PX Archives - It Must Be Wine O'clock

Here are a few choice wines for you enjoy this Christmas season.

Merry Christmas!

Apéritifs

Grüner Veltliner, Von den Terrassen, Winzer Krems, Niederösterreich 2020 (Austria)

This Grüner Veltliner from Lower Austria is a perfect apéritif.

It is a fresh, elegant wine with pronounced aromas of blossom, apple and peach, and a touch of white pepper on the nose, leading to a delicious burst of apple, lemon, peach and nectarine on the palate. A tinge of effervescence adds a little sparkle to the mix and the mineral notes and refreshing acidity make for a very well-balanced wine. This is a dry wine with a lengthy finish which will get your Christmas lunch off to a fine start!

Available from Majestic (£10.99, Mix Six £8.99)

Grove Mill, Wairau Valley, Marlborough 2021 (New Zealand)

This aromatic Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand is a real treat. Pronounced aromas of elderflower, peach, lychee and guava on the nose herald flavours of lime, nectarine and passion fruit on the palate. The layers of fruit are well supported by the bright acidity and lasting finish, and a hint of minerality adds a further level. A delightful wine offering great value for money.

Available from Co-op (£9.50)

White wines

Paco & Lola Albariño 2021 (Spain)

Year after year, Paco & Lola come up trumps with their Albariño to create award-winning wines.

This is a fresh, crisp wine, high in acidity, with aromas of blossom, lemon and apple on the nose, and flavours of apple, peach and nectarine on the palate. It is a well-balanced, medium-bodied wine with a lengthy finish, which matches perfectly with white meat and fish dishes.

Available from Tesco, Sainsbury’s (£12- £14)

Vavasour Sauvignon Blanc 2021 Awatere Valley (New Zealand)

This elegant Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough’s smaller, cooler Awatere Valley is an ideal wine to go with seafood or white meat. An aromatic wine with notes of citrus and peach on the nose leading to stone fruit flavours and a refreshing minerality on the palate, it has a lively acidity, a creamy mouthfeel and a long finish.

Available from Co-op (£11)

Hazel End Vineyard Bacchus Dry 2014 (Hertfordshire)

This 2014 Bacchus Dry from Hazel End Vineyard in Hertfordshire is a real delight. With aromas of grapefruit, elderflower, lime and a touch of petrol on the nose, leading to a burst of lime and peach on the palate, this older Bacchus has a hint of Riesling about it. It is a smooth, refined wine with good acidity and a long finish, and goes well with a seafood or chicken dish.

Available from Grape Britannia (£14.99)

Red wines

Somborne Estate Reserve Red 2014 (Hampshire)

This delightful red wine made from Rondo grapes grown in Hampshire is an ideal match for the complex blend of flavours associated with a traditional Christmas lunch. Deep ruby in colour, this is a rich, smooth, medium-bodied, well-balanced wine. With blackberry, plum and black cherry aromas, and notes of cinnamon and vanilla, on the nose, and rich black fruit flavours with savoury notes on the palate, it’s a wine with depth and complexity.

Available from Grape Brita nnia (£15.99)

Georges Duboeuf Fleurie, Beaujolais 2020 (France)

This is a Beaujolais from one of the region’s most experienced winemakers, Georges Duboeuf, and it is a very good wine. It has pronounced aromas of raspberry and strawberry, together with hints of cream and blossom on the nose, and intense red fruit flavours on the palate. A light, refreshing medium-bodied wine, with medium acidity and a long finish, it will go particularly well with cold meats, duck or a plant-based dish.

Available from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Majestic (£11-£13)

Château Caronne Ste.Gemme Haut-Médoc, 2016

This is a well-balanced Bordeaux red from the Left Bank. A Cabernet Sauvignon-dominated blend, it has bramble, cooked fruit and blackberry aromas on the nose, together with hints of vanilla and spice, and black fruit flavours and a touch of earthiness on the palate. A full-bodied wine which will go well with roast meat or roasted vegetable dishes.

Available from Majestic (£16.99, £14.99 Mix Six)

Dessert wines

Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Pedro Ximénez (Spain)

Christmas is a time for indulgence. And this is pure indulgence! This Pedro Ximénez (PX) from Sainsbury’s is a full-bodied, lusciously sweet wine with sufficient acidity to balance the sweetness and create a long, velvety finish. With aromas of honey, raisin and toffee, reminiscent of a mince pie, on the nose, and coffee, caramel and toffee flavours on the palate, this is almost a dessert in its own right.

A perfect match for Christmas pudding or other rich dessert, and mature cheese, it can also simply be drizzled over vanilla ice cream for another-worldly experience!

Available from Sainsbury’s (£8)

Campbell’s Rutherglen Muscat (Australia)

The lusciously sweet Campbell’s Rutherglen Muscat is another treat. Made from a blend of vintages of Muscat à petit grains rouges (Rutherglen Brown Muscat), it has flavours of fruitcake, dates and nuts, and is a smooth, wonderfully balanced wine. It is a perfect match for cheese or dessert.

Available from Waitrose (£10.49)

Merry Christmas!

Look out for more wine suggestions from around the world in 2023.

Cheers!

Valentine’s Day : pairing wine and chocolate

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, let’s turn our minds to pairing wine and chocolate. It can be tricky to pair these two successfully because they share many of the flavour components so it’s important to choose a pairing that complements their differences.

A dark, bittersweet chocolate together with a high tannin red wine, for example, can be overbearing on the palate and highlight the astringency in the wine so dark chocolate is best paired with fortified wines. Milk chocolate can easily be overpowered by red wine so a sweet white, a light red, or a sparkling wine work better. And with its creamy, buttery flavours, white chocolate needs something refreshing and light-bodied – an ice wine, a Moscato d’Asti or a Pinot Noir, for example.

Although it’s a careful balancing act to get wine and chocolate to work together, once it does, it can be blissful. So, if you are planning to have a chocolate-based dessert this Valentine’s Day, here are three great options to consider:

Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Pedro Ximénez

Pedro Ximénez (PX) sherries are pure indulgence in a bottle. These intensely sweet wines are aged oxidatively and are deep brown, almost black, in colour. With typical aromas of dried fruits, honey and coffee, and flavours of dried fruit and caramel, there is sufficient acidity to balance the sweetness and create a velvety, long finish. This 12-year old PX from Sainsbury’s ticks all the boxes. With honey, raisins, and toffee on the nose, and coffee, caramel and toffee on the palate, this is a full-bodied wine that has been aged in a network of oak casks.

It is a perfect match to enjoy with dark chocolate or a chocolate mousse. Available from Sainsbury’s (£8, 50cl)

Château de Géraud, Monbazillac 2014

This Monbazillac sweet white wine from the Dordogne region of France is a delightful blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Muscadelle grapes. Golden in colour, the wine has honey, blossom and mango on the nose, and pineapple, passion fruit and a touch of nuttiness on the palate. It is a soft and well-rounded wine which cuts through the creaminess of a white chocolate dessert, making it an enticing match for cake, cookies or cheesecake.

Available from Cambridge Wine Merchants (£14.99)

Campbell’s Rutherglen Muscat

Campbell’s have been producing wine in Rutherglen since 1870 and if you are looking for something to pair with milk chocolate or a milk chocolate pudding, this luscious dessert wine from Australia has stood the test of time. Amber in colour, it is a rich wine made from a blend of vintages of Muscat à petit grains rouges (Rutherglen Brown Muscat) grapes. With aromas of raisins and caramel on the nose, and flavours of orange, dates and nuts on the palate, the sweetness of the wine is balanced with fresh acidity. Health warning – it is wickedly moreish!

Available from Majestic (£14.99, £12.49 Mix Six, half bottle)

Pedro Ximénez: a dessert wine that’s a dessert in its own right!

Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Pedro Ximénez

There is so much more to sherry than its image of that rather fusty bottle of Bristol Cream that lives at the back of the drinks cabinet and only makes an appearance when Granny has a glass at Christmas.

Indeed, sherry is an incredibly versatile and varied wine, ranging from dry fino sherry, pale lemon in colour, with aromas of apple and almond, and bready flavours from the yeast used in the ageing process, to the dark, lusciously sweet Pedro Ximénez sherry with its pronounced dried fruit flavours, made from the eponymous Pedro Ximénez grapes that have been concentrated by sun-drying.

And in between, there are the oloroso and amontillado dry sherries, and the pale cream, medium and cream sweet styles. The common denominator is that the wines that are used to make sherry must be matured in the Jerez region of Andalucía, and more specifically in the towns of Jerez de la Frontera, El Puerto de Santa Maria, and Sanlúcar de Barrameda.

Pedro Ximénez (PX for short) sherries are pure indulgence in a bottle. They are intensely sweet wines which are aged oxidatively and are deep brown, almost black, in colour. PX sherries typically have pronounced aromas of dried fruits with honey, coffee, chocolate, and caramel, perhaps liquorice. Treacly on the palate, with dried fruit and caramel flavours, there is sufficient acidity to balance the sweetness and create a velvety, long finish.

This Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Pedro Ximénez is a fine example of a PX sherry which ticks all the boxes. Honey, raisins, and toffee on the nose, almost like a mince pie, with coffee, caramel and toffee on the palate, this is a full-bodied wine that has been aged in a network of oak casks in a solera system.

Perfect as a dessert in its own right, it is also a match made in heaven for a chocolate mousse or a strong blue cheese. Or why not simply drizzle it over vanilla ice cream – delicious!

Available from Sainsbury’s . £8 (half bottle)