It is a wonderful custom in Britain that while on holiday a local bottle is bought back as a souvenir of the land’s gastronomic tradition. I was the lucky sharer of such a happy occurrence last month when a family member returned from Provence in the sun-kissed deep south of France. Once the bottle was opened and generous dollops partaken, it was soon agreed that the wine was very fine – in fact, amazing! That wine was Domaine Tourbillon Châteauneuf-du-Pape Vieille Vignes 2016. The grand sounding beverage gets its name from the fact that the Popes set up shop in Avignon in the 14th century. Now a small village in a stony area grew the best grapes in the Southern Rhône and so was acquired by the French Pope Clement and renamed ‘the popes new house’ or  ‘Newcastle’ du Pape. The stones, or ‘galets’, were significant. The ‘galets’ had resulted from an old course of the Rhône washing up large flat eroded pebbles into heaps. Later, as the river become diverted, the stones formed an ideal component for well-drained soils that retained the scorching heat of the day – a night storage heater for vines.
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By the 1920s more and more grape varieties were assembled into the Southern Rhône Red Blend, Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre (or GSM) being the major blended components but many more were included even white grapes, all ripening at different times in the season. So, a set of quality-based rules was drawn up to keep tabs locally on how grapes were grown and made into wine - the birth of the French Appellation system or Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée. Châteauneuf-du-Pape AOC became one of the first in 1929. 

​It was once the practice to deride wines made in England as ‘beyond the pale’. How could a country with such a northern latitude and with such cold and damp weather ever be able to ripen grapes enough to make drinkable wine? The experts stated that 30-50° of latitude were the limits in both hemispheres (London lies at 51.5° N). Beyond this the angle of altitude of the sun is lower than that required to generate intensity of heat to warm the vines; also spring frost damage to new vine shoots becomes a significant risk and rain can upset sugar levels at harvesting. No wonder that 53% of alcoholic drinks made in the UK is non—'vitis vinifera’ related alcohol -  gin! Enter the ‘New Latitude’ Wines. Slowly in dingy laboratories and scruffy farm buildings, mad geneticists have been secretly crossing vine species and hybrids in an attempt to define the future of English wine. Genetically modified food has nothing on these guys; the vine forms a separate species every time it is fertilised they tell me – a fact that increases my admiration for this plant nearly as much as my other half likes her roses!

​The changing parameter is of course climate change and with the development of these hardy grape varieties, the vignerons of Olde England have changed the ball game and are now taken seriously by many well-seasoned drinkers. The English grape varieties such as Bacchus, Seyval, Dornfelder, Rondo and Madeleine Angevine, in their clonally adapted personas, are all suited to the UK environment and yield quite acceptable to excellent still wines, and more excitingly, sparkling versions too when added to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and sometimes on their own. This is to my mind the epitome of English international wine-making. A ‘new and old’ combo, twenty-first century English specialized grape variety combined with the sparkling wine process (devised in the Jacobean age of discovery in 1662 by Christopher Merret which promoted the process of secondary fermentation thereby pioneering the traditional Champagne Method) - something authentically English! So my choice for the month, is new generic English (and Welsh) wines (not the sparkling type which I covered in a previous article but English still wine).

There were plenty of high points at my recent visit to the GB Wine Trade Tasting in London, and one of the most popular was Chapel Down Kit's Coty Estate, the Chardonnay being a fine example of skilful wine-making. On offer is ‘creamy melon aroma with almost a note of honey but not actually sweet, very high lemony acid but clean and pure in fruit with enough weight and creaminess in the mouth to balance that acidity’. Julia Harding MW’s finely scripted tasting note ends with ‘Still tastes very fresh and lively, persistent, too’. If you can lay your hands on a bottle it’s on-line in a 6 case minimum buy but pricey at £38 per bottle. However fear not, there is always Waitrose Cellars; three wines I recommend from them are Chapel Down Flint Dry, a heady blend of Chardonnay, Huxelrube, Pinot Blanc, and Bacchus, at £11.99, Bolney Estate Foxhole, English Rosé, with blending varieties Rondo and Dornfelder, at £12.99, and probably the most mouth-watering of the lot, Chapel Down Bacchus, elderflower, grassy and box-tree aromas setting off tantalizing freshness in the mouth. England’s signature grape, at only £13.99. Taste them and see for yourself if English Wine has come anywhere near to atonement.

​The unending acerbic debates about remaining and no-deal Brexit, has me reaching for the drinks cupboard. The same type of confrontational politics took place in the 1970’s in the Piedmont province of Northern Italy. The most notable and ‘Burgundian’ styled wines from the Barolo region south of Alba, gain the new globally recognised DOCG status. Then disputes begin to arise between the traditionalists and the modernists or the Tradizionalisti versus the Modernisti. (Since becoming hooked on the TV series Montalbano I can’t resist the mellifluent tones of Italian.) A straight forward argument developed into the “Barolo Wars”. Barolo wines had a problem.

The Nebbiolo grape variety has strong tannins but a weak colour and the traditional way of making Barolo accepted by kings of Piedmont and indeed the only declared king of united Italy, Victor Emmanuel II who invested buckets of money in the place, was to enrich the colour by lengthy extraction. However, a bit like making tea, it’s very easy to stew things up. So to calm down the high tannin levels extracted from the skins, seeds and stalks they matured the wines in cask for long periods even up to ten years. Now the common sense approach is to go light on the extraction; make Barolo more fruity, less tannic and more accessible and the modern commercially aware farmers liked this approach. But the ‘stick-in-muds’ believed their extracted tannic wines were a hallmark, non-negotiable and anything else was close to sacrilege. After a lot of shouting, the Modernisti were on the unstoppable side of progress and more easily marketable Barolo was made and eventually some has ended up on our supermarket shelves.
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I have tried three locally available Barolos and come up with a recommendation that will not break the bank and hopefully leave you with the true taste of Barolo, without spending over £50 – because it’s Barolo? My choices this month are three of the modern styles of Barolo, a 2014 Terre da Vino Barolo from Waitrose at £13.99, a 2013 Peironte Barolo from M & S at £18 and a 2011 Serre Alta Barolo Riserva from Sainsburys at £24. All three were great to taste with aromas of dark cherry, plums, strawberries, with herbal nuances, and a touch of medicinal notes. The Terre da Vino had lovely fruit with sandlewood hints from the well-integrated oak and silky tannins, whereas the Peironte was more fragrant with violets and included with the fruit, hints of white chocolate, but if you can afford it I’d go for the Serre Alta Riserva. You will be rewarded with rich complex fruits, enticing oak influence including leather and liquorice, and a wonderful long finish, what’s more the Barolo hallmark is pronounced – ‘tar and roses’! Barolo is a great wine region making very drinkable dry red wines, great with rich food and pasta dishes, and enjoyable alone. The brand has manged to remain top quality and approachable without the exclusiveness of Bordeaux and Burgundy. No ‘argy bargy’ now in the vineyards, just pour a glass and relax – anyone for Montalbano?