TWO EPIC SUMMER WHITES AT UNMISSABLE PRICES!
NEWSFLASH – IT’S HOT OUT THERE
As the mercury rises to hitherto unknown levels this week, my go-to white wine style (and I have already partaken with joyous alacrity and enthusiastic tempo) has been unshakable! This weather calls for bone-dry, unoaked, crystalline, and phenomenally refreshing creations that speed-skate across the palate and leave your core shivering for more. Of course, this style of wine is made all over the planet from a multitude of grapes, but today I have found for you one example from a very familiar variety and something a little different. Both are available from the awesome specialist indie merchant Decorum Vintners. Load up today and be sure to buy as much as you think you’ll need for the summer. These wines project absolutely incredible flavours, with javelin-like accuracy at prices which will make you sigh with contentment!
2025 Cable Bay, Rocky Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc, Awatere Valley, South Island, New Zealand (£16.50, www.decvin.com).
If you are a regular reader of my vinous musings (and if not, why not?). You will already know I cannot abide floral, ‘Body Shop’, fruit-salad Sauvignon Blanc, and for this reason, I rarely, if ever, drink big-brand Kiwi SB. Cable Bay is an ultra-boutique winery with delicate footprints in both Waiheke Island and Marlborough, or more specifically, the edgy Awatere Valley. Awatere fruit, no matter who grows it, is always more linear, vigorous and teasing than Valley floor fruit. In the right hands, it delivers Olympic accuracy and phenomenal freshness, along with a herbal, pea-shoot, lime-zest, and cucumber-skin theme. Cable Bay’s Rocky Vineyard adds a mountain stream, pebble-like freshness, too! In short, this is an atypical NZ Sauvignon Blanc, and I think classicists will not believe the attack here, which, to me, is reminiscent of stripped-back, old-school, pre-climate-crisis Sancerre! 18/20 (Drink now – 2027)
2025 Melacce Vermentino, ColleMassari, Maremma Toscana, Italy (£15.95, www.decvin.com).
And with the same flavour silhouette as the Cabel Bay above, this sensational Vermentino shows brittle, clean-as-a-whistle sea-spray tones over a vital, super-dry, lemon-tinged chassis. This is one of my favourite styles of Italian white wine, and yet many versions these days are hefty and slow-moving, and some even involve oak! I demand that my Vermentino cleanse and titillate more than any ice-cold pint of lager ever poured. It must bring a white-knuckle experience that immediately elicits goosebumps on all available surfaces, even on the hottest day (like today)! And the great minds at ColleMassari know this. This is a dramatically refreshing wine, and it has the added skill of working wonders with any seafood, crustaceans, or sushi! 18/20 (Drink now – 2027)