The magazine The Drinks Business recently published a list of the ten most annoying descriptions of wine. I agree with most of their judgments: for instance, ‘icon’ is just a lazy word for a wine that has an inflated reputation. ‘Reserve’ merely means ‘better than our usual stuff’. Which is the same as ‘premium’. ‘Passion’ is a stupid term, at a time when sandwich bars claim to be ‘passionate about food’. And ‘terroir’ is often a smart-alec excuse for thin, weedy wines which taste of the stones on which they were grown and little else.
Anyhow, none of these words are applied to our selection of six terrific wines from Private Cellar, a very high class merchants in East Anglia. Our first choice is a delectable NV pink sparkler from Château de Sours (1) which helped kick-start the rosé revolution a few years ago. Many pink champagnes can cost £40 or £50 a bottle, and are what we describe as ‘subtle’ and ‘elegant’, two more terms that can mean ‘doesn’t taste of very much’.
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