We’re with my alma mater Berry Bros & Rudd this week featuring some of their excellent own selection wines. I was quite bowled over by their quality, as indeed I was by the generosity of wine director Mark Pardoe’s discounts.
In fact I strongly recommend you start your festive stockpiling right here, right now. Why wait until the week before Christmas to buy Berrys’ scrumptious own selection red burgundy for £16.50 when you can buy it from this page right now for £13.95?
Not all fine fizz comes from Champagne. Nope, some of it still comes from where it all started: Limoux in southern France where, in 1531, the monks of Saint Hilaire Abbey are believed to have created the first sparkling wine. The Berry Bros. & Rudd Crémant de Limoux NV (1) is about as good an example as I remember. A blend of Chardonnay (mainly), Mauzac and Chenin Blanc, it’s made in cahoots with Berrys’ by Françoise Antech, the sixth generation of her family to make wine. It’s crisp yet creamy and rounded and beautifully honeyed. There’s plenty of lively ripe fruit, too, and I’m not surprised to hear that it’s one of Berrys’ bestsellers. And for those to whom such things matter, I must add that the bottle looks very pukka. £9.45 down from £11.95.
The 2015 BBR White Burgundy (2), produced by Jean-Luc Terrier and Christian Collovray in the Mâconnais, is gloriously drinkable. A wonderful warm summer allowed picking to start early and there is freshness and ripeness galore here with peaches, blossom and honey and just that tiny touch of vanilla. I couldn’t stop gulping it down. £9.95 down from £11.95.
It turns out that the 2015 BBR New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc (3) is made by my old chum from Oddbins and, later, Berrys’ days, Sam Weaver, with his wife Mandy at Churton winery in Marlborough.
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