47 Degrees, Chardonnay, Moldova
47 Degrees, Chardonnay from Moldova is a pretty good example of a decent white wine from Moldova. It’s an off dry Chardonnay that’s soft on the palette with immediate aromas of honey and flavours of pineapple, lemon, honey and an underlying oak layer. It’s the oak I wasn’t a big fan off but saying that I did like it.
At £7 a bottle from Majestic Wines It’s pretty good value.
Dr Loosen, Slate Hill, Riesling, 2022, Mosel, Germany
I tried the 2016 version of this Slate Hill Riesling in 2020 and im happy to say its still great wine line. Aromas of lychee and citrus with hints of petroleum in there. The taste is refreshing with fresh citrus and lime under note with minerality poking though. The length is excellent and the underlying sweetness is beautifully integrated making this a great wine. At £10 a bottle it’s amazing value.
Nardello, Turbian, Soave, 2019, Italy
Yep another italian white wine! Which for about £10 is pretty good value. It’s a typical Soave, dry and reasonably light with a soft and roundness feel. There’s flavours of peach, citrus, apple and hints of pear and honey. It won’t set the wine world alight, but it’s rather good and worth trying.
Patriarche Pere et Fils Bourgogne Chardonnay
Love it or hate Chardonnay, Burgundy does seem to produce better Chardonnay than most other places. This is a competent dry white wine with plenty of acidity and depth of flavour although a little one dimensional. Citrus and apple are in there but it’s a little sharp for me. At £16 a bottle there are better Burgundy Chardonnay’s out there.
Martín Códax, Albariño, 2022, Spain
This Albarino from Spain is a great example of the grape, dry, light with a good dope of acidity. You get lemon, citrus and hints of peach on the flavours side. This would go very well with sea food, pasta in a white source or a zesty salad. At £13 a bottle it’s decent value.
Wine made with the Solaris grape is usually found in England as its a grape that grows very well here. In England it produces a crisper wine with green apples, grass and hints of gooseberry. This wine from high in the Dollomites in Italy produces something different. Its dry, crisp with citrus and stone fruit flavours and a hint of gooseberry and very clean.
At £8 a bottle at Majestic Wines It’s got to be the best value white wine of the year, absolutely cracking.
Concilio, Vigneti delle Dolomiti, Solaris, 2021, Italy
Chateau de l’Hyverniere, Muscadet Sevre et Maine Sur Lie, 2020, Loire, France
This white wine from the luave Valley from Chateau de l’Hyverniere is quite wonderful. It’s a dry white but quite light and frisky with high acidity which would make this perfect to go with seafood full stop there are flavors of citrus, lemon and grapefruit and green apple. There’s a mineral undertone which makes this quite a fabulous wine and at under £8 a bottle it’s great value.
Domaine Lafage, Centenaire, 2019, Languedoc, France
This white wine from Domaine Lafage in the Languedoc, France is made with Granache Gris and Granache Blanc and is quite good, even great in some ways. Bold, dry with plenty of length there are ripe citrus and honey flavours with a bit of minerality and green apple poking through. The bit I’m not some keen on is the grapefruit hints. Great wine for chicken, zesty salad or watching a sunset.
Domaine du Tix, Cuvée des Grandes Pountes, Vaucluse, France
This Viognier from the Rhone is quite something, with a rich texture and lots of fruit, peach and apricot, green apple, citrus and a mineral afternote it’s on thd dry side but quite bold. With decent acidity underlying everything it’s a classic French wine that’s done well and at £10 a bottle, great value. It’s a shame that not more French white wine is of this quality and price.
Another classy roundabout
Chablis map of the different grades of land
In July 2023 we headed off to Champagne and Chablis with friends for a bit of wine tasting. Weather was decent, accommodation booked Nd tastings arranged. Some of the champagne and Chablis houses needed to booked or an introduction made by a friendly Master of Wine, whom the wife had been judging wine earlier in the year.
What was apparent by the end of the trip was the quality of the Premier Cru and Grand Cru wines and price was pretty fair considering the quality.
Champagne Guilleminot.
Excellent start to the tasting and at about £15 a bottle for the entry Bruts, great price. Good length and fresher style these were a move away from the heavy toasty and yeasty notes of your traditional Champagnes. Well worth trying if you prefer cremant sparkling wines but want the next step up.
Champagne Jeangout.
This smaller producer is another excellent champagne house making about 30,000 bottles a year. Fresher style again with crispness, freshness and subtle citrus flavours that made their Premier Cru stand out. At £23 a bottle not cheap, even by french standards but superb and worth the money.
Champagne Cattier.
Cattier was not a name I had heard of before the wife brought a bottle home to go with our Christmas day meal, but then make about 600,000 bottles of their range and 1 million bottles of the iconic Ace of Spades range, at £300 a bottle the Ace of Spades if seriously expensive. At £30 to £50 a bottle their main range is more affordable and great quality. Fresher than your usual Champagnes but with clarity and superb length these Premier Cru’s are classy. Their 2014 Vintage has a bit more traditional characteristics but the fruit is certainly there.
One very geeky fact is that they are putting NFC labels on their bottles very shortly, hold your NFC enabled phone next to the front label and it will open a Utube video that Cattier has produced. Thd video is pretty good too. Here we has a tour of their cellars, mind blowing, 3 levels and stretch for what seemed like miles.
La Chablisiene.
This is a large producer with a large range of Petit Chablis to Premier Cru and Grand Cru wines. The Petit Chablis was a bit disappointing, short on length and flavours. Their Premier Cru wines were very good though and we end up with 9 different Premier Cru bottles.
Domaine Gautheron.
Great range and excellent at all levels. Fresh, crisp and loads of citrus. The Petit Chablis was a great day to day wine and the Premier Cru were wonderful ‘occasion’ wines the Grand Cru we purchased will be laid down for the next decade.
Domaine Vrignaud Fourchaume.
Classy cellar room for the tastings matched the wine. Oozing quality over their entire range we probably should have purchased more than we did. At about £20 a bottle for their Premier Cru wines this matched the other producers but their were none I didn’t think deserved a silver or gold medal.