Some wines I enjoyed in August

Lambrusco, zwick n mix and a wine called Giz

It’s been a boozy month as I’ve been celebrating my and my dad’s birthdays and spending quite a bit of time catching up with friends now I’ve gone freelance. I’ve already written about a cocktail and a beer on my food blog but here is my monthly round-up of delicious wine. Most of these, you should be able to get your mitts on if you live in Manchester but you can probably order them online too.

Next month I’m going to be attending a LOT of big wine tasting events as well as hosting quite a few myself. Come along to one of mine, if you like. I’m doing a very fun wine tasting at The Beeswing on Thursday 21 September, an intro to wine tasting (with lunch!) in Leeds on 30 September with Yorkshire Wine School and a Spanish wine tasting with Manchester Wine School on 6 October. I’ve also just launched my own Manchester Wine Tours which start in mid-October. YIKES!

Read on for the best wine I drank in August. 

Alessandro Viola Le Mi Origini Catarratto - Higher Ground (£69 a bottle but I was lucky enough to try by the glass on this occasion)

Higher Ground specialises in natural and low-intervention wine and they take very seriously the job of finding exceptional wines made with the future of the planet in mind. I’m in the open-minded but slightly cautious camp when it comes to “natty”. There are plenty of winemakers who have been working this way for generations without making a song and dance about it. There are quite a few making expensive, sour, yeasty tasting cloudy wine with pretty labels. Some natural wine I have tasted I really haven’t liked, some I have been blown away by. I think exceptional wine is exceptional wine but it’s certainly a bonus if it has been made with fewer harmful impacts on the plant. This marigold-coloured wine stopped me in my tracks from first sniff. Almost salty like preserved lemons, fragrant as floral gums, but with a herbal, woody, slightly spicy note to it like all my favourite perfumes. My dad was a bit overwhelmed by its struck match quality at first, ‘like a stroll around Rotaroa’. But every new sip brought something new and it changed chameleon-like with different mouthfuls of food. Its smoky butteriness worked a treat with the creamy potato salad of my dreams but peas brought out its freshness. A mega food wine.

Doom juice - Juicebox (about a fiver a glass)

The Shop Cuvee website describes this wine thus: “Natural wine made in hell! Designed for the sesh,” which almost makes my body turn inside out in cringe. But on a carefree afternoon wandering around Manchester, this fruity. unexpectedly light Cab Sav/Shiraz Aussie number served a little chilled with a load of crisps topped with sour cream and caviar to shovel up alongside was a fun, breezy, easy drinker. I enjoyed it at new little natty wine bar Juicebox in the former Neon Tiger on Bridge Street, Manchester.

Giz vinhas velhas branco Barraida Portugal (About £20 a bottle retail in Lisbon)

Having never been to the country before, I’ve been to Portugal twice this year. Once for a girly holiday in Lisbon for my friend’s birthday and again for a dream trip to the Douro Valley (more on that in another article). I popped to the celebrated wine shop Garraferia Nacional in Lisbon and couldn’t resist buying a red and white version of this wine named Giz simply because that’s my partner’s name. We opened the white at home one evening in August and were both completely smitten with it. Such a complex white, the kind that reminds me why good white wine is my current obsession having missed out on the interesting ones during so many years of drinking Pinot Grigio from Spar. It’s made from a medley of who knows what indigenous grapes from old vines in Bairrada. Toffee apple is my first thought, then honeysuckle, lemon sherbets, lime curd, vanilla, Refreshers, ripe yellow apples, everything yellow, like a Zack Hipps Pinterest board. The only crisis is I don’t think I can get this wine in the UK. So if anyone’s going to Lisbon any time soon, I’ll happily chuck you some cash to bring some of this back for me. 

Hokus Pokus 2017 - Higher Ground (magnum)

A rare chance to drink a glass from a magnum of this typicity-fest of a Cabernet Franc. I think Cab Franc is the one red wine I would always recognise in a blind tasting (though a Carmenere has fooled me). This one from Burgenland in Austria has all the dark chocolate-covered cumin seeds and freshly diced green peppers I associate with the grape. Deeply savoury over a black fruit core. Incredible.

Cave de Turkheim Edelzwicker - Kelder wines (£12 a bottle)

When I was studying for my French Wine Scholar trying to memorise a Yellow Pages thick book full of French soil types, grapes and regions, I committed Edelzwicker to memory by calling it ‘zwick and mix’ in my head. This helped me remember that this is an Alsace blend of any of the region’s grapes: the noble varieties of muscat, riesling, pinot gris, gewürztraminer, and sometimes a bit of sylvaner and pinot blanc. Basically a bit of this, a bit of that, pretty laid back, no strict rules on vinification or vintage. If you want to fill half your stripy paper bag with fizzy bubblegum bottles, you do you. This is in contrast with Gentil, also an Alsace blend but with stricter rules. Anyway. What really matters is it’s delicious. I make no secret of my love of florality in wines, and this one (Riesling, Sylvaner and Pinot Blanc) is a Cath Kidston dress in wine form. Special mention has to go for the cute label too. I picked this up from one of my favourite wine shops: Kelder Wines in Urmston.

Lambrusco Solco Paltrinieri, Emilia Romagna, Italy 2020 - Climat (£6 by the glass)

I had my birthday lunch at Climat and this over-exuberant red, almost purple, fizz (drink it quickly cos the bubbles subside fast) was the perfect start to a very special meal. To me, this was a bit like fizzy Beaujolais nouveau with a pick n mix of bubblegum, foam banana and strawberry laces that I wish I could have taken with me to the cinema later when I went to see the Barbie movie. 

Domaine De Loye Mentetou Salon 2021 - Petit Paris (About £20)

If you came to this blog via my silly wine and snack matches on TikTok or insta, you might recognise this as the wine I paired with BabyBel on Pinot Noir day. This is a lovely elegant pinot noir from the Loire, it started with loads of cranberry and then opened out to become all squishy cooked strawberries. A perfect sip with mild cheese (BabyBel works but of course so does Comte) for a midweek treat. I got this from the fantastic Petit Paris deli on King Street in Manchester. 

Riesling Auslese Brocken Kalstadter Saumagen 2016 Koehler-Ruprecht, Pfalz Germany - Climat (£24 by the glass)

On the other end of the wine snobbery scale, I picked an auslese Riesling as a birthday treat with our mains at Climat. Where else in Manchester can you get this standard of wine by the glass? Pale tea coloured with a bit of age and although bone dry it tasted just a Xmas market apple strudel with baked apples and almonds. Stunner.

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I would love to know what you’ve been drinking this month. Let me know in the comments below.

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