When I worked at Berry Bros & Rudd 20 years ago, I had a wonderfully eccentric customer who liked to ring up during bathtime. He was a confirmed claret lover and, although he longed to broaden his horizons, he could never quite muster the courage to do so.
We would spend 20 minutes or so discussing tasty alternatives from the Rhône, Spain, Italy or the New World, but his nerve always failed him and he’d retreat guiltily back to the safety of Bordeaux. He promised faithfully to be more adventurous next time, although we both knew he wouldn’t be, and I would go through the motions of giving him the prices of a Chianti or Crozes-Hermitage.
‘Hang on,’ he’d boom from the bathroom. ‘Don’t rush, just jotting this all down in the steam on the mirror.’
I’m certain, though, that I’d have got him beyond the confines of Bordeaux with this excellent and commendably quirky selection of wines from Berry Bros. According to Mark Pardoe MW, Berrys’ wine-buying director, Italy and Spain are the new frontier where wines have recently moved from admirable to delicious, thanks to a new generation of enlightened young growers and well-travelled winemakers.
It took Mark and me an age to whittle the original selection down to the following six and there are some really great wines here.
The 2012 Louro do Bolo, Rafael Palacios (1) from Valdeorras in northwestern Spain is made from 35-year-old Godello vines grown at some 600 metres. The resulting wine — aged for four months in oak foudres — is gloriously fresh and creamy, with a lovely savoury, salty tang and a zesty citrus kick. Godello seems to be the new Albarino and this is a cracker. £14.41.
The 2010 Mountain White, Telmo Rodriguez (2) from Sierras de Malaga is 100 per cent Moscatel with an exuberantly flowery, honeyed nose but a long, dry concentrated finish.
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