Hunter’s Offshoot Sauvignon Blanc 2020

With its pungent gooseberry and passionfruit flavours Marlborough sauvignon blanc is such a distinctive style that most people could pick it out with their eyes closed but this wine is a bit different

For a start it’s made as a ‘pet nat’ aka pétillant naturel - a gently sparkling wine which is bottled during the first fermentation instead of the second like champagne. (So basically it’s younger, fresher and less toasty)

In fact it comes from the 2020 vintage and while brimful of those typical gooseberry and passionfruit flavours that makes New Zealand sauvignon blanc so distinctive - and can sometimes be a bit overwhelming, to my palate at least - it's a gentler, more toned down version, light (12.5%), fragrant and just blissfully summery. Once you’ve opened it you’ll definitely want another glass.

The only thing I would warn you about, and it may just be my bottle, is that it bubbled over crazily when opening (it has a crown cap) so don’t shake it about. Maybe it wasn’t quite cold enough - the back label says ‘chill this wine carefully before opening it otherwise you might wear it.”

You can buy it from Jeroboams shops in London and online for £15.95.

What would I pair it with? I'm not too bothered actually. It’s just a wine to sit and sip on a warm spring evening (assuming we ever get one) and there’s nothing wrong with that. Some fresh crab crostini if you force me...

What champagne to buy (and what not to buy) for Valentine's Day

Do you need to splash out on champagne for Valentine’s Day - and if so how much do you need to pay for it? You may not realise quite what pressure you’re under to spend over the odds

Must it be pink?

For a start, there’s the colour. Rosé champagne, which is heavily promoted at this time of year, costs more than ordinary non-vintage despite only being marginally more expensive to make. Compare the price of standard and rosé sparkling wine and you’ll see there’s little if any difference though English winemakers have tended to follow their French counterparts in slapping on a premium.

The new kid on the block this year is pink prosecco (producers who wanted to make a sparkling rosé couldn't call it prosecco before) which tends to be cheaper. Lidl does a very posh looking one for just £6.49.

Are the reductions genuine?

Well they have to have been sold at the original price by law but how often do you see them at that price? To take a typical example the full price of Bollinger is around £45-£50 normally though Harvey Nichols has it for £55. Waitrose is currently selling it for £35 - £10 cheaper than Tesco but still not cheap when you think about it. You could get a couple of REALLY good still wines for £35.

Should I buy vintage fizz?

Vintage champagne - champagne that comes from a single year rather than being blended from wines from several harvests - is pricier still. Generally it’s of a higher quality but unless you’re going to savour every sip (and haven’t you other things to concentrate on?) it’s possibly not worth it on this occasion.

What about a half bottle?

You need to be aware you're paying a premium for half bottles given the extra costs of bottling a non-standard size but that said It may be just the amount of champagne you actually want to drink. Two I recommended a couple of months ago in The Guardian are Pol Roger and Louis Roederer. You're more likely to find them in a local wine merchant though than in a supermarket. (My local, DBM Wines in Bristol generally has the Pol)

Do you pay for the name?

Then there’s the snob factor. You will pay inevitably pay more for a famous name than a lesser known champagne house or own label. Do by all means splash out on a grande marque if it will do the trick but If your loved one doesn't know one champagne from the next and would actually rather have a glass of prosecco don’t waste your money!

So what specifically should I buy?

As I've suggested it depends who you're buying it for but I’d be inclined to pick from one of these:

Sainsbury's brut rosé champagne £22

If you’re not a label fetishist this very pretty champagne which is made by the respected house of Duval-Leroy is great value. Often on special offer though sadly not at the moment.

Le Pionniers rosé from the Co-op £22

The rosé version of the Co-op's excellent Les Pionniers range is still the same price as when I first wrote this article in 2018. and is not wildly more expensive than the standard version.

Devaux Oeil de Perdrix £27.99 a bottle if you buy on a mix six deal from Majestic (not all of which have to be champagne)

Less well known but delicate and prettily packaged barely pink fizz which Majestic has been selling for yonks (oeil de perdrix means partidge's eye which admittedly may not be the big selling point for your loved one)

Bollinger

As I mentioned Asda and Waitrose are both selling Bolly for £35 which you may feel is worth a whirl. So does Amazon if you’re on Prime.

Taittinger Brut NV

A lighter, fresher style of champagne for those who don't like it too toasty and biscuity. Waitrose has it for £28 currently which is a pretty good deal.

Bredon Cuvée Jean Louis Brut £17.99 Waitrose

There’s a full 1/3 discount on this consistently reliable rich toasty fizz which is less than you’ll pay for full bottles of their own label fizz but they are selling half bottles for £11.99 currently and as part of their Valentine's Day meal deal.

These comparisons do show how wildly champagne prices can fluctuate - not only on V day, right throughout the year - so at least Google the champagne you’re thinking of buying to make sure you’re not paying over the odds. (Amazon, for example, may be the most convenient but it's rarely the cheapest for wine!)

Wine of the week: Pere Ventura Primer Reserva Cava

Finding bottles of sparkling wine under £10 that are not prosecco is increasingly hard so snap up this very attractive Pere Ventura Cava which Waitrose is selling (In larger stores and online) at an introductory price of £9.69 until next Tuesday instead of its regular price of £12.99.

It’s made from local Catalan grape varieties macabeo, xarel-lo and parellada and is aged champagne-style in the bottle for 15-18 months

The alcohol is quite low - just 11.5% - but it has real elegance and a really attractive peachy character without that overt yeastiness that often characterises cava. And although the residual sugar is comparatively high at 12g it tastes quite dry. A Cava for drinking with food (like fish and chips or tapas I’d suggest) rather than on its own but well worth laying in even if the party season doesn’t look like happening this year.

Also worth snapping up on the same promotion is De Bortoli’s new 17 trees shiraz which is on an introductory deal of £6.99 rather than £9.99. It started as part of a project to plant 17 trees for each company-owned vehicle and now the proceeds from each six bottles that are purchased go towards planting a tree. A good juicy everyday red to have to hand over Christmas, if not before. (The pinot grigio from the same range is not as good btw)

All Angels Classic Cuvée and sparkling rosé

There’s so much English fizz around now it takes something special to make them stand out. These two All Angels wines, have the advantage, for a start, of coming from Berkshire, a county which is not as well known for its wines as more southerly counties such as Hampshire, Sussex and Kent.

They’re also really good. I tasted the Classic Cuvée 2014 first which was appealingly smooth and creamy with a nice touch of citrusy freshness and didn’t expect to like the sparkling rosé, also from the 2014 vintage as much, given how incredibly fruity it was - just jam-packed full of strawberry, raspberry and redcurrant summer pudding flavours. Maybe it’s more a wine to enjoy with a picnic tea than as an aperitif but it’s absolutely delicious. And surprisingly a shade drier than the classic cuvée.

That is made from chardonnay, pinot noir, pinot meunier and pinot gris and the rosé, largely from rondo along with pinot noir and pinot gris. Both are from the 2014 vintage and made by Emma Rice, the award-winning winemaker at Hattingley Valley.

All Angels, if you’re wondering, is named after the estate's local parish church, St Michael and All Angels at Enborne which apparently dates from at least the 12th century.

At £28.50 from the winery’s online shop they’re also relatively reasonably priced compared to many English sparkling wines now (quite a few prices are creeping up over the £40 mark). You can buy one of each for £57 with free delivery this week as it's English Wine Week and also from winebuyers.com.

English Wine Week has been postponed this year from May possibly in the hope we all might be able to visit vineyards by now. However there are lots of online tastings and webinars in which you can take part. Let’s hope we can actually get into the vineyards before too long.