Six good wine buys from Sainsbury’s

Two months to Christmas and the supermarkets are already into the swing of their 25%-off offers if you buy six bottles. I know a lot of people in the wine trade feel these sell themselves and it’s a disservice to independent wine merchants to flag them up.

I see it differently. First of all there are people who can’t afford to spend a lot on wine for whom this is a real opportunity to buy better wine than they can normally run to. Many people don’t have a good wine shop nearby. You could say they could buy online from an independent but for some a £70-80 layout is well beyond the weekly budget. I’m constantly urging people in my Guardian column to band together and share the cost of a case but that takes some organisation and it can be difficult to extract money from colleagues and friends.

It’s also an opportunity to experiment - for which reason I’ve avoided the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc offers in this selection which those of you who are addicted to will go for anyway ;-)

You need to be aware though that supermarket prices are pitched for across-the-board discounts of this kind - and the infamous ‘better than half price’ offer - which means that some of the original prices are higher than they should be.

That said, at these prices the wines below are well worth buying. Note a number are stocked in a limited number of branches and not all are available online.

My pick of the Sainsbury's offers

La Patrie Galllac Perlé 2011 (£7.99, down to £5.99. 425 stores)

A curiosity from south-west France - a light (12%) pretty, floral white with a slight spritz made from obscure grape varieties Loin de l’oeil and Mauzac. Should appeal if you enjoy Riesling or Torrontes. Drink as an apertif or with slightly spicy food.

Evans & Tate Split River Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2011, Western Australia (£9.99 down to £7.49. 237 branches)

I love the combination of Semillon and Sauvignon which smoothes out the sharper more aggressive edges of Sauvignon Blanc but still retains its citrussy freshness. This also contains a smidge of Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay which fills it out still further. Light (12.5%), lush and delicious with Aussie-style (i.e. Asian-influenced) seafood. Think Donna Hay and Bill Granger.

D’Arenberg The Hermit Crab Marsanne Viognier 2011. South Australia (£9.99 down to £7.49. 116 branches)

One of my favourite sub-£10 Aussie whites. Deliciously rich and opulent - would be great with crab (obviously) but also with mildly spiced or creamily sauced chicken dishes.

Marques de Montino Rioja Joven 2011 (£6.99 down to £5.24. 484 stores)

Rioja is generally associated with mature reds but here’s a very young, vivid, fruity example, interestingly made by a Chilean winemaker. Great everyday drinking with gutsy pasta sauces, sausages or stews.

Kanonkop Kadette 2010 (£9.99 down to £7.49. 137 stores)

A South African classic - a blend of indigenous Pinotage with Cabernet Sauvignon and a little Merlot and Cabernet Franc creating a sort of ballsy Bordeaux. Very smooth and satisfying - just perfect for a roast leg of lamb.

Sainsbury’s Blanc de Blancs champagne (on offer at £14.99 - the six bottle discount brings that down to £11.24)

I seem to remember a time, not so long ago when this excellent own brand champagne from Duval-Leroy was about £16.99. Now it’s ‘normal’ price is £22.49 so this is a pretty good deal, better than the cheaper offers on bought-in champagnes. Elegant, classy fizz.

*This offer finishes on Sunday 28th October and does not apply in Scotland.

 

Wine pop-ups and supper clubs

Pop-ups and supper clubs have been around for a good while now but an increasing number are offering a wine or beer tasting experience alongside their menu.

I particularly like the sound of Two Hungry Girls’ English Wine and Chinese Food evening which they’re hosting in Hampstead on October 28th with Grogger, a group of winelovers and designers who blog at grogger.tumblr.com (nice blog).

It’s worth checking out the rest of the Edible Experiences website which lists a whole raft of off-the-wall food-focussed evenings. You might also enjoy the Secret Wine Suppers which are run by the girls at A Grape Night In who used to work for Jamie Oliver's Fifteen. Their next gig is on the 25th of October in Clapham when they'll be presenting five mystery wines to match a menu from The Rookery restaurant.

In Bristol Danielle Coombs of the Bishopston Supper Club regularly holds beer and cider suppers and also collaborates with local wine merchant Grape & Grind on seasonal wine dinners. The next one is on November 17th.

If you have a fun food, wine or beer event coming up let me know and I’ll do my best to publicise it. And if you’ve tried one and enjoyed it (or not enjoyed it, come to that . . . ) leave your feedback below.

Wine and spice

To mark National Curry Week here's an article I wrote for Decanter a while back about Indian food and wine matching at the Cinnamon Club which still contains some useful advice about wine and spice pairing:

Despite the stoic resistance of a stubborn minority who maintain that beer is the only acceptable option with a curry, most fans of Indian food have come round to the idea that wine can be an equally enjoyable accompaniment. Especially in London which now has some of the most sophisticated Indian restaurants in the world.

