Wine Club

For some inexplicable reason, the Loire remains a woefully underrated area. The longest river in France, its banks are home to a remarkable variety of grapes and wine styles — red and white, sweet and dry, sparkling and still. Lightness and freshness is the region’s signature and the following selection from the inimitable Yapp Bros, 2014 IWC Loire Specialist of the Year, is perfect springtime fare. Jason Yapp has lopped a quid off every bottle and I hope you find as much to enjoy here as I did. There’s nothing duller than a dull Muscadet, oh, except maybe a dull Soave, but the 2013 Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie, Domaine de la Mortaine (1) is anything but, being full of vim and vigour.

It is noticeable how the nights are drawing in now, added to which the leaves in our garden are ever so slightly but definitely beginning to turn. Nevertheless, we’ve still got summer drinks on the lawn or by the poolside barbecue in mind with this lovely, typically quirky selection from The Wine Company. And I’m delighted to say that we’ve managed to extract some pretty generous discounts this week, too, with an average bottle price of just £9.79, down from an average £11.49. Thanks chaps. We start with the 2012 Reuilly ‘La Raie’, Domaine Claude Lafond (1) a first-rate 100 per cent Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire, made by the celebrated local figure Claude Lafond’s daughter, Nathalie.

Mark Pardoe MW, Buying Director of Berry Bros. & Rudd, was in charitable mood last week. Not only did he put up a particularly mouth--watering selection of wines, he also agreed to lop a full 15 per cent off the list price. That Mark was positively glowing with bonhomie is thanks to the fact that Berrys’ had just been crowned 2014 Wine Merchant of the Year at the International Wine Challenge, praised for its ‘sensational list’. Well done guys! The 2013 Constantia Glen Two (1) is a classy blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. Constantia, near Stellenbosch, boasts just eight producers of which Constantia Glen is the newest. Soft, creamy, aromatic and stylish in a dry white Bordeaux kind of way, it’s perfect with garlic and tarragon roast chicken. £14.

We’ve a great selection of regional French wines this week from my old chum Jason Yapp. With carefree al fresco imbibing in mind, during what promises to be a blisteringly hot couple of weeks, I was keen to keep the wines under a tenner and relatively light in alcohol, and we almost succeeded. Only a gorgeous, peach-scented Viognier is more than 12.5 per cent alcohol by volume, and only a cheeky Vin de Savoie is over a tenner. Wines of similar quality from better-known (but certainly not better) regions would have cost a heck of a lot more. Sadly, our self-imposed strictures meant that we had to ditch a really toothsome 2010 Vacqueyras Cuvée Spéciale. It’s just too pricey for this offer at £14.25 and too alcoholic at 14 per cent.

It baffles me that German wines are still something of a hard sell in the UK. I imagine that they’re all too readily associated by consumers with that ghastly German export Liebfraumilch, which no self-respecting German will ever have heard of, let alone have drunk. Forgive me if I’m teaching you to suck eggs, but fine German Riesling, which I adore, has nothing to do with such ghastly vinous bubblegum (which is chiefly made from Müller-Thurgau) and the 2007 Weingut Göttelmann-Dautenpflänzer Riesling Kabinett Trocken ‘Halbmond’ (1), from the Nahe, is a thing of great beauty, and ideal summer fare.

A lovely, summery offer this, with some great wines chosen especially for outdoor drinking; for barbecues, picnics, lazy afternoons and long evenings idling in the garden and for stashing in the Glyndebourne or Garsington hamper. And just to be fair, the wines — which took an age to whittle down — will also suit perfectly those armchair sportsmen likely to be unavoidably detained indoors by the World Cup, Wimbledon or the Test Matches. Best of all, every bottle, bar the fizz, comes in under a tenner. And the fizz — Champagne Delamotte Brut NV (1) — really is rather fabulous. Delamotte is one of the oldest of all champagne producers (established 1760) and sister house to the legendary Salon.

There are mixed views — to put it mildly — concerning the quality of the 2013 Bordeaux vintage. It’s not a complete write-off by any means, for there are certainly decent wines to be had that will make enjoyable mid-term drinking. But in the main the wines are pricey, they’re not for keeping and it’s not a vintage to invest in. Instead, I strongly recommend looking back at the previous fine vintages that are still on the market, particularly at the so-called ‘second wines’ of the great châteaux. This is where the smart money is heading.Such wines are made with fruit from the same vineyards, with the same love and care, by the same winemakers, using the same facilities as their big brothers. And they’re a heck of a lot cheaper.

