Domaine Labet Fleur de Savagnin ‘en chalasse’ Cotes du Jura 2012

I’ve tasted this wine before but was reminded how absolutely delicious it is when we had a bottle at lunch at Bell’s Diner in Bristol this week. (No I don’t spend my *entire* life there despite this article in the Guardian.)

It’s a blend of different types of savagnin - the Jura’s indigenous white grape which wine writer Wink Lorch, who has written an excellent book on the region, describes as tasting like a “fresh Meyer lemon”.

Given it had a couple of years maturation it wasn’t that tart but had just the right verve and attack to sail through an eclectic selection of small plates (its salinity made it particularly good with some salt cod croquetas (below) and a salad of salt cod, avocado and blood oranges). I was surprised to find it was nearly 14% (13.8%).

The estate is run organically and adheres to most of the tenets of natural winemaking - no fining or filtering and very little, if any sulphur. But the wine is beautifully clean and pure.

Infuriatingly I can’t find a retail stockist but it is imported into the UK by the excellent Vine Trail which supplies many other good restaurants including The Quality Chophouse and Texture in London so with luck you’ll run across it at some point. It costs £17.08 a bottle ex VAT

You can read Wink’s typically insightful piece about the Labet family on her website.

Tesco finest* Swartland Shiraz Bag-in-Box

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve recommended Tesco’s juicy, vibrant ‘finest’ Swartland Shiraz but now it’s appeared in bag-in-box format which makes it even more versatile.

Actually it’s probably just as well as the alcohol has crept up to 15% so none of us should really be having more than a glass at a time. (Er hem.)

It’s made by one of South Africa’s most characterful winemakers Adi Badenhorst up in the Swartland region. His excellent smooth dry Chenin Blanc is also in the range as is Tesco’s popular Picpoul de Pinet at a rather more modest 12.5%, a Fiano (14%) and a gluggable Montepulciano (13%) which would make an excellent match for a takeaway pizza.

Bag-in-box technology has immensely improved since the early days - they now adjust the level of gas to the type of wine - and these are just as good quality as a bottle. And the new 1.5 litre size - equivalent to two bottles - makes them easy to fit in an overstuffed fridge.

They’re not especially cheap but they’re on 25% promotion until Tuesday* if you buy the equivalent of 4 bottles (two boxes) which brings the shiraz down from £13.99 to £10.49 or £5.25 a bottle, the Chenin from £12.99 to £9.74 (£4.87 a bottle) and the Picpoul which is normally £14.99 down to £11.24 (£5.62).

I'd drink the shiraz with anything meaty from some big fat garlicky sausages to a steak.

PS An extra recommendation for you this week: while you’re in Tesco pick their finest* sloe gin (£15), one of the most delicious I’ve tasted. Great with stilton!

* I was assured when I checked yesterday although the main website Tesco.com is not showing the discount. You can however buy the same wines by the bottle on the wine site where the discount is shown. Confusing.

For a more extensive list of my recent recommendations from Tesco see here.

Kaiken Terroir Series Torrontes 2014

This week I’ve managed to be in both Chile and Argentina so it was a toss-up which should provide the wine of the week . . .

As most of my time was spent in Chile and I need time to sort out my notes on the wines I’ve tasted there I’m going for this delicious Torrontes we tried from a winery called Kaiken over the border in Luyan de Cuyo.

In fact they source the grapes from old vines in Cafayate in Salta up in the north of the country which is considered the best area for this indigenous grape variety. (The vineyards go up to 1600 metres.) It has something of gewurztraminer about it but is softer and slightly less sweet - a great match for south-east Asian food or, locally in Chile, simply prepared shellfish like crab and prawns. (I’ll be posting a fuller list of Torrontes pairings soon).

The 2014 vintage doesn’t seem to have arrived in the UK yet but you can find the 2013 at £8.99 at Hawkshead wines and slurp.co.uk or £10.99 or £8.89 if you buy two bottles from Brook & Vine. It's also widely stocked in the US - see wine-searcher.com for details.

Dog Point Sauvignon Blanc 2008

As I’m off to New Zealand in January I’m trying to get up to speed with what’s going on over there so I leapt at the opportunity to attend a vertical from one of Marlborough’s leading producers Dog Point.

It was particularly fascinating in the case of their Sauvignon Blanc, a wine you don’t necessarily expect to age but there wasn’t a single wine in the flight - from 2004 to 2014 which tasted tired.

The winery is run by James Healy and Ivan Sutherland who used to be the winemaker and viticulturalist respectively at Cloudy Bay. All of their fruit is estate-grown and mostly comes from from low yielding vines which date back to the 70s and 80s. The grapes are all hand harvested.

My favourite was the 2008 - a good vintage - which was full of luscious golden gooseberry fruit - so rich but still amazingly fresh.

It made me think it would be worth laying down some of the more recent releases - I particularly liked the 2013 vintage which is a bargainous £13.50 a bottle if you buy it from the Wine Society (when I last looked at Majestic it was £17 a bottle if you bought two and that was on ‘promotion&rsquo but the 2010, if you can lay your hands on any, is also fantastic.

For possible matches check out this post on food pairings with Sauvignon Blanc.

I plan to write up some more thoughts on the tasting if and when I have time (ha!). The Section 94 oak-aged sauvignons and pinots were fantastic too but there’s already a danger of this slot becoming pinot of the week ….