Feeling Pink.

Looking forward to the Cloudy Bay dinner at Alba, St Ives this weekend, it should be a landmark occasion.

With so many Bank Holidays coming up and spectacular spring weather thoughts inevitably turn to pink wines - so what’s showing well in this department I hear you ask? Well, rosé lovers seem to fall pretty neatly into three categories:

a. medium sweet/blush

b. full bodied off dry/ deep pink and

c. dry/salmon pink

So it will depend which category you feel fits best for you but here goes anyway. For category a. which we despairingly call “Girlie Wines” (no angry letters please ladies) the prettily packaged Sentina Pinot Grigio Blush (£4.99) is fun while the R. H. Phillips Night Harvest White Zinfandel (£8.50) is smart and very succulent. For the deeper coloured medium dry bunch  Spain is a happy hunting ground and the amazingly consistent, juicy Quinta Hinojal Tempranillo Rosado (£5.29) always shows well while new this year is a blistering pink Malbec from Toso (£8.50) in Argentina, very weighty and packed with big red fruit flavours. In the dry section the ever popular Domaine Piqueroque from Provence (£7.30) is a sure fire winner – mineral dry and vibrant while the St Felix Rosé (£5.48) from the Languedoc is in a similar style if just a touch fruitier and less fine.

Prices are valid until the end of April after which our annual price review will be implemented which will include the Chancellor’s extra duty hit as announced in the Budget.