My top drops in October.

October was a bumper month for supermarket tastings, my recommendations from which will be filtering through over the next few weeks. I also went to Beaujolais for a few days and came back even more in love with the region so it obviously has to head up my selection this month

Red wine of the month - Julien Sunier’s Fleurie
I’m still sifting through my tasting notes (look out for my Guardian column on the 17th) but one of the highlights of the trip was meeting Julien Sunier whose Fleurie I’ve always admired so I’m going to single out that. It’s gone up a lot in price since I first bought it (the 2021 vintage is currently £31 at Robersons) but it has a fantastic purity of fruit that is everything you want from Beaujolais. Berry Bros & Rudd has the 2020 for £25.95 a bottle which is worth snapping up.

Budget red of the month
There’s so much incredibly good value Bordeaux around right now including this robust, spicy Pavilion La Tourelle Bordeaux Supérieur 2019 which is £6.99 if you buy any six bottles at Majestic. (There will be more Majestic buys in this week’s Friday 5 for those of you who are subscribers to my weekly newsletter Eat This, Drink That)

White wine of the month: Chignin Bergeron Chez Les Béroux 2020, Jean-François Quénard
I was introduced to this wine by Patricia Michelson of La Fromagerie who also sells it. It’s a beautifully precise mineral white, but better still, it turns out to be the best match for Vacherin Mont d’Or I’ve encountered so far - and I’ve tried a lot! You can buy it from Vinatis for £19.34.

What are the best wine pairings for Vacherin Mont d'Or?

Budget white of the month: Morrisons The Best Soave Classico 2021
Soave may not be a wine you buy regularly but it’s a really adaptable Italian white that goes with so many dishes including creamy pasta sauces and risottos. This example from Morrisons is particularly good value and it’s just 12%. And if you buy 3 at the moment you can save 25% on them.

Sparkling wine of the month - and, surprisingly, it's prosecco!
I don’t often find myself recommending a prosecco but as you may have noticed from Match of the Week a couple of weeks back there’s a new breed that is made in a much drier style. Not that that will necessarily endear them to prosecco lovers for whom its touch of sweetness - and modest price - constitutes its appeal. The new wave proseccos are a good deal more expensive. If you’re after a bargain and like a slightly drier style I suggest The Wine Society’s own fresh, appley Prosecco for £10.95

Sweet wine of the month - Tokaji
There are always more dessert wines for sale in the run-up to Christmas but this year’s selection seems especially strong. I particularly like Tokaji at this time of year and came across a great one in Tesco, the St Stephan’s Crown Tokaji 2014 which has a gorgeous deep dried apricot flavour that would be great with one of those lighter Christmas puddings - or a chunk of Stilton come to that. It’s £18 in Tesco which isn’t cheap but good value for a wine of this quality.

Oddball of the month: Soif! Les Funambules 2020
There doesn't seem to be that much of this drink, a quirky blend of grapes and apples that isn’t quite like wine or cider but exuberantly bright and refreshing and at 8% modest in alcohol. You can buy it for £20.50 from The Good Wine Shop, or £21.50 Natty Boy Wines, and it's imported by Vine Trail in Bristol. Soif is the perfect name for it.

My top drops in September

September always sees the start of the wine tasting season so it’s harder than ever to pick out the wines - and other drinks - that have made the biggest impression on me. But here’s a selection that I think is worth your attention - for different reasons (though some are definitely for special occasions).

(You’ll find some more affordable options in my recent Guardian column which was devoted to Lidl and the last but one Eat This, Drink That Friday 5 which was free to everyone to celebrate the fact that it had been going for six months!)

Under £10 white: E H Booth & Co Gavi 2021 £8.85

Gavi’s been eclipsed recently by more fashionable albarino but if you’re after a smooth dry white it’s still a good bet, not least because it’s less expensive than albarino these days. Most supermarkets do an own label one but this is a particularly good example. Lucky you if you live near a Booths - if not Morrisons perfectly decent The Best Gavi di Gavi is on a 25% off 4 bottles deal at the time of writing bringing it down to £9. (More about the Morrisons deals in this week's Friday 5)

Over £10 white - Heytesbury chardonnay

Chardonnay still gets a bit of a bad rap but honestly who could resist Vasse Felix’s Heytesbury chardonnay which I was lucky enough to taste in a vertical from 2020 back to 2015 the other day. Sumptuously creamy it’s all a top chardonnay should be. The 2020 is the most recent vintage but will need at least 2-3 years to open up and show at its best.

The best price I could find online currently is £50 for the 2019 at Solent Cellars but winemaker Virginia Willcox also makes a (just about) affordable estate chardonnay for under £30 as I pointed out in my recent Guardian column.

The best foods to pair with chardonnay

Under £10 red: Armenia Wine Company Yerevan 782BC 2020 £9.50 Booths

Booths again! An exotic blend of indigenous Areni and Karmrahyut grapes that would be fantastic with middle-eastern food. (The Greek Xinomavro to the right of it is good too at £13 and would be great with a cheeseboard.)

Over £10 red: The Garage wine Co’s Cru Truquilemu DO Empedrado 2018 £35.11 Jascots at Home

I’ve always had a soft spot for Derek Mossman Knapp’s Garage Company wines but this beautifully supple syrah was a revelation. Ripe sweet and supple with great acidity, it's not the sort of style you associate with Chile but was terrific with a dish of show cooked lamb and anchovies.