We’re thinking ahead with this offer, with summer firmly in our sights. Think of barbecues, picnics by the river, summer fêtes and lazy days on the beach. And think of red wine. Chilled. I’ve never understood our obsession for serving red wines at room temperature or even warmer. The habit started long before the days of central heating — what was room temperature then would be considered jolly parky now. Of course, big, butch, bold reds need a bit of coaxing to open out and shake off their tannin. But this can be taken to extremes. Only recently I was served an uncomfortably warm Aussie Shiraz that had been well and truly mulled. I swear there was a puff of steam as the sommelier opened it.

For many years, Languedoc-Roussillon was a byword for lousy wine. The region was infamous for producing vast amounts of grim fare which appealed to nobody except the French army who bought the rough local reds by the container-load, for cleaning their rifles with or running their tanks on or something. Today, though, this vast area has been transformed and is an exceptionally happy hunting ground, especially for those wine lovers bored with the wines of Bordeaux or miffed at Bordelais prices. Or put off by the dire reports of Bordeaux’s 2013 vintage. Languedoc-Roussillon’s climate and terroir are both spot on, and a new generation of winemakers has gleefully spotted the region’s potential.

A really tasty selection from The Wine Company this week at very generously discounted prices. There is a theme of sorts: I wonder if you can spot it. Made exclusively for The Wine -Company (Moa Ridge and The Wine Company share an owner in Suffolk-based Johnny Wheeler), the 2011 Moa Ridge Chardonnay (1) from Marlborough, New Zealand, is spiffing value at just £12 a bottle (down from £14.99). Hand-picked and oak-aged for 15 months, it’s full of citrus and spice and succulent stone fruit. It’s subtle too and gratifyingly complex, more Burgundian in style than New World, and perfect with a dozen or so of the last R-in-the-month oysters. The 2007 C.J.

When I worked at Berry Bros & Rudd 20 years ago, I had a wonderfully eccentric customer who liked to ring up during bathtime. He was a confirmed claret lover and, although he longed to broaden his horizons, he could never quite muster the courage to do so. We would spend 20 minutes or so discussing tasty alternatives from the Rhône, Spain, Italy or the New World, but his nerve always failed him and he’d retreat guiltily back to the safety of Bordeaux. He promised faithfully to be more adventurous next time, although we both knew he wouldn’t be, and I would go through the motions of giving him the prices of a Chianti or Crozes-Hermitage. ‘Hang on,’ he’d boom from the bathroom.

What I most admire about FromVineyardsDirect (apart from the quality and quirkiness of their wines and the ease of ordering) is the brevity of their list. There’s no messing about with any unnecessary padding; no wines bought simply to fill a gap because a particular grape, region or producer is under-represented. Every bottle stands on its merits and although the list does inevitably grow a little every year, it is pretty much cut to the bone. As FVD’s co-founder Esme Johnstone (who has decent form in the trade, having also set up Majestic) says, ‘Why have 20 different and — in some cases — indifferent Chablis when all you need is one or maybe two first-rate ones?

The late Alan Watkins, in whose ­memory we enjoyed a commemorative lunch at the Garrick Club the other day, was for a spell the wine correspondent of the Observer. He wrote almost exclusively about French wines. I used to chide him gently, pointing out that there were marvellous wines from the New World. He would shake his head, and say that, yes, some were all very well, even quite good. But you couldn’t drink them every day. And in the case of some, you couldn’t drink more than a single glass at a time. French wines, he implied, had a finesse, a degree of class, a touch of steel. To extrapolate, Aussie wines, for instance, were like a new acquaintance who seems incredibly friendly but quickly becomes wearing.

Next month we launch the new all-singing, all-dancing, bells and whistles super-duper Spectator wine club, which will be much the same as the old Spectator wine club, but bigger. And even better. Meanwhile, as you wait with bated breath (not ‘baited’ breath; you do not have a piece of cheese or a worm on your tongue), I heartily recommend these wines from Swig, one of our popular and successful merchants. They buy up smallish parcels of superb wines that you simply will not find elsewhere. There is a degree of risk for Swig, because most people haven’t heard of these wines. Sometimes they fail to sell briskly enough from the list, which is why there are generous discounts here.

Simon Hoggart's latest selection for the month of August People sometimes ask me about those ads you see in magazines and the weekend papers. ‘Get £89.95 worth of wine for just £49.95! Our introductory offer brings you twelve superb wines for barely more than half price...’ How do they do it? Easy. The great majority of the wines are ‘exclusives’ which means that the company has bought up the entire production of a winery. They can then list the stuff at whatever notional price they like, and base the so-called saving on that. It’s as if I were to write to the editor of The Spectator and say: ‘Yes, get an article worth £350 for only £200!