Three Choirs Late Harvest, Gloucestershire, England 2011 (£15.99, The Wine Pantry)
Remember the miserable squib of a summer of 2012? It was, by all accounts, a bit of a disaster for English wine(Wine Display), and many producers struggled to make anything at all. A little local knowledge goes a long way however, and the UK's sole English wine specialist, The Wine Pantry, a tiny but brilliant independent wine merchant with an enviable position in London foodie centraal as you turn onto Stoney Street opposite Borough Market, has used theirs to good effect in sourcing a charming dry white from the vintage. The Signature blend from New Hall Vineyards in Purleigh near Chelmsford, Essex (£10.99) has a touch of Alsace in its brisk mix of citrus and blossom. Even better, however, is the honeyed peach of Three Choirs' sweet sticky siegerrebe, harvested late into the mercifully Indian part of the no-less tricky summer of 2011.(Wine Display)
Biocantina Giannattasio Bombino Bianco, Puglia Italy 2012 (£15, Vini Italiani)
Another relative newcomer to the burgeoning UK indie wine scene (it's just celebrated its second anniversary by opening a wine bar), Vini Italiani in South Kensington has given itself a broader palette to paint from than the Wine Pantry: Italy is the world's second-largest wine(Wine Display) producer, England isn't even in the Top 40. Wheat-chaff separation is the name of the game, here, and what makes Vini Italiani stand out is their willingness to root out bottles from every corner of the country. That translates into delicious curiosities like the rarely seen (in the UK) dry white bombino from Puglia in the south, with its herbs, flowers, and lime so pure they could have been distilled. But it also means superior bottles from better-known regions, such as the joyously aromatic and succulent red Tenuta Lilliano Chianti Classico 2010 (£15).
Château Recougne Bordeaux Supérieur, France 2010 (£9.99, or £7.99 if you buy two bottles, Majestic)
Bordeaux comes in for a lot of justified stick for the excessive prices and rather charmless, alienating air of stiff formality that comes with its top wines, and for the mealy-mouthed meanness of the bulk-bought stuff it tends to offer up in the supermarkets. But there's a lot more to what is, after all, one of the world's largest wine(Wine Display)regions than those two extremes, particularly in better vintages like 2009 and 2010. For the two-bottle price of £7.99, Château Recougne's classic blend of merlot with the cabernets sauvignon and franc, with its juicy blackcurrant framed by trademark Bordelais freshness and gently gripping tannin, is hard to beat for value if you're looking for a crowd-pleasing partner for a Sunday roast.
