August 2025. Rarer Grape Varieties - beyond the wine century.

 

An in house tasting this month, by Tim (Yours truly). The wine century (www.winecentury.com)  is a wine grape challenge where the idea is to try as many different grapes as possible. They can be in blends. The first step is to get your hundred, and you do get a very nice certificate. I pressed on and am now past 300, where it does get difficult.

I selected these 8 wines on 3 criteria

1)       All beyond my first 150 grape varieties – it took me 3 years to get to that point, so these are fairly rare in the UK.

2)       Readily available in the UK – these are from Waitrose, Majestic and The Wine Society.

3)       Not too expensive. The priciest here was only £14, and I got lucky with the 3 waitrose wines, all on offer at £9.25 – 25% !!

The Whites

Arneis - Marcarini Roero Arneis, DOCG. Piedmonte 2023 (Majestic) 13.5% £14

               From NW Italy, a relatively common grape in Piedmonte, but rarely seen here. Very nice

Bourboulenc - Waitrose Loved & Found, IGP Pays d’Oc 2024 Carcassone 12% £9.95

Southern French – almost never seen as a varietal, but used in a blend in many southern French appellations, but rarely listed.

Famoso  - Waitrose Loved & Found, IGP Rubicone - Emilia Romagna 12% £9.95

Very rare indeed. Had almost vanished, but can also now be found in the Wine Society listings. As I discovered the morning of the meeting

Feteasca Regala - Incanta Feteasca Regala. Romania. 2023 (Majestic) 11.5% £8

We have had this before. And very nice it is too. You can find it if you look for it, but unlikely to just bump into it

The Reds

Lagrein/Teroldego - Castel Firmian Nerofino Rosso. Vigneti Della Dolomiti IGT (TWS) 13%.  £9.95

2 quite rare varieties from NE Italy, you won’t see much of either of these in the UK unless you look hard.

Pais aka Listan Prieto - Morande One to One, Old vines, Maule Valley, Chile  2021 (Majestic) 14% £9

This I first found on holiday in La Palma. It is descended from a grape taken across to the New World in the 1500’s, survives in the Canaries and is grown in Chile, Argentina and California where it is known as the Mission grape.

Sousao -  Waitrose Loved & Found, Lisbon, Portugal 2022 14% £9.95

Actually a common enough variety – in Port, but almost never seen as a varietal, or even named in a Red wine blend.

Xinomavro - Jeunes Vignes, IGP Thymiopoulos, Macedonia, Greece 2022 (TWS) 13% £13.95

10 years ago you would not have seen this in the UK. Probably Greece’s best known red wine now, but again you have to look for it.

July 2025. Eka and Richard, Taste of Georgia

 

Wines of Georgia - Khakheti Region, East Georgia

PRESENTER: Eka and Richard - Taste of Georgia - www.tasteofgeorgia.co.uk

DATE: 17th July 2025

 Georgia is widely recognised to be cradle of winemaking on earth. There’s evidence that they were making wine here 8000 years ago. Its home to about 400 local varieties and a huge number of Georgians make their own wine. There was some development in the 1800s when the French showed up, but unfortunately, 70 years of the soviet union did a lot of damage. Focus was on quantity, not quality and on a very few grape varieties. Hence even now the range of available wine grape varieties is a bit limited. Something like 75% of the wine is white – primarily the Rkatsiteli grape and 25% Red, Saperavi.

All these wines cone from the Khakheti region of east Georgia

A separate little “problem” is that Georgian wines are made to go with food, so tasting on their own is a little hit & miss

The wines

White:

Wine Man Tsinandali, 2020 Rkatsiteli/Mtsvane 85/15%. 12% £14

Rkatsiteli is the workhorse grape, Mtsvane adds fruit and aroma. Nice

Shumi Kakhuri Mtsvane, 2023 Mtsvane 100% 13%. £15

The Mtsvane is highly aromatic – I rather liked this.

GVino Kisi Qvevri (orange), 2020 2022 Kisi 100% 13%. £22

Qvevri is the ancient technique of making the wine in buried amphora – huge ones. It gives a sort of sherry type feel to the wine. The Kisi grape is quite rare, but increasing, and very low yield.

Iberiuli Rkatsiteli Qvevri (orange), Rkatsiteli 100% 13%. £23

Red

One of the problems here is that Saperavi is THE Georgian red grape right now, so 4 Saperavis.

Wine Man Saperavi, 2023 Saperavi 100% 12%. £14

Saperavi gives a very dark wine, almost black. It’s a grape I rather like.

Shumi Napareuli, 2023 Saperavi 100% 13.5%. £16

Matrobela Mukuzani, 2018 Saperavi 100% 13%. £25

Very tannic. Will it improve at already 7 year old? Not my favourite

Shumi Kindzmarauli, 2023 Saperavi 100% 11.5%. £16

This is a more traditional sweet red. Sounds odd? But don’t dismiss it. In the summer, served chilled, very nice.

A very good evening. Eka is from Georgia and clearly passionate about the wine. And rightly so.

Peter Freeman June 2025 – A wine quiz

 

Peter has been to us several (many?) times before and always gives great value. Now semi-retired from the Wine trade he still knows a great deal , and how to entertain. 

This evening was a modest wine quiz, where each wine was accompanied by 3 question of varying difficulty, with 2 blind tastings in there. The fact the winning team got 17/24 suggests they weren’t that simple. And the wines were all accessible, affordable and obtainable too!

 Silverhand, Kentish Downs, NV – Majestic - £18

Albariño, Bodegas Brisas, Uruguay, 2024 – Tesco - £13

Blind Tasting No. 1 – Wynns Coonawarra Chardonnay – Majestic -£15 (£12.50 mix 6)

Rosé de Touraine, Pierre Chainier, 2023 – Asda £7.94

Valpolicella Ripasso, Cantina Valpantena, 2022 – Tesco Finest - £12.50

Blind tasting No 2 – Josh Cabernet Sauvignon, California. Majestic £15.50 (£12.50 mix6)

Ch la Rame “Gourmandise” St Croix du Mont 2021 (Dessert)  - Majestic - £12.50 (£12 Mix6)

Taylor's Late Bottle Vintage Port 2018 – Morrisons - £18

 All very nice – high spots were the Kentish Fizz, excellent value for an English sparkler, and vey nice too. The Asda Rose is excellent value, as is the Valpolicella Ripasso.

I did quite well in the quiz, didn’t win – that honour went to the Irish Ladies Team in the back row… Amusingly I got the Cabernet Sauvignon blind tasting wrong, even after Peter specially chose the MOST TYPICAL CS at Majestic…. Oh well…..