Though Chile and Argentina remain the principal producers of South American wine, Brazil, on the strength of next year’s Olympic Games, is striving to catch up. Restaurant wine lists in Britain are already reflecting this, as are the shelves of our supermarkets. But is Brazilian wine worth drinking, or just something else to sample? The piquantly peppery red we recently drank for dinner in an Edinburgh hotel was one we would buy again, and now from Waitrose comes a white with its own quite distinctive personality - a Chardonnay that does not taste even slightly Australian but has a fresh fruitiness entirely its own.
With its bright yellow screw-top and label, the bottle is certainly eye-catching, and even if the fact that Brazil possesses the longest beach in the world (245 kilometres) is not perhaps the most relevant piece of label information, it does carry the prospect of a wine which, we would hope, is enticingly quaffable -which, on a mild April day in Scotland, it certainly is. Indeed this 2013 Serra Gaucha Chardonnay has a cheerful zest, a bit of bounce, and enough strength (13 per cent) to give it some muscle.
Reduced from £8.99 to £6.99, it is one of the cheapest of the five Brazilian wines - both white and red - which Waitrose is offering at inviting prices. We shall be trying some of the others.
6 April 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a message. I would be very pleased to hear your thoughts and comments.