It's that good!Ī victim of the rural exodus from Corsica, Bianco Gentile is a local grape, once revered, that almost became extinct. Somehow a third wine, the L'Altru Biancu 2017, Yves Leccia, Ile de Beaute (organic, €39 from, 64wine, Green Man Wines) got left to one side, and I so drank it in 2021, and recently bought another bottle. I could have featured either, but strictly speaking, they belong to last year. In 2020, I featured the red and another white, both delicious and worth the €38 price tag. I have always been fascinated by the wines of Corsica and was delighted to see one wine importer bring in wines from an estate with a high reputation. I hesitate to include two expensive white wines, but both were remarkable in very different ways. If €30 is beyond your budget, the Lyrarkis Assysrtiko Voila 2020 (€17-€18, independents) from Crete is also worth a try. The Gaia version is a completely seductive mix of floral aromas, rich creamy nectarine fruits and grilled hazelnuts, balanced perfectly by a crisp linear acidity. This is a unique and wonderful wine, made from vines buried in bare volcanic soils and trained into a basket shape to provide protection from the wind. Yes, €30 is a lot to pay for any wine, but in my book the Gaia Wild Ferment Assyrtiko 2019, Santorini (€29.95 from O'Briens), is worth every cent. Serve with seared scallops with butter and lemon, or grilled brill with a herby sauce. Light, but certainly not lacking flavour, this is a delicious textured wine with succulent ripe fruits. "It takes Muscadet to a whole new level, " I wrote about the Les Pierres Blanches 2019, Domaine Luneau-Papin, Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine (€25, Whelehans) and it does just that. Muscadet has always been one of my favourite wines and it has been fantastic to see a new range of single vineyard Muscadets emerge over the last few years. I have been enjoying this wine for several years now. It sounds more like a young person's sex education manual, but this very moreish wine is a perfect example of the great succulent pure fruit-filled wines to be found in Galicia. Albariño from Rías Baixas is deservedly popular, but there are plenty of other great wines to discover, including The Flower and The Bee 2020 from Ribeiro (€18.15-€20, independents). Galicia produces some great wines, both red and white. Try it with salmon, black sole or creamy chicken dishes. If you are fond of Chablis, Mâcon or Meursault, you should give this a go.
#Best wines 2021 plus
This is classic Burgundy with a perfect balance of apple and pear fruits, vibrant acidity plus a smidgen of toasty oak, all at an amazing price.
I tasted more than 30 really great Chardonnays during lockdowns, including the delicious Bourgogne Hautes Cotes de Beaune 2019, Domaine Nicolas (€17.42, ). I drank this last spring with some Danish frikadeller (fishcakes), asparagus and new potatoes simple but heavenly.Ĭhardonnay may not be fashionable in some quarters but, in my book, alongside Riesling, it produces the world's greatest dry white wines. If you are feeling flush, the Fiorfiore (about €23) is even better. Every time I taste it, I am seduced by the heavenly mix of ripe peach fruits and crisp mineral acidity of the Umbria Grechetto IGT 2019, Fiordaliso, Roccafiore (€17.50, Sheridan's, The Fumbally, Red Nose Wines, ). Lots of difficult to pronounce names in my first wine, but the two to remember are Grechetto, a unique Umbrian grape variety, and Roccafiore, one of the leading producers in Umbria. I hope you enjoy reading what inspired my selection of my best wines of 2021, and I hope it makes you want to go out and try a few bottles that might be new to you. Half of the wines included here are priced in the teens, and all cost less than €40 – just! Five countries are represented.
I could easily have filled several more pages with great wines tasted during 2021. I still had to make some difficult choices.
But that would not have been much use to you, the reader.
It would have been easy to pick a dozen great wines costing more than €40, or old vintages uncovered during a house move. Here, I have selected 12 wines that stood out as special, in their price category, over the past 12 months. I may have had my wings clipped over the past 18 months, and have been unable to go to any tastings, but, looking through my notes from the past year, I have tasted some incredible wines, usually in the company of my family, and nearly always over dinner. As my friends are always keen to tell me, I have a great job.
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