Your nose is far more sensitive than you palate, so let your talented hooter lead the way this week with five sensationally aroma-rich wines.
2009 Laurent Miquel, Vendanges Nocturnes Viognier, Vin de Pays d’Oc, France (£8.19, reduced to £5.99, until 5 April, Waitrose). This wine has a phenomenal perfumed onslaught of peach fuzz, apricot kernel and lemon balm. Hypnotic, intriguing and silky on the palate, too, this is a superb, magical, medium-weight white which will enrapture your friends.
2009 Viña Rocabo Rioja, Spain (£5.99, reduced to £4.79 if you buy 6 mixed bottles, Oddbins). This feisty, dark Rioja has more weight than you might expect for its price and the haunting blackberry and plum notes on the nose herald a superb, vinous experience. With spice and herb notes, too, this really is a surprisingly talented little chap.
2009 Spy Valley, Gewurztraminer, Marlborough, New Zealand (£12.49, buy 2 save £4 = £9.99, until 2 May, Majestic). The most aromatic of all grape varieties, ‘gewurz’, as we call it in the wine business, is a potent, heady, temptress and this exceptional version from Spy Valley has lychee, ginger, musk and rose petal notes in its complex spectrum of scents!
2010 LOIS, Grüner Veltliner, Loimer, Kamptal, Austria (£9.75, www.thegoodwineshop.co.uk). Fred Loimer crafts pinpoint accurate, delicate whites in his corner of Austria and LOIS is a breathtakingly delicate, scintillatingly perfumed grüner. Fairy-like, timid, citrus and wild flower notes with a touch of white pepper and spring blossom leads to a long, bone dry palate and a nervy, tangy finish – stunning with this week’s spinach and gruyere tart.
2009 Brouilly, Château de Pierreux, Beaujolais, France (£10.00, www.camberwines.co.uk; £12.79 Noel Young tel. 01223 566744). With wild strawberries, fresh-picked black cherries and a touch of woodsmoke on the nose, this is an evocative wine from one of the most incredible properties in Beaujolais. Haunting, noble and impressive, this Brouilly is drinking well now, but it will live for another five years in regal style.
