The weather may be dull and the festive season a faded memory, but spring will soon be here and love is most certainly in the air since it’s Valentine’s Day. If you’re looking for a special bottle that will bring out the best of your Valentine’s Day dinner and add some fizz to the proceedings, here is a handful of top-quality suggestions and romantic vinous treats.
To kick things off, in my opinion, it just has to be (dry) sparkling wine – it’s pure romance in a glass…
1. SALUTE! YOUR VALENTINE’S DAY APERITIF, SORTED…THIS IS ONE FOR PROSECCO REFUSENIKS (LIKE MYSELF), TOO!
Il Papavero Rosé Prosecco Brut 2020, Italy: Laithwaites, £9.99 mixing 12+ bottles, 11.5%
If there’s one day in the year when it’s compulsory to open a bottle of yummy pink bubbly, it has to be Valentine’s Day (a cliché I know!). But remember: never mix dry bubbly with chocs – see below for my fav Valentine’s Day sweet wines. This keenly priced pale pink rosé Prosecco Brut DOC is lacy, dry and very flirtatious and would be so easy to love as a Valentine’s Day aperitif or with fruity desserts. It has a floral fragrance, pillow-soft texture, easy-going bubbles and a generous flavour; a veritable cocktail of summer fruits, red apple and pear that entice one sip after another. Superb with panettone and fresh-fruit desserts, it’s lots of fun, moreish and ideal to stock up on and pack into the fridge should Valentine’s turn into merrymaking. You will polish off the bottle in no time; a perfect sparkling pink to make someone feel special without breaking the bank. Serve well chilled. Vegan-friendly too. Another winner from Laithwaites’ first-class new wine portfolio. Also order this gorgeous, mindfully-made, low tannin, full-flavoured and succulent organic, vegan Sicilian Frappato in mid-March. It’s the UK’s first wine to be bottled in 100% recycled glass. Mark your diaries, it’ll sell out again in hours. Cin cin!
2. ROMANTIC, FINELY-GRAINED RED FROM RIBERA DEL DUERO IN SPAIN’S NORTHERN PLATEAU
Finest* in partnership with Bodegas Portia ‘Ebeia’ Ribera del Duero 2019, Burgos, Spain: Tesco, £12, 14.5%
Comprising over 90% of its low-yielding vineyards, DO Ribera del Duero’s main grape variety is Tempranillo, recognised by the local clone labels of either Tinto Fino or Tinta del País. Unlike DOCa Rioja, around 100km to the northeast, here Spain’s most widely planted red grape absorbs the high-altitude sunlight by growing thicker skins, something reflected in the deep colour intensity and elevated tannin levels of the resultant wines. From just 24 wineries in 1982 — when the ambitious DO debuted — today there are more than 300, with around 8000 vine growers. 23% of the vineyards are older than 50 years (with 10% more than 80 years).
Seek out Ribera’s elegant, less oaky, overworked and flashy wines (many made using expensive new French oak), like this intense, piquant and supple Tesco beauty from the mid-eastern elevated district of the DO in the high plateau stretching north from Segovia and Avila that’s crisscrossed by the Duero River. Here the nights are cool and the days hot, imparting acidity and intensity in the wine. Sourced from vineyards at around 850m in Burgos and harnessed into a flavoursome package of thrumming length and sophistication, this beautifully perfumed, purply, dark-fruited, silky red has fine, ripe tannins and a characteristic flick of acidity; the light oak (less than a year) merely a means to an end. This will be an indulgent treat for your loved one. Just the ticket for lamb chops, winter stews (hello boeuf en daube Provençale), jugged hare, wild mushrooms, oily fish such as tuna and cod, cheddar and Manchego. 10/10 for the super light bottle too! Effortless and filigreed, this is bullseye brilliance and a real high street find. More info here. A candidate for your busy decanter. Foster + Partners designed the bodega.
3. GORGEOUS FIZZ FROM A 5-HECTARE ORGANIC VINEYARD LOCATED ON THE EDGE OF MARDEN, SOME 15M NE OF TUNBRIDGE WELLS
Herbert Hall Brut 2016, Marden, Kent: Herbert Hall/Lea & Sandeman/n07, T Wells, £39.50-£40, 12%
With its fine bead (bubbles) and scented honeysuckle, stone fruit, sweet pastry and citrus qualities, this exquisite, pleasingly biscuity sparkler from a five-hectare vineyard in nearby Marden is a real hit with seafood, especially oysters, fruits de mer, sushi and fish and chips. Made with great care from the classic three Champagne grapes here in Kent, this is a case of love at first sip. Very complete and impressive. It’s a stunning apéritif and certain to raise the amorous mood. Delicious, marvellously long and complex with a bone-dry finish.
4. SLEEK, ROMANTIC, VEGAN, PINOT-NOIR-FORWARD ROSÉ CHAMPAGNE
Deutz Rosé Champagne Brut NV Sakura Edition (in a gift box), France: The Finest Bubble/The Champagne Company/Laithwaites, £42-£50, 12%
With one or two exceptions, don’t buy cheap pink champagne! Splash out more if possible and buy this instead. Situated next to Champagne Bollinger in the revered Pinot Noir village of Aÿ, Champagne Deutz owns 42 hectares of vineyards, which supply 20% of its grapes. This spot-on, pristine bubbly is a particularly attractive, well-crafted, elegant, pale salmon-pink colour rosé champers with raspberry, nectarine, strawberry and cranberry fruit characters delivering depth and length of flavour within a chalky, minerally texture. It was aged for three years, with a further six months following dégorgement before release, and is very obviously Pinot Noir-dominated and vinous. ‘Sakura’ means ‘cherry blossom,’ Japan’s unofficial national flower. A benchmark non-vintage rosé champagne to seek out, this is a case of love in a flute and vinous seduction at its most charming and mouth-watering. It’s the one I’d choose to go with lightly smoked salmon, duck in a red berry sauce, smoked salmon pâté, sashimi, seafood in creamy sauces, fruit salad, red fruit crumble or to sip with creamy cheese (Brillat Savarin perhaps?). Lovely intensity. Grab it and push the boat out…
FOUR REMARKABLE SWEET VALENTINE’S DAY WINES TO COMPLEMENT BOXES OF CHOCOLATE, TRUFFLES & CHOCCY DESSERTS:
– Tesco Finest LBV Port 2015, Douro, Portugal: Tesco, £11 (a box of dark chocs please)
– Quady Elysium Black Muscat 2017, California, USA: Majestic, £11.99, 37.5cl (serve chilled with chocolate desserts)
– Henriques & Henriques Malvasia 10-year-old, Madeira: The Wine Society/Corney & Barrow/Tanners, £20-£24.15, 50cl (pair with blue cheeses, fruit cakes & also chocolate truffles from TW’s Temper Temper Chocolate)
– Banyuls Cuvée Léon Parcé 2018, Domaine de la Rectorie, France: The Wine Society, £22, 75cl (serve chilled with quality dark chocolate)
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