Wine of the week: Weninger Horitschoner Blaufränkisch 2013

This gorgeous fruity Austrian red ticks all my boxes. It’s exactly the sort of wine I want to drink at this time of year - light (12.5%), fragrant and juicy - the type I can equally well drink with fish as meat.

It benefits from being lightly chilled but you don’t have to. The bottle looks great on the table and is sealed with a screwcap for hassle-free opening.

I find Austria one of the most exciting wine producing countries in Europe right now and Blaufränkisch (known as Kekfrankos in Hungary) its most appealing red wine variety. Think Beaujolais if you can't quite imagine it.

The producer’s website is worth a visit too not least to find out about the Weninger Wine orchestra which plays on instruments made from materials used in winemaking. You can hear them play the theme from Hawaii Five-O on YouTube. Endearingly nutty.

Given the wine is organic and biodynamic It’s well priced at £13.99 from Noble Green Wines, £14.40 from eclectictastes.co.uk or £14.95 in London branches of Vinoteca. It’s imported by (who else?) Les Caves de Pyrène who send me a sample to try.

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.

Fresquito Vino Nuevo de Tinaja

If you want proof of how adventurous a wine retailer Marks & Spencer has become you only have to try this unusual Spanish white made from Pedro Ximenez, which is more usually used to make a sweet syrupy style of sherry.

This is altogether a different animal - pretty well bone dry and nutty with a touch of fino sherry about it it though it actually comes not from Jerez but the neighbouring denomination of Montilla-Moriles. The word Tinaja refers to the traditional earthenware jars in which the wine is aged (also pictured on the label) which accounts for the slightly oxidative - for which read deliciously nutty/almondy - style

Although I personally love it I’m aware it won’t be to everyone’s taste* but it would be a great wine to drink with tapas - as they also point out on the label - especially jamon iberico and (I reckon) olives and anchovies. Normaly £9 a bottle, it’s currently on promotion at £7 which is a steal.

* if you like fresher, fruitier whites like sauvignon blanc, for example

‘Meli Melo’ 2013 and 3 other good wine finds from Yapp

One of the problems of recommending a wine that most people can only buy online is that they generally have to buy a case - either of that wine or others they haven't a clue whether they’ll like or not.

So if you’ve been enticed by the two rosés I recommended from Yapp in this week’s column in the Guardian here are 4 other wines that might make up your dozen.

Top of my list at this time of year would be the 2013 Meli-Melo (£10.95) from Domaine Roquemale in the Hérault which is made from Alicante Bouschet - a grape that is undergoing a bit of a renaissance. It’s organic - as are many of the wines I’m attracted to - though vibrantly juicy rather than funky and at just 12%, perfectly suited to summer drinking. The perfect wine for a picnic.

I also love the 2014 L’Arpenty Chinon (also 12% £13.50) from the Loire which has all that typically scrunchy fruit of the Cabernet Franc grape - like a handful of freshly picked raspberries and mulberries, leaves and stalks as well as fruit. It’s a wine you could easily serve chilled with fish - seared tuna would be perfect,

The Loire was one of the two French regions on which Yapp built their reputation and so you can trust them with a wine I haven’t seen for a very long time, Gros Plant. At one time it was almost unbearably acidic but just like neighbouring Muscadet it has immeasurably improved in quality. The Domaine de la Mortaine 2013 (£9.75) they stock is whistle-clean, bright and sharp as a squeeze of lemon and would be perfect with oysters and other raw shellfish. If you like the Basque white wine Txacoli you’ll love it. If you're more of a chardonnay guy - or gal - you may not.

And finally an exuberant red from J.P.Boisson, 'Le Petit Caboche’ 2013 Vin de Pays de Vaucluse (£9.50 13.5%), an exotically dark, spicy blend of Caladoc, Syrah, Marselan and Grenache Noir that would be great with a grill or a lamb tagine. I haven't tasted the new 2014 vintage but they have a 15 for the price of 14 case offer on it at £133 which would bring the price per bottle down to £8.87.)