Much of the credit for this is due to pioneering sommelier Laurent Chaniac who, together with chef Vivek Singh, has incorporated a gastronomic menu paired with serious wines into the regular menu at London’s fashionable Cinnamon Club - the first Indian restaurant to take wine this seriously. They also hold regular winemaker dinners.

Now Chaniac and Singh have taken their mission a stage further by attempting to pin down the effect that individual spices, or groups of spices have on wine and which types of wines they suit. They have discovered, for example, that onion seeds and carom seeds (also known as ajowan) soften the tannins and open up the fruit of young wines such as red Bordeaux and Cote de Nuits burgundies. They also deal with any herbaceous notes in young cool-climate cabernets. “Normally that kind of wine is an enemy of Indian cuisine” says Singh.

Other discoveries are that tamarind, the sour paste that is widely used in southern Indian cooking and which is sometimes used by Singh as a glaze for meat or fish, has a strange affinity with the earthy flavours of pinot noir that is made in the traditional way in open top fermenters. That the fragrant combination of mace and cardamom fires up New Zealand sauvignon blanc and that sandalwood (used by Singh in a tandoori chicken dish) hits it off with gewurztraminer.

Of course in the sophisticated world of Indian spicing, spices are rarely encountered on their own even within a single dish but are skilfully blended so that none predominates. “You should never be able to detect turmeric in a dish, for example” says Singh “but it will very often be there” But the presence of certain spices or spices of a certain style can lead the wine choice in a specific direction, wine becoming part of the overall harmony of the dish.

“When we work on pairings we always look at the spices before we look at the basic ingredient” says Chaniac. “The first issue is the level of heat. That doesn’t necessarily mean how hot it is - it can be a question of concentration.” “Some spices, such as chilli, cloves and cardamom, create heat in the body” chips in Singh.

“When you have a hot dish you need to go for a wine, usually white, with refreshing acidity and a certain amount of residual sugar” continues Chaniac. "The acid tones down the heat and leaves room for the fruit to express itself." An example in the Cinnamon Club Cookbook (£20 Absolute Press), in which he gives wine pairings for all the main recipes, is a dish of deep fried skate wings with chilli, garlic and vinegar, partnered with Australian riesling. Fresh spices and herbs such as green chillies, garlic, ginger and coriander also tend to suggest high acid whites rather than riper, barrel-fermented ones or reds.

For dishes dominated by dried chillies and other warm spices such as cloves the pair diverge , Chaniac tending to favour aromatic whites such as gewurztraminer and Tokay pinot gris and Singh mature, soft reds. “A red wine needs to be concentrated but with soft tannins and a finish which is quite dry” concedes Chaniac. “Older vintages can have a role to play. We like old-style Barossa wines, older vintages of wines like Grant Burge’s Holy Trinity but they’re hard to get hold of. Alternatively we look for a wine that can generate freshness like a cool climate pinot noir or a young grenache.” They tend to serve their reds cooler than average. “All our reds are in fridges held at 16° or 17°C.”

Individual spice blends can unpredictably buck the trend, “If you take a classic pickling spice mix composed of cumin, onion, fennel, carom and mustard seeds, mix it with star anise and then combine it with a grape such as cabernet franc from a very hot climate a wonderful alchemy will take place” rhapsodises Chaniac. “The grape will tend to release aromas of eucalyptus and liquorice which then marry perfectly with the flavours from the pickling spice mix.”

The pair are constantly pushing the boundaries of what is accepted practice in food and wine matching, challenging even their own preconceptions. Their general view is that oak doesn’t tend to work with spicy food but they have discovered that barrel-fermented chardonnay has a real affinity with cashew nuts and toasted sesame seeds. “We also came across a fabulous match recently of Chapoutier’s Le Mal white Hermitage 1997 (100% Marsanne) with a dish of prawns flavoured with star anise, cinnamon and cloves.” recalls Chaniac. “The honey and citrus flavours of the wine were stunning with the dish but the common thread was the liquorice flavour of both the wine and the food, accentuated by the smoky flavours of the tandoor.”

At the same meal Chapoutier had pulled another clever trick. “We were tasting a Cote Rotie that was structured and quite dense and he showed us that when you ate a few raw coriander leaves it became more lively and longer on the finish. Now we’re looking at the effect of herbs on wine too. We’ve already found that where mint is a component of a sauce an Australian style of shiraz works well.”

One word of warning: these pairings won’t work in a conventionally structured Indian meal where several dishes are served at once. At the Cinnamon Club they’re served as courses, Western style. And don’t serve your dish with a chutney unless it’s specifically designed to go with the recipe. “I don’t like people asking for a selection of chutneys as the balance of the dish can get lost” says Singh. “With a chutney there’s so much going on - sweet, sour, bitter. It stays on the palate for a long time.”

