Forget pink champers, go for this sexy red

Clocktower Pinot Noir has the most sultry and mellifluous of textures, says Matthew Jukes. It is a truly heavenly mouthful.

Matthew Jukes
By
published

2007 Clocktower Pinot Noir, Marlborough, New Zealand (£10.99, Marks & Spencer, in store).

Rather than recommending a bottle of ros champagne for Valentine's Day wooing this year, I have decided to save you a few pounds (£20, in fact) and substitute that rather predictable style of wine for a delicious, hypnotic red. Clocktower is a very sexy wine indeed and I have no doubt that it will do the trick no matter who you have set your sights on tomorrow. Made by the talented Ben Glover at Wither Hills, Clocktower is some £4 cheaper than Wither Hills Pinot Noir itself.

Stylistically, it's a little lighter than its brother, but that's not a problem. It's a bonus, because it is drinking perfectly now, despite being only two years old. With ten months spent in French oak and the most sultry and mellifluous of textures, this is a heavenly mouthful. It is so perfumed and ethereal you could conceivably drink it without food (something few reds can manage) and then slide effortlessly into all manner of dishes.

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If Clocktower doesn't get your pulse racing, nothing will. And take my advice you will need a second bottle, because it lunges across the palate with considerable lan.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year

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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