We also have a few misapprehensions, one of which I intend to put right here and now. Vintage — everybody is familiar with the word, but probably eight out of 10 wine drinkers are wrong in their understanding of it. Vintage doesn’t mean fine quality or venerable age. A vintage wine is simply one from a single harvest (or vintage), as opposed to a wine blended from grapes grown in more than one year. So most wines, whether £4 or £40, young or old, are vintage wines, with labels showing their harvest year — such as the three below.
2004 Domaine de la Meynarde, Côtes du Rhône Villages, £4.99
Sun-warmed herbs, hot stones and ripe berry fruit. Great-value red (Marks & Spencer).
2004 Monte Schiavo Sassaiolo, Rosso Piceno, £5.99
Red Italian full of cherry, spice and almond (Majestic; £4.99 each when you buy two).
2005 Zonte’s Footstep Verdelho, £6.95
An oak-free Oz white bursting with bright, tangy fruit (Somerfield; The Wine Society, 01438 741177).
Advertisement
WINE BLUFF
"A champagne grower has planted vines in Hampshire"
Anorak fact: he has planted seven acres of chardonnay and pinot noir and expects 2008 to be his first proper harvest.