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Saturday 14 March 2015

This Week's Wine: Something Slovenian

Yugoslavia’s Lutomer Riesling was one of the great party wines of my younger days, and something to drink convivially by the bottle in restaurants that stocked it.  Its red equivalent, a good deal heftier,was Hungarian Bull’s Blood, but Lutomer Riesling, being light and quaffable, did very nicely, or so I thought at the time.

I have not seen it for years, and what  Marks & Spencer are selling in its place is something which memory tells me is very different  as well as very much better - and so it should be, you may feel inclined to add, considering that it costs £10 a bottle.

Made from a blend of Furmint, Traminer, Pinot Gris, and Riesling grapes, it may be expected to have a certain taste of Alsace about it, since three of these four grape varieties are closely associated with that part of Europe. But as the twelfth-century vineyards from which it comes - the wine has what looks like a fundamental  identifying date, 1139, though the M&S vintage is reassuringly  2013 - lie close to the Austrian border, we may also expect the flavour to have something slightly Austrian about it.

This, at any rate, was what I thought I tasted in it.  Though described as a dry white, there is a touch of sweetness about it, deriving no doubt from its riesling content. There is also, when the bottle is first opened, a slight prickle on the palate, which adds to the pleasure of drinking it. On the whole I think I would prefer to savour it without food, though veal or creamy cheese would not go amiss.

It is certainly something worth trying.The label suggests that M&S bottle it themselves. If so, the result is a coup for the supermarket, even if the name may seem too like a phone number - are we expected to ask, in our local branch, if they have a bottle of the 2013 1139?
14 March 2015

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