M&S heads into the unknown | Wine

M&S Discovered País, Itata Valley, Chile 2019 (£9, Marks & Spencer) Marks & Spencer has at all times been the king of the own-label. I imply, it needs to be, since that’s just about the corporate’s total shtick. However the coverage doesn’t essentially entail staleness or company samey-ness – or at the very least, not at all times, and never in each a part of the shop. Over the previous couple of years the wine division, for instance, has provide you with two very totally different however complementary ranges which have made the retailer an thrilling place to purchase wine once more for those who don’t need to spend greater than a tenner (it’s at all times been fairly good at costs simply above that). Final yr in these pages, I wrote in regards to the persistently good set of wines bought beneath the Classics label, which featured acquainted names resembling claret, chianti, Argentine malbec and New Zealand sauvignon. Earlier this yr, these had been joined by Discovered, a variety designed to introduce M&S buyers to extra uncommon grape varieties and areas, such because the vivacious contemporary pink created from the re-discovered país grape from Chile’s southern Itata Valley.

M&S Discovered Grenache Blanc, Western Cape, South Africa 2020 (£8, Marks & Spencer) Among the many greatest worth of the Discovered wines is a full and fleshy, wealthy and shimmering dry white, created from a grape selection a lot much less well-known and extensively planted than the pink grape from which it mutated, grenache noir. Traditionally, grenache blanc’s principal function has been to supply an nameless fattening factor within the white blends of the Rhône Valley (resembling Châteauneuf-du-Pape) and its imitators. However this hardy, sun-loving, wind- and drought-resistant number of northern Spanish origin has been making waves by itself in a few of the greatest white wines of Catalan France and Spain (the place it’s generally known as garnacha blanca) – and South Africa, the place the producer behind the Discovered bottle, Perderberg, has its dry-farmed bush vines. No much less deserving of a better profile is the eponymous south-west French selection utilized in Discovered Gros Manseng, Côtes de Gascogne 2020 (£9). This Gascon speciality is good at offering a mix of grapefruit tang and tropical fruit juiciness – each of that are in ample proof on this bottling.

M&S Discovered Xinomavro & Mandilaria, Naoussa and Santorini, Greece 2019 (£9.50, Marks & Spencer) Marks & Spencer has at all times been a supporter of Greek wine, even because the nation’s many fabulous creations have did not make the business breakthrough that their high quality and originality deserve. Maybe the inclusion of a pink and a white from two of the nation’s most reliably wonderful producers within the Discovered vary will assist hurry this course of alongside a bit: actually, each are deliciously idiosyncratic wines, blended in every case from two indigenous varieties. The white, Discovered Moscofilero & Roditis 2020 (£8.50) made by the Semeli vineyard from grapes sourced within the Peloponnese, is an fragrant charmer, all aromatic blossom floral scents, grapey juiciness and lemony raciness. The pink, created from xinomavro grown in Naoussa in Northern Greece and mandilaria from the southern island of Santorini by star winemaker Apostolos Thymiopoulos, has pink plummy fruit and spice with pleasing, beef or lamb-friendly tannic chunk and cherry-ish acidity.

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