Wine of the week: A rare and wondrous enchantress

A wine for those with a thirst for the rare and wondrous.

Matthew Jukes
By
published
in Features

2011 Picarana, Bodega Maraones, Madrid, Spain (around £15.50, Butlers Wine Cellar, 01273-698724; Scarlet Wines, 01736-753696; Noel Young, 01223-566744; Bacchanalia, 020-7429 3253; The Fox's Knocker, 020-7729 0538).

I was dining at the Soho institution Andrew Edmunds and its eponymous owner poured me a glass of wine blind' and challenged me to name the grape. I failed.

I'm not familiar with the albillo grape, nor was I aware that fine wine was made in the Madrid environs. How could the grape deal with the heat? The answer is old vines, early ripening and high altitude fascinating.

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The flavour of this enchantress reminds me of top class viognier, manseng and chenin blanc all rolled into one. I ear-marked Picarana for you and set about finding retailers: no surprise that it is an eclectic bunch of artisans who follow wines such as this one.

Do support them they are the lifeblood of the wine trade just as Andrew E is the beating heart of the Soho wine community.

The wine is a beauty and follows a natural, low sulphur vinification with gentle oak, all guided by young wine necromancer Fer Garcia. It is terrific value and a must-buy for those with a thirst for the rare and wondrous.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (www.matthewjukes.com).

Matthew Jukes
Matthew Jukes

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.  

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’.  He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner. 

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy.  His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.

 

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