On the road with Nigel

We ran a  big corporate tasting at the Lemon Street Gallery in Truro on Friday evening taking the theme of “The Comeback Kids”. Ten wines were shown all featuring grape varieties which have seen a resurgence of popularity in recent years such as Viognier, Albarino, Bonarda, Graciano and Carignan.

Stars of the evening for me were a spine-tingling, minerally Assyrtiko from Boutari’s Santorini vineyards, Greece, and a lovely supple, elegant Alfrocheira from Barau de Nelas in Dao, Portugal. Dante Robino Bonarda, a perennially popular Argentinean, was probably the biggest hit of the evening amongst our guests while, as usual, the Gewurztraminer (Tamar Ridge) got the “Marmite” award.

Revelation of the week was the condition of some wines opened about ten days ago and left sitting waiting for someone to do something with them in the warehouse. When re-tasted at the weekend the wines closed under screwcap were in better nick than those under cork. Intuitively one would expect this to be the case but a useful exercise all the same.

Dante Robino Bonarda in the shop at £7 per bottle or £79.75 per case of 12.