Wine of the week: A delicious Pinot Noir for £8

With Pinot Noir being a hard-to-grow grape, making good, inexpensive red wines from the variety is a task very few have managed – but we found a brilliant example this week.

So, for all of you who thought that crafting a Pinot-based red that was good and varietally-correct for under £10 was pretty much impossible, try this week’s recommendation.

It’s currently retailing for £7.99 on Waitrosecellar.com and comes from Romania, where it’s made by the reliably good source of brilliant value wines that is Cramele Recas.

It’s called Sorcova, after a Romanian well-wishing custom that takes its name from the Bulgarian word for a budded twig.

I tasted the wine ‘blind’ this week as part of a flight of Pinot Noirs priced under £10 for the 2021 Global Pinot Noir Masters and was impressed by its combination of sweet red berry fruit, creamy oak, and fresh redcurrant character on the finish.

It’s a light wine, with slightly grainy tannins, but its dry, balanced, ripe and carries the appealing hallmarks of Pinot Noir – which are a combination of juicy red berry fruit and a lightweight mouthfeel.

it’s unusual to find such fine characters, including some of the vanillin flavours from oak influence, in such an inexpensive Pinot Noir.

At this entry point price for the pernickety grape, one can find that the wines are either too thin, and sometimes slightly green in taste, or, if picked late in hot climates, jammy and flabby.

While I’d usually recommend opting for a grape variety other than Pinot Noir when going for a sub £10 red, this Romanian wine offers a rare example of delicious inexpensive Pinot – another being Cono Sur Bicicleta Pinot Noir, which is similarly priced, if slightly lighter in style than Sorcova.

However, if you do want a refreshing red wine for under £10, then Beaujolais is a good region to consider, or look out for Grenache/Garnacha-based reds from southern France or Spain.

A full report on all the medallists from this year’s Global Pinot Noir Masters will appear in the June edition of the drinks business.

• The wine: Sorcova Pinot Noir 2019
• The producer: Cramele Recas
• The source: Banat Romania
• The seal: Screwcap
• The ABV: 12.5%
• The price: £8 (UK retail)
• The taste: A light, refreshing red wine with ripe red berry fruit, a touch of vanilla, some firm tannin, and a cranberry flavour on the finish.
• The medal: Gold – The Global Pinot Noir Masters 2021

Read more

How one winery has achieved the impossible with Pinot Noir