Top 10 wines in the UK press

Cune Reserva Rioja Imperial 2005

Wine writer Fiona Beckett this week recommended a “seductive” Gran Reserva Rioja as her wine of the week.

She said: “It’s easy to overlook the familiar in favour of the esoteric, particularly when you’re a wine writer but it’s hard to think of a bottle that consistently gives more pleasure than Cune’s Gran Reserva Imperial Rioja.

“OK, it’s not cheap but even the recommended retail price of £26.99 is not a great deal to pay for a wine that you can rely on to impress.”

She added: “Having enjoyed the 2001 and 2004 (which I’ve just discovered was voted Wine Spectactor wine of the year) I was a little apprehensive about the 2005 – an unusually hot vintage – but it has the same seductive, soft, velvety fruit that other gran reservas struggle to preserve.

“The Rioja authorities categorised the vintage ‘excellent’ but then all their vintages are rated at least ‘good’.”

 Price: From £22

2011 Wolf Blass, Yellow Label Cabernet Sauvignon, South Australia

Writing in the Daily Mail, wine columnist Matthew Jukes picks out his favourite wines for the New Year.

He said: “This wine is a triumph because the 2011 vintage in South Australia was not a classic, but Wolf Blass has selected the most beautiful blackcurrant fruit for this wine and it completely confounds the senses.

“With a slick palate and a lovely twist of mint on the nose this is a wine not to be missed and it is delicious with all things carnivorous!”

Price: £9.99 – Tesco, Ocado.com. 

2012 The Lane Vineyards, Block 1A Chardonnay, Adelaide Hills, South Australia

He said: “By contrast to the wine above, the 2012 vintage in South Australia was a stunner.

“This epic Chardonnay is breathtakingly beautiful with fine, long, creamy honeysuckle and green apple highlights.

“Built to rival the most elegant and expressive of white Burgundies this wine rises to the challenge and it would adore the Mussel soup, too!”

 Price: £13.95 – Corney & Barrow tel. 020 7265 2430.

Tim Adams Protégé Tempranillo, Clare Valley, Australia 2009

David Williams this week picks out his favourite wines for beating the “January blues” including this “blackberry-fruit-filled” Australian red.

He said: “Wine as cure for SAD? I’m sure doctors wouldn’t recommend it.

“But in the cold milky light of January we have to take our sun where we can find it, or at least remind ourselves of the metaphor coined by Galileo – that lovely idea that “wine is sunlight, held together by water.”

“It’s a line that was adapted (“sunshine in a bottle”) by the marketers who masterminded Australian wine’s rise to prominence in the 1980s, and, much as I hate admitting my susceptibility to ad-man messages, and much as Australia’s vinous output has changed since then, I still can’t quite shake the idea that a bottle of Aussie red represents an infusion of vitamin D.

“A particularly suave example of what I mean comes from the ever-reliable stable of Tim Adams in the Clare Valley in South Australia.

“Working here with an Iberian variety, Tempranillo, that, like other grapes of southern European pedigree, seems to work well down under, he’s fashioned a beautifully modulated, blackberry-fruit-filled red that is deep, dark, smooth but full of vitality.”

Price: £9.99 – Tesco

He said: “Würzgarten (spice garden) produces some of the most distinct wines of all Mosel’s famous vineyards.

“They are richer than most, with flavours of the tropics (pineapple in this case) and, not surprisingly, a vibrant, spicy side.

“This will develop over the next decade and at 8% fits the mood of January restraint.”

Price: £15.99 – Ocado

2007 Erdener Treppchen Riesling Kabinett, Dr Hermann, Mosel

He said: “Majestic has a special knack of picking up older parcels of German Riesling at bargain prices.

“The floral perfume of youth is gone, replaced by citrus, apricot and honey.

“These older wines come into their own with food; think roast chicken or the fragrance of Asian dishes.”

Price: £9.99 – Majestic

2012 Domaine Les Yeuses Vermentino

Writing in The Scotsman Brian Elliot selected a white Vermentino from the French Mediterranean coast and a French red dominated by dark and juicy Grenache and Carignan grapes.

He said: “[This wine] uses a grape often associated purely with Sardinia: Vermentino.

“In fact, the variety is widely planted across Italy and France and there are 15,000 hectolitres of it produced in Languedoc alone.

“Being relatively late ripening, however, it does need a warm and sunny climate.

“This particular example is a light and bright white with fresh lemon acidity to enliven its rounded, tropical fruit flavours, but it is the underlying components that are especially noteworthy.

“A pithy, herbal and savoury finish – with clear suggestions of minerality – provide a complexity that is rare indeed at this price point.”

Price: £7.50, Lea & Sandeman

 2012 Côté Mas Rouge Intense

 He said: “France does blending well – peaking perhaps a little further north and east with Châteauneuf du Pape (where no fewer than 14 varieties are permissible blending partners).

“2012 Côté Mas Rouge Intense only uses five, but what is slightly unusual is that they include merlot.

“Each variety, however, plays its part in orchestrating wine that is chewy and quite full yet shrewdly balanced by well-judged levels of tannin and acidity.

“That structure is made more attractive by the plum and bramble fruit and the graphite, liquorice and herbal influences that support it.”

Price: £6.49, down from £7.99, until 3 February at Majestic, where minimum purchases also apply.

Miranda Summer Light Made With Sauvignon Blanc Grapes 2013, Australia – 5.5%

Low alcohol content and good value were the order of the week for Jamie Goode writing in The Express this week.

He said: “Alcohol gives wine “body” – that satisfying, mouth-filling feel – so it is far from easy to make a convincing bottle at 5.5% alcohol.

“This is one of the better efforts.

“Fruity and just off-dry, it’s simple, clean and quite pure, with refreshing acidity.”

 Price: £4.99, Morrisons, Tesco

McWilliam’s Harmony Shiraz 2011, Australia – 9%

He said: “This convincing red has sweet berry and black cherry fruits, plus hints of chocolate and mint, but the lower alcohol stops it being too jammy.”

 Price: £8.99, Sainsbury’s