Two Greek wines you really should try

There are so many interesting wines in Marks & Spencer’s new ‘Found’ range that it’s hard to single out the best, but as it’s Greek Easter this weekend I’m going for the two Greek ones.

My own favourite is a blend of two indigenous grape varieties Moschofilero and Roditis which have created a gorgeously fragrant white wine that M & S recommends you drink with ‘saganaki’ - a dish of prawns in a rich tomato and feta sauce. (I really love the imaginative wine pairings too!) It would also go brilliantly with Marianna Leivaditaki’s prawns with ouzo, orzo and courgette or simply with a selection of meze. It’s a very reasonable £8.50

The accompanying red, a blend of xinomavro and mandilaria is rich, dark and briary, better suited to roast lamb or kid which is what many Greeks would be eating this weekend, a moussaka or, as M & S suggests, a stifado (slow cooked beef stew) That’s a bit more expensive at £9.50 but really to find wines of this quality and interest for under £10 is remarkable. I remember someone from M & S once telling me that they make a smaller margin on more unfamiliar wines that they want people to try so take advantage!

Both these wines - and others in the range - have been widely written about in the wine press* so I would snap them up if you spot them. You can also buy a mixed case if you want to experiment

* I’ve recommended the pais and the cabernet franc myself in my Guardian column

The Durham Brewery White Stout

I had a conversation on Twitter before Christmas with Elly from The Durham Brewery about whether there was a perfect beer for Christmas pudding.

She reckoned their 9% Belgian Tripel-style Bede’s Chalice would do the job and offered to send it to me to try.

What with one thing and another I didn’t catch up with it until well after Christmas was over so can’t try out the combination. My feeling is that it’s slightly drier and more savoury than is ideal for Christmas pud - a barley wine I think would be better

I was however very taken with their White Stout which I tried at the same time. As they explain on the label “Before porter brewers commandeered stout to mean a strong porter, a stout beer was a strong beer. It did not have to be black. We have recreated the style using modern hops and a full malt body.”

I find it a big, savoury brew, well-suited to meat (they recommend it with roast lamb with garlic and rosemary), shepherd's pie or cheddar cheese. It’s not as sweet or aromatic as many IPAs, more like a full-bodied red like a malbec. Watch out though: at 7.2% ABV a 500ml bottle will gobble up 3.6 units, over a quarter of your weekly 14 unit (ha!) allowance. You could happily share it between two though.

Disclosure: I was sent a selection of beers to try by The Durham Brewery.

Wine of the week: Gentilini Eclipse 2013

I must confess a sentimental attachment to Gentilini who I visited on the beautiful island of Kefalonia back in 2001 when I was researching a feature on Greek food.(Kefalonia - or Cephalonia as it's sometimes spelt - is where the book and film Captain Corelli's Mandolin was set.)

Up to now the only wine I’d come across of theirs in the UK was Robola, an appealingly aromatic, floral white but Oddbins, who stock that too, recently sent me this stunning red to try.

It’s made from the local Mavrodaphne of Kefalonia but tastes more like a good Bordeaux which helps to justify its relatively expensive £17.50 price tag* (still ony £3 a standard 125ml glass for those who think that sounds a bit toppy). Wine is sometimes described as velvety but this one really is with gorgeous dark, damsony fruit. It would go really well with roast lamb and middle-eastern-style meat dishes so is exactly the sort of wine you should buy if you’re cooking up an Ottolenghi-ish style feast.

Perhaps a bit left-field for Christmas drinking so enjoy it before you get swept up in all the madness.

* At the moment you only appear to be able to find it in store - but I do know it's there as I checked in my local branch!

Wine of the week: El Bombero Gran Reserva 2009 Carinena

If I saw this wine on a supermarket shelf I wouldn’t pick it up. There’s the name for a start, which sounds like something a marketing department has invented

The old fashioned red and gold label and the fact it’s not a rioja wouldn’t do much for me either.

It also comes from Laithwaite’s, a retailer which has never overly impressed me with its range or pricing

But I’d be wrong. This is a cracking bottle of wine made from garnacha (aka grenache) from the far less fashionable Cariñena region. Despite its age it’s still gorgeously plummy and at £8.99 an absolute steal for a gran reserva which has to be aged for at least 5 years. It’s the perfect wine for a traditional Sunday roast beef (or lamb) lunch and would make any rioja-lovers in the family very happy.

The only thing I’d say is that the advice on the label ‘drink by December 2017’ might be a tad over-optimistic given most domestic storage conditions - I’d be inclined to drink it by Christmas - or the new year, at the latest. Also I’m not sure you need to decant it as they advise. It was pretty good poured straight from the bottle.

Laithwaite’s by the way has just been nominated Merchant of the Year and Online Retailer of the Year by the International Wine Challenge so maybe I’m wrong on that front too. But if you do buy some of the El Bombero beware pushy follow up invitations to buy ‘half price’ mixed cases. And I tried another couple of wines in their range by which I was much less impressed.

PS The other wine I was thinking of making my wine of the week - and might have done if I hadn’t featured them last week is the Charles de Fère Brut Premium Vin Mousseux which is currently on offer at M & S at just £7. It’s a really attractive soft sparkling wine which looks very much like champagne at a casual glance. Perfect for weddings it struck me, if you want an alternative to prosecco.