re a fan of good Vouvray or Montlouis you’ll love it.

It would be perfect with simply roast or poached chicken and summer vegetables or a Vietnamese-style chicken salad or simply to sip on its own.

You can find it at GP Brands for £16.60, Just in Cases for £16.75, £18.95 at Drinkmonger in Scotland and £21.80 at New Zealand Cellar. (Other suppliers have older vintages which I haven’t tasted recently but chenin ages well. The recommended drink-by date for the 2015 is 2024)

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.

Two Sainsbury’s Fairtrade wines to try

Every Fairtrade Fortnight I seem to end up bleating about the quality of Fairtrade wines so I thought this year I would give it a break. And then I found - too late for my Guardian column - a couple of better than average examples in Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference range.

I wouldn’t get over excited - they won’t blow you away - but they’re decent, more than fairly priced and some at least of the proceeds will go towards Fairtade projects.

The first is the Taste the Difference 2014 Wild Valley Fairtrade Chenin Blanc (13.5%) a smooth dry white from the Wellington region of South Africa that would make a useful after-work white and a good partner for light chicken dishes and creamy pasta sauces. And it’s only 98 calories per 125ml glass (Sainsbury’s now usefully putting calorie content on their own brand wines).

And the second Sainsbury’s TTD Fairtrade Carmenère 2013 (14%) from Chile which is typically lush, ripe and fruity - a little soft for my taste but I might well be in a minority on that. A good red to drink with a lamb curry or other spicy lamb dish. Or with sausages.

Both are £6 until March 25th which I think you’ll agree is a bit of a steal. I’d have willingly paid the full £8 for them.

The Co-op also has a large selection of Fairtrade wines of which I’ve most enjoyed the Argentinian wines in the past. The vintages are different but here are my recommendations from last year.