A lunchtime white for less than a tenner

La Monetta is an Italian white worth going out of your way for.

Matthew Jukes
By
published

2011 Gavi di Gavi, La Monetta, Piemonte, Italy (£9.99, reduced to £7.99, until 9 October, Waitrose).

Here's a lovely white wine that works perfectly well at a tenner, but really is worth a detour at £7.99. Gavi di Gavi is a style of wine that can cost the earth my favourite version, 2010 Montessora, La Giustiniana (£21.99, Caruthers & Kent, 0191-213 1818), is three times the price of my featured wine so when a decent discount applies to well-made Gavi, I am on it.

Made by Araldica, a smart co-op, and coming from their La Battistina estate, this wine has pedigree. There are no winemaking tricks here, just a short, cool fermentation, and then it's ready to go. This means that great Gavi is made' in the vineyard either the fruit is special or it is not. This is certainly true of my aforementioned Montessora, but it is also very evident in this keenly priced wine.

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Araldica is a large outfit with very high standards and it shows. The lemon balm and lime leaf nose is beautiful. The palate is pear-imbued and sleek and the finish, rasping and refreshing. It is also only 12.5% alcohol, so very much an aperitif/lunchtime style. Give La Monetta a whirl it will certainly raise an eyebrow or two.

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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