What we've been drinking lately

A recent round up of our favourite wines of the moment........

A real stand out for me recently has been the sublime line up from Restless River.  They've just switched UK agents so are brand new to our list and they are truly a sensational line up.  The Ava Marie Chardonnay (see here) is as good a New World Chardonnay than anything I have drunk recently and reinforces what a great location South Africa's Hemel-en-Aarde valley is for producing world class wines.  Also check out their brilliant Le Luc Pinot Noir (see here) - another blinder.  For the price points, they punch well above. 

Here's a little photo of their farm.  Nice, huh?  Heaven and earth.

Talking of sensational Pinot Noirs, the new 2023 vintages of Tasmanian cult producer, Chatto, have just arrrived.  I'm calling them cult before anyone else does as they're so good they deserve cult status.  We had a bottle of the Bird Pinot Noir 2023 (see here) last weekend and the bottle was gone in a flash.  It's such juicy, silky, delicious Pinot that it's far too easy to drink and almost undermines what a quality and complex wine it is.  Their Intrigue Pinot Noir is a bit richer and more structured, more for ageing but again silky and hauntingly beautiful (see here).

If you want an inexpensive white to quaff whilst enjoying this wonderful Spring weather, then look no further than Quinta de Azevedo's Alvarinho Escolha (see here).  The same grape variety as Spain's Albarino but this is from Portugal and, at £15 a bottle, it's terrific value.  Fresh peach, apricot and citrus with a little creamy hint from a kiss of French oak. 

Also very good (but further up the scale) is the David Moret Rully (see here) - so good, in fact, that I got carried away enjoying it and didn't concentrate fully on the fact I was meant to be "tasting and writing constructive notes".  Very good wines do that to you, especially if Jo is joining in with the tasting.  This is white Burgundy at its finest, and quite frankly, you've got to be a bit mad if you don't like white Burgundy.

Finally, the Grosset Rockwood Wild Shiraz (see here) is a brilliant example of the New Wave of fresher, more minerally Shiraz coming out of Australia.  Organic & biodynamic, Matthew Jukes has put the wine in his Top 100 this year and rightly so.  Plush & velvety with dark berry fruit, spice, coffee and minerals, it has fine tannins, fresh acidity and great balance.  A recommendation for those summer BBQs.  Enjoy!