Wine Club 1 April

We start this week with the ever reliable 2015 Corney & Barrow House White (1), largely because if we didn’t I would get angry letters asking why not. I really do wonder why my mother doesn’t just pick up the phone instead. She’s got my number. A blend of 70 per cent Colombard and 30 per cent Ugni Blanc, produced by Producteurs Plaimont in Gascony, this has been Corney & Barrow’s best-selling white for over 20 years and is pretty much the Spectator Wine Club’s too. It’s light, zesty, fresh and uncomplicated; perfect, in fact, for springtime drinking. It’s also a cracking price at £6.63 with the Brett-Smith Indulgence (whereby you get £6 off an unmixed case) or £7.13 without, down from the list price of £7.50.

If you like weight to your whites, then the 2015 Roccastella Pecorino (2) will be spot on. Yes, yes, I know Pecorino is an Italian sheep’s cheese, but it’s also an Italian grape variety. It comes from Offida, a mediaeval town in Le Marche where a group of mischievous local winemakers once got me completely plastered and had me staggering round the town’s Piazza del Popolo trying to count its sides. I was expecting four, as one does, and couldn’t understand in my sorry state why there were only three, so kept re-counting much to general hilarity. Anyway, the vino, which is often described as a red wine dressed up as white, has weight, depth and complexity along with a bracing lemon freshness. £9.48 with the indulgence, £9.98 without, down from £10.50.

The organic/biodynamic 2015 Château La Tour de l’Eveque Rosé (3) from Provence remains one of my absolute favourite pinkers. We’ve offered a previous vintage here before and this incarnation is as good as ever.