Lethbridge Ménage a Noir Geelong Pinot Noir 2010

This week’s wine highlight was the Australia Day tasting which seems to get better every year. I could have picked out a whole load of interesting bottles but this came from the producer who made the biggest impact on me, Lethbridge of Geelong

Most stockists have it around £23 a bottle - £23.09 Noel Young Wines, £23.50 at Eton Vintners but I found it for £19.95 online at Quality Wines of Somerset and at allaboutwine.co.uk for £19.99. Still not exactly cheap but that’s true of almost all the better Aussie wines these days and there are plenty of pinots which would cost more and deliver much, much less.

It’s fine textured and silky with some lovely delicate red berry fruit (but by no means a fruit bomb) and with enough structure to support a good steak. Interestingly it turns out to be biodynamic as I often find the wines I most enjoy are these days (but not sulphur-free, I'm pretty sure).

If I’d been able to I might well have singled out the equally delicious Lethbridge chardonnay which doesn’t seem to be on sale in the UK yet but since winemaker (and former neuroscientist) Ray Nadeson was at the tasting in person hopefully there will be enough demand for it to make it available in the not-too-distant future.

There’s also an attractive, citrussy off-dry riesling too (Dr Nadeson riesling) of the style I’ve recommended with a Chinese New Year feast this weekend. If you live in Oz can buy it for around 30 AD (£16).

5 great whiskies for Burns’ Night (and other occasions)

Given that it’s Burns Night what other bottle could I feature but whisky? And as I couldn’t make up my mind which one here are five!

The first is a bargain - a fragrant 5 y.o. blended malt called Glen Orrin which Aldi sells for £12.99 - not just for Burns Night but all year round. It’s deliciously heathery, floral and sweet but with quite a spicy kick - I diluted it a touch with spring water and reckon it would be rather delicious chilled.

Aldi’s award-winning Highland Black Special Reserve 8.y.o. - at the same price - is also excellent for those who like a richer, more mellow style.

Also great value I think is Cutty Sark Storm which I imagined from the presentation would be far more expensive than the £21-odd it costs at Master of Malt and The Whisky Exchange (which has a shop at the back of Laithwaites in Vinopolis behind London's Borough Market though not all the whiskies it lists are available there. Master of Malt also sells a 30cl sample for £3.30.)

It contains an unspecified proportion of grain whisky - as most blended whiskies do -but has that fragrant, sweet character of a good grain whisky along with a nice whiff of peat and smoke. Dare I say a feminine whisky? This woman likes it anyway.

The next whisky Bain’s Cape Mountain Whisky, is of course not Scotch at all but South African and turns out to have been voted the best grain whisky in the world. It’s very attractive - sweet and vanilla-y - not bland but comfortingly smooth. Pretty hard to get hold of which of course will be a draw for the whisky geeks among you but despite that not over-expensive at £29.45 (at The Whisky Exchange)

Finally a Johnnie Walker ‘expression’ as they call it in whiskyspeak - a really handsome bottling called The Royal Route from The Explorer’s Club Collection which was released in October.

Apparently you can only buy it in ‘travel retail’ aka duty free where it sells for around $159 (£96) a litre bottle which makes it hard to buy for Burns Night unless you’re flying today. It’s not cheap but that’s what you pay for a limited edition. And at least it costs a little less than the ultra-premium Johnnie Walker Blue.

Apparently it represents the leg of the spice route between the Mediterranean and Persia (now Iran) and indeed has an exotic, spicy almost smokey character but with delicious fresh and dried fruit flavours and a lovely rounded fullness.

Could it take spicy food? I reckon it could. I could imagine sitting on a verandah in Kashmir sipping this as a sundowner. And that was before I had seen the YouTube video I stumbled across when looking for more detail on the product. (When did you last see a wine promoted that way? And look at the travelling accessories they suggest The Royal Route purchaser will have in his - obviously his - suitcase (above). Selling the dream ...)

Weingut Brundlmayer Grüner Veltliner Alte Reben 1999

A cellar clear-out at our French house this week unearthed this neglected treasure from 1999. I couldn’t imagine that it would still be drinkable having travelled from England to France when we moved most of our belongings here six years ago.

In fact it was astonishingly fresh and delicious - not remotely oxidised - and didn’t even fall apart in the glass.

Obviously it wasn’t cheap (£11.15-£15.56 back in 2001, I would guess) but I still couldn’t imagine it would have aged so well. There were still some bright fruit flavours (grapefruit and starfruit) and a wonderful complexity - the kind of wine that could take almost anything fishy or vegetable-based in its stride.

Looking it up on wine-searcher the most recent vintage of the Alte Reben I could find in the UK was the 2007 which is stocked by AG Wines for £23.99 (minimum order 6 bottles) - a baby by 1999 standards.

There are plenty of other Brundlmayer Grüners on wine-searcher.com though. The Old Bridge has halves of the 2011 Berg Vogelsang for £9.95 (Ocado has full bottles for £16.99) while The Sampler has the Gruner Kamptaler Terrassen 2012 for £15.75. It would be fascinating to buy a case to dip into over the next decade, assuming, which of course is by no means certain, that this bottle wasn't an aberration.

Tierra Hermosa 20° (Veinte Grados) 2010, Andalucia

Today’s Guardian column was all about getting out of your wine drinking rut which in the case of Spanish wine most likely means Rioja.

In fact there are a wealth of other wine regions in Spain which offer rewarding drinking, one of them being Andalucia.

I wouldn’t have known about Tierra Hermosa had it not been for the British owner Harry Hunt who badgered me (in the nicest possible way) to taste his wines and write about them. I wouldn’t have done so of course if I hadn’t liked them - or at least not in such enthusiastic terms - but fortunately I do.

Although further south than regions like Rioja and Navarra the Hunts’ vineyards, which are situated to the south of Alhama de Granada, amongst the Sierra Tejeda mountains, are unusually high at an altitude of 1200 metres which gives their wines a delicious freshness.

The Tierra Hermosa 20° a blend of Tempranillo, Syrah and Garnacha has an exotic dark fruit character that would make a good pairing for the Moorish food of the region - and that of North Africa opposite. I could imagine drinking it with a lamb tagine or with Iberico pork but in fact it’s flexible enough to adapt to all kinds of dishes - the acidity would make it a good choice with Italian food too.

There’s also a straight tempranillo called Neblerio which is perfectly enjoyable but not as complex IMO though, like the 20*, it won a gold medal in Canada’s Intervin wine awards last year.

Both are imported by Moreno Wines and widely availble in independents including Corks of Cotham and Grape & Grind in Bristol, Fingal Rock in Monmouth, Hanging Ditch in Manchester and Red Squirrel Wines online (see full list of stockists here). The Veinte Grados costs about £9.95.