August Wine Club I – Offer now closed

It is noticeable how the nights are drawing in now, added to which the leaves in our garden are ever so slightly but definitely beginning to turn. Nevertheless, we’ve still got summer drinks on the lawn or by the poolside barbecue in mind with this lovely, typically quirky selection from The Wine Company.

And I’m delighted to say that we’ve managed to extract some pretty generous discounts this week, too, with an average bottle price of just £9.79, down from an average £11.49. Thanks chaps.

We start with the 2012 Reuilly ‘La Raie’, Domaine Claude Lafond (1) a first-rate 100 per cent Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire, made by the celebrated local figure Claude Lafond’s daughter, Nathalie.

The wine is supple and rounded and a touch more giving and generous than Sancerre, its better-known neighbour. It’s a heck of a lot cheaper, too. You’ll find all the cut grass, herbal notes and even cat’s pee that you might expect but there is noticeably tropical fruit too and plenty of zesty citrus. It’s classy stuff all right and perfect with barbecue-baked gilt-head bream and fennel. £10.25, down from £11.99.

But if you like your Sauvignons to be even more exuberant and full of lychees, grapefruit, peach and passionfruit, then grab some of the 2013 Sauvignon Blanc, Moa Ridge, Marlborough (2) from New Zealand. This is the Wine Company’s biggest selling white wine of all, and eagle-eyed Speccie readers will remember that we featured the 2011 Moa Ridge Chardonnay some weeks ago, very successfully.

Made from the ‘free run juice’ before the grapes are crushed, the wine has clean-as-a-whistle purity of fruit and a long mineral finish. It’s perfect for glugging on its own and I would be tempted just to keep a bottle in the fridge for whenever the moment strikes.