The Cinnamon Club is at Old Westminster Library, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BU. Tel (44) (0)207 7222 2555. www.cinnamonclub.com

Other spicy combinations
Some spices are more powerful than others. Coriander seeds, for example, don't tend to affect a wine choice unduly while dried chilli (especially smoked), cloves and saffron, even if used in quite modest amounts, do. Here are some ideas drawn from other cuisines:

Black pepper - best with lush, ripe reds (but not syrah from the Northern Rhone. The pepper flavours cancel each other out!)

Cinnamon - in savoury dishes: rioja and other oak matured Spanish reds; in sweet dishes, especially with apple: late harvested riesling

Cloves - very ripe, full bodied reds e.g. grenache, reds from the Douro

Cumin (especially when roasted) - sharp lemony whites, such as Greek whites

Fennel (and dill) - minerally or citrussy sauvignon blancs, dry Italian whites

Fresh ginger - gewurztraminer or, surprisingly, champagne

Pimenton and other smoked dried red chillies - soft, ripe reds, especially tempranillo

Saffron - strong dry ross and viognier

Star anise/five spice, especially with duck - new world pinot noir

This article was first published in Decanter in April 2005.

The Cinnamon Club holds regular wine events. See the latest ones here.

What Britain’s top wine merchants think you should drink

Yesterday was the Bunch tasting, one of the highlights of the UK press tasting circuit. The Bunch is a group of six well-known wine merchants: Adnams, Berry Bros & Rudd, Corney & Barrow, Lea & Sandeman, Tanners and Yapp Brothers. I’ve been seeing the same faces there for well over a decade. (None of them looks a day older, of course. Nor do I . . . ;-)

Each is allowed to show 11 wines - 4 under £10, 4 over £10 (no specified upper limit) 2 ‘icon’ wines, defined whichever way they want and 1 ‘lunch’ wine which none of us tends to drink because we’re too busy tasting. Still, it gives them an extra shot.

What struck me as most interesting is what they chose to show in 2012 and, even more so, which countries and regions they omitted. So - extraordinarily - no wines from Australia, California or New Zealand and none from Rioja, Alsace or Germany though Tanners pulled one at the last minute and substiituted an Austrian one.

France came out top in terms of numbers with almost two thirds the total wines on show: 43 out of 66, including the icons, 35 if you don’t include them. Of those 6 were white burgundy (no red, oddly - in fact only one pinot noir), 7 from Bordaux, including 3 dry whites) and 11 from the Rhone (including 2 white and 4 Chateauneuf-du-Papes). If you add the 8 wines from elsewhere in southern France (6 red, 2 white, mainly from the Languedoc) to that latter figure it comes to 19 - not including south-west France.

So similar were the merchants in their thinking that two (Tanners and Yapp) fielded Chateauneufs as their icon wines and 2 (Adnams and Lea & Sandeman) Macons from Jean Thevenet

Does this make the merchants involved unadventurous? You certainly could argue that - undoubtedly they're from the more traditional end of the trade - but I think it rather indicates them chosing not to show wines that are over-represented in the supermarkets e.g. Rioja and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and to feature regions where they can genuinely add value because of their specialist knowledge*. Lea & Sandeman’s Le Petit Roy 11ème année from Domaine Jean Royer - Chateauneuf in all but name for £13.75 for example.

I’ll be writing more about these wines in the Guardian over the coming weeks but here are six of the best bottles under £10 - one from each merchant at the tasting. There should be reductions on all these prices if you buy an unsplit case.

Adnams
Pinot Noir, Paparuda Cramele Recas, Romania 2011 (13.5%) £5.70
Romanian pinot used to be pretty rough stuff but this is the best pinot under £10 I’ve tasted this year - much less sweet than comparable pinots from Chile. Pair with duck and game.

Berry Bros & Rudd
Clos la Coutale, Cahors, 2009 (13.5%) £8.95
A cracking Cahors - substantial but also refreshing - seductive, even. Made for confit duck and cassoulet, but would be great with beef casseroles too.

Corney & Barrow
Le G de Guiraud Bordeaux 2009 (13%) £10.50
White Bordeaux is my current passion so it was good to see three at the tasting. This is made in that glorious lush, fragrant, passionfruit-ish style. A snip at the price - even though it snuck in at over the £10 mark. Drink as an aperifif, I’d have said.

Lea & Sandeman
Tremonte Malbec Single Vineyard Reserva 2010, Chile 14% £9.50
A big beefy red of the kind you’d expect more from Argentina but a heck of a lot of wine for the money. And at least as cheap as it would be in a supermarket. Think steak.

Tanners
Tanners Douro Red 2010 13% £7.90
Lighter and less extracted than many Douro reds (a plus in my book) but certainly substantial enough to take on strongly flavoured food such as rustic Portuguese pork stews and even a rogan josh. Good with a cheeseboard too, I bet.

Yapp Brothers
Domaine Gardrat Vin de pays Charentais Sauvignon 2010 11.5% £9.50
One for this Indian summer weather. A crisp refreshing white with a lot of flavour for its modest level of alcohol. Drink with salads, especially with goats cheese.

* and Yapp, of course, is a specialist French merchant.