Wine of the week: a genuinely unique new rosé

published 24 July 2020

2019 Blackbook Winery, Controversy Pinot Meunier, Coombe Bottom Vineyard, Sussex

Winemaker Sergio Verrillo makes his wines in Battersea, right next door to where I make my Jukes Cordialities. The other day, we swapped tasting samples. I gave him a tasting box of my drinks for him to sample and he gave me a “cleanskin” bottle upon which he wrote the words 2019 PM Controversy in white marker. The label you can see in the picture accompanying this column is a mock-up as this wine was unlabelled when I first tasted it and ten days ago, before this very issue was printed, it had yet to be labelled. So, this week I have a genuine scoop for you.

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Only 80 cases of Controversy were made and so there is a chance that come this evening it may well have sold out. Nothing has excited me more in my job as a wine writer than being the first to find a wine, particularly one as memorable as this. This scintillating, still, pinot meunier (this grape is most often found in sparkling form) is whole bunch pressed and naturally fermