2011 Finest* Falanghina, Puglia, Italy (£5.99, Tesco – in 264 stores nationwide). It’s jolly hard to find worthwhile wines under six quid these days. I only put wines in this or my Weekend Magazine column (in Saturday’s Mail) if they achieve a mark of 18/20 or higher in my notes. Very occasionally I find serious (gold medal standard in my opinion) cheapies which are genuinely priced and not subjected to a discount. Bear in mind that the duty element of all still wines is £1.91. If you add a 35% gross profit (a non-greedy wine margin) and VAT to this element alone it equates to £3.50. So, if you subtract this amount from all still wines (sparkling duty is more) there is not a lot of money left over for the bottle, capsule, label, transport, storage and, crucially, the wine inside, particularly if the shelf price is £5.99. This wine is worthy of the word Finest* (not sure what the asterisk means)! It is far and away the most interesting, tangy, greengage-imbued, crunchy, inexpensive white I have found recently. Oddball, eclectic Italian varietals are all the rage, so load up with this delightful Falanghina for summer entertaining and ask yourself how on earth it tastes this good when the wine inside ‘costs’ a lot less than a quid!
