This Week’s Wines: Summer Whites

If you find Sancerre too lush for your palate as a summer sauvignon, and perhaps also too pricey, an alternative lies in a Touraine Sauvignon, which comes from the same French region but is more mineral in flavour and costs a lot less. Waitrose’s own-label version at £6.99  from Cave de Oisly is a particularly nice example, refreshingly dry but with ample flavour.

Also worth sampling,  from a different part of France is Simpson’s Sauvignon, a product  of the Languedoc. which Naked Wines of Norfolk, now operating  in conjunction with Majestic Wines, sell for £7.99.

Charles Simpson, in partnership with his wife Ruth, is a young Englishman, formerly in pharmaceuticals, now working in southern France under the name of Simpsons of Saint Rose. His Sauvignon is not his only wine - his low-yield Roussanne at £9.99 is a rarity also worth drinking and deemed a fine match for crab.

More readily accessible, however, are a pair of classic  white burgundies, a St Veran and an even better Montagny, both being marketed by Tesco around the same sort of  price. The Montagny can be bought by the half case (six bottles) for under £60. Strongly recommended.
11 July 2015