Sparkling wine of the month

Champagne Legras & Haas Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs 2012 £55 Private Cellar

I’m really into blanc de blancs (100% chardonnay*) champagnes at the moment but this 10 year old vintage is in a league of its own. Full, toasty and honeyed but with just the right amount of refreshing citrus to prevent it being too rich. A fabulous gift for any champagne lover (should any of my relatives be reading this … )

* actually sometimes blanc de blancs include pinot blanc but it’s usually chardonnay

Sake of the month: IWA 5 Assemblage 3

I’d been dying to try this sake which is made by the former Dom Perignon Chef de Cave Richard Geoffroy and finally caught up with it at the wildlly louche Sexy Fish. Still the food is better than the decor and the sake, which he served at three different temperatures, was seriously impressive. If anyone can put sake on the map the persuasive and energetic Geoffroy can. Not least by making it one of the more expensive sakes on the market ...

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My top drops in August

I’ve not been sure what to do with this section since I moved most of my recommendations to my Substack newsletter Eat This, Drink That (which helps to support this website by the way if you feel inclined to take out a subscription).

A monthly round-up may not be the ultimate answer but at the moment I haven't got time to do a weekly one.

So here are my top picks in August. (The categories may vary depending what I’ve been tasting or drinking (i.e. not much cider or alcohol-free this month but a lot of whisky!)

Well priced wine of the month

Chateau Bel Air 2020, If you’re a Bordeaux fan you’ll love this very similar wine from neighbouring Bergerac. £7.99 if you buy it on Majestic's mix six deal, £8.99 if you don’t but that's still reasonable.

Natural wine of the month
(which could also qualify as ‘most obscure wine of the month, possibly of the year as I don’t expect I’ll be tasting many other Serbian pet nats!),
I discovered it at The Black Bull in Sedbergh which is where this week's match of the week also came from and it's the Pannonian Treasure Sauvignon Blanc pet nat from the Deuric winery in Fruska Gora. It's light, aromatic, gently fizzy and absolutely delicious. Worth the money (£16.95 from a craft beer and natural wine shop called Niko) for bragging rights alone.

Fine wine of the month

Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia Gran Reserva rosado 2011
This is the most extraordinarily complex rosé which, as you see from this post, goes with not only lobster but steak. I shared a bottle of the 2011 with my son Will at Hawksmoor Edinburgh where they sell it at roughly retail price. If you're feeling flush you can place a bid for a case at Berry Bros & Rudd or, a better option if you're in Dublin, nip into The Corkscrew which is selling it for €59.95

Beer of the month
I wrote an article for the Guardian on gluten-free beers. They were all impressive but I particularly liked Round Corner Brewing’s joyous, sessionable Jandals and Togs (Kiwi for flip flops and bathers) the latest batch of which is due to be released by the brewery at the end of this week (September 2nd). Freshly brewed beer is always best. Just 3.5% and £26 for 12 x 330ml cans.

Whisky of the month
REALLY hard this one as I’ve been tasting a lot of great whisky but I guess the one I was most surprised by as I don’t normally go for the rich sherry cask style, was Tamdhu’s 15 y o, which I was told to look out for by whisky writer Joel Harrison. Master of Malt has the best price I can find it online at £78.50 which is not cheap but by the standard of many whiskies these days not outrageously expensive either.

Gin of the month
I’m struggling to whittle these down to one suggestion too but I’m going for the Rhidorroch Distillery’s Locah Achall gin from Ullapool (above), even though it’s only 38%. It’s flavoured with gorse flower, rowan berries and heather along with the standard botanicals which makes it prettily but not overpoweringly flowery and a great gin for a G & T. That's £38.85 from the distillery.

Wednesday's Domaine

The thing that most frustrates non-drinkers who are wine-drinkers - including me when I'm taking a day or two off - is the lack of a convincing replacement for wine.

But I have to report that things are improving.

These two de-alcoholised wines from an outfit called Wednesday's Domaine are really not at all bad which sounds like damning with faint praise but if I couldn’t drink wine at all I'd be happy to settle for them.

Their great virtue is that they’re not sickly sweet and that they have some relatively natural fruit flavours - the ‘Sanguine’ red - a de-alcoholised tempranillo - has a similar red berry fruit character to a Beaujolais and the white, 'Piquant,' which is made from airen grapes, is like a chenin blanc. I’d chill both to accentuate their fresh fruit flavours.

The downside is that they contain a number of other ingredients you wouldn’t expect to find in wine including tannin solution, glycerin, natural flavours, quinine solution, salt, preservative, potassium metabisulphite, acidifier and malic acid - all, I imagine to improve the 'mouthfeel' or texture that alcohol-free wines lack. Though it has to be said that if wineries were also required to list the ingredients they’d added during the winemaking process you’d probably find a fair few of them using them too. (The Co-op is the only company so far as I’m aware that lists ingredients on the label).

At £37 for a 3 bottle case from the Wednesdays Domaine website or £14.95 from Hop Burns & Black they’re also not cheap considering the producer doesn't have to pay the same duty as they would on a full strength wine though wine is obviously used tn the process.

Still, if you can’t drink and don’t want to feel left out they look pretty cool.

You might also want to read this article I wrote for the Guardian earlier this month on other alcohol-free wines.