Wine bargains from The Whisky Exchange
Six great value wines from the Mediterranean and Portugal
This is part of an occasional series where I highlight a British merchant offering some reasonably priced wines. Previously I have covered The Wine Society and Laithwaites. Apologies to my burgeoning international readership - you might be able to find these wines using Wine Searcher.
When I worked at Master of Malt, we stocked a small but interesting selection of wines which were often very reasonably priced. The old buyer was a keen wine lover. Every so often I would write an article saying "we also sell wine," but it was never more than a tiny part of the business. In fact, I think the buyer, my father and I were by far Master of Malt’s biggest customers for wine.
Over at Master of Malt's sworn enemies friendly rivals The Whisky Exchange, they are putting a lot of effort into pushing wine, including a series of events in London - which are selling out fast. To give readers a taste of what they do, head buyer Dawn Davies sent me a selection of her favourites under £20. I'm always on the hunt for bottles I can afford, which are becoming rarer and rarer these days.
The samples arrived, I tasted them, and now I'm writing about them. That's the magic of digital publishing. Overall I'd say the reds were more successful than the whites, with all three getting gold stickers with a picture of my face on them, whereas one of the whites, though nice, was probably more silver or bronze. I must work out a more rigorous scoring system if I want to be taken seriously.
I have included affiliate links, a first for me, which means that I can get a tiny bit of money for every bottle sold. Naked commercialism, I’m afraid. I am planning to write something shortly about the lengths wine writers (and writers in general) have to go to make ends meet. It’s not pretty.
Tikveš Smederevka 2023 - £10.50
This is from Macedonia (the country, not the bit of Greece), and the grape variety in question is smederevka. I think this is probably my first ever smederevka, but if this example is anything to go by, then I want more. There's a piercing lemon quality on the nose, and the palate is sweetly spicy - think cinnamon with orange and creamy almond. It's the East Med in a glass. If I was going to be critical, I'd say it's not the most intense, but for this price, you would struggle to do better.
Moulin de Gassac Classic Blanc 2023 - £10.50
Another great price and another wine that conjures up the flavours of the Med, though this is more herbal - thyme, wild herbs etc. - with aniseed and citrus. It's made by Languedoc legends Mas de Daumas Gassac from non-estate grapes, mainly grenache blanc with some terret. Splendid stuff.
Mandrarossa Zibibbo Terre Siciliane 2022 - £14.95
Zibibbo is the Sicilian word for muscat, which you would be able to tell from one sniff. There are oranges, satsumas and rose petals - very heady and perfumed. On the palate it's massively floral with more rose petal - some people will love it, but for others it might be reminiscent of their granny's boudoir. Not a full thumbs up, but I liked it. This producer is one of the giants of Sicily which makes very reliable varietal wines.
I do love a wine label with a not terribly good photo on the front. They were all the rage in Bordeaux in the 1970s and '80s, and it's great to see this style persisting in Portugal. The contents are quite old-fashioned too, in a good way. You can really taste the heat of the Alentejo region with aromas of dark fruit and balsamic woody notes. The tannins are quite firm, but there's no shortage of fruit. It's a bit rough round the edges, I think it will really come into its own with a beef stew or really fatty pork dishes.
More unusual grape varieties - this one is called kotsifali and it comes from Crete. Like some of the other ones above, you might have to dip into your dictionary of oriental sensory clichés. I simply wrote "smell the Levant!" This is a dusty spicy red which would appeal to people who love xinomavro from the Greek mainland, though the tannins are a lot softer here. This one gets a gold sticker with my face on it, but at the time of writing it is out of stock at The Whisky Exchange though according to Dawn, more stock is on its way.
Vino Lauria Terre Siciliane Scoglitti 2022 - £15.75
Another distinctive Sicilian. This is made from frappato, one of the island's many interesting red varieties. It produces wines which are not dissimilar to a southern Beaujolais - so light and best served chilled, but with the added bonus of exotic flavours of orange peel and pomegranate and just a little tannin. A friend came round for a drink and we polished this off in about 20 minutes. Good price too. Gold star.
thanks for the recs Henry