Wine of the week: a zany, paradigm-shifting creation

published 11 October 2019

NV Bol, Spumante Bianco, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

£13.50, reduced to £12.83 each by the case of six bottles and £12.15 each by the case of 12 bottles, Great Western Wine, 01225-322810,

greatwesternwine.co.uk

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I am always on the lookout for newly released wines and sometimes I stumble across completely zany, paradigm-shifting creations and I have to do a double-, and in this case a triple-take. Made from trebbiano with a 5% addition of local rarity famoso, this terrific sparkler uses a long and cool secondary fermentation in a tank, as opposed to a bottle, to get the wine to market as fresh and vibrant as possible.

The result is a Prosecco-style fizz, but with an awful lot more to hang onto. The bottle is stunning, the label is energetically colourful and genuinely eye-catching and the flavour is knockout. Crunchy green apple-skin tones lead the way, but it is the subtler notes of lemon blossom and faint jasmine-tea nuance that brings complexity and gravitas to the whole.

New product launches, particularly of wines that are clearly trying to buck the trend, are often disastrous, but this sparkling wine shows that it is possible to upset convention and yet still produce an entirely unexpected but epic and joyous product.

Bol deserves to be admired and tasted by every single person who has ever sipped Italian fizz and I venture that legions will then follow its path. You cannot ignore the price, which is as keen and eye-catching as the superbly designed label!

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

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.