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When it’s darned hot, as it has been, I like to drink wine that has resistance, a benign bitterness. I find that quality more refreshing than coolness. I want something that is anti-stupor, in that way that a strong cup of tea is in a summer garden.
I have been drinking a few rosés. But my current furrow is dark rosés (drosés, perhaps? Could it catch on?). Like rosé via an orange side road. One that I have especially loved is Riflesso Rosi, produced in the Dolomites by Eugenio Rosi. Some would call this a natural wine, but I think natural is intent and not a style, so I wouldn’t. My impression is that he is a creative and sensitive winemaker.
Riflesso Rosi is very dark, and rousingly textural. The colour is like a sliver of garnet; almost opaque, luminous, like looking through a gem. If you were to take this to the Provence-pink poolside I think it would blow some minds. It’s looks like an equivocating red. It is spicy, and crunchy, like the first Victoria plums (which are here already).
It's a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Marzemino, the slightly delinquent speciality of Trentino. I love Marzemino. It’s late ripening and herbaceous. Herbaceousness gets a bad rap in wine. Good herbaceousness is a joy. I hope the myopia for pale rosé ceases – I think it is happening and more people are opening their eyes to the diversity of rosé.
I bought this for about £24 from Passione Vino, and it’s stocked by many independents. Would you call it a ‘serious’ rosé? Or is it a different thing altogether? I love wines which play with categories – ‘liminal wines’, a friend of mine calls them – and I loved this so much when I had it in my garden. It was completely delicious with barbequed salmon. It’s one of the most refreshing, satisfyingly deep but uplifting wines that I’ve had recently.
I love drinking red wine on hot evenings when the air has finally tempered to your body; when you feel you’re dissolving into the evening. On these sorts of nights, I think reds that are gauzy in texture – ‘barrier-less’ reds, slightly fuzzy at the edges – are very satisfying. I look to grapes like Grenache, and I don’t chill them.
The red that’s wowed me recently has been Leeu Passant old-vine Cinsault. Cinsault is another gauzy red. It’s such an aromatic, almost silky, red grape, it can almost seem like it’s light bodied. But it isn’t, it’s just that within the tannins of Cinsault there’s a lot of space. It’s like a mesh, loosely knitted. Leeu Passant is a producer that I love, and the winemakers here (Andrea and Chris Mullineux) work with the founder Anajit Singh to make wine from great old-vine Cinsault. The viticulturalist is the great Rosa Kruger, the queen of South African old vines, responsible for saving so many great old vineyards like this one.
What I love about this wine is how it doesn’t attack the palate. It sidles in, and builds to intertwined aroma and tannins. Gorgeous. It has floral and cherry aromatics and tastes just like a summer night in a rose garden. Can you tell I’m mildly obsessed with this wine at the moment? I bought it from Berry Bros for £55 and I relished it.
Another wine I’ve loved isn’t technically a wine: Macvin du Jura Domaine Labet. Donald Edwards, sommelier at La Trompette, shared this with me and some Georgian winemakers. I knew Jura for Savagnin and Vin Jaune (also fantastic in summer – you need salty refreshment!). But Macvin is another creature, made with two thirds unfermented grape juice. To that pure juice is added one third marc. It mutes the fermentation of sugars in the fresh juice, the alcohol stabilises around 16% and it’s aged in 228l casks. It’s an amber colour – it looks like an amber wine – but it’s not aged on skins. That freaked the Georgians out a little.
Because of the fresh juice it has the blossomy grapeyness of a summer orchard. But then it has a darker register: quince, dried apricot, dark exoticism. It’s a sensational (in every sense) drink.
I think high Summer makes me crave the weird stuff. But I have been drinking some of the usual suspects too. As part of the Paring Pages series of author interviews, Clare Malec sent me a box of wines paired with Jessica Moore’s Young Women, to go with an interview with the author led by Aleesha Hansell. As well as some great Malbec from Catena, there was also the high-altitude Chardonnay, Catena Alta. It reminded me how gloriously sippable good Chardonnay is. Though I haven’t finished the book yet; wine slows my reading to a snooze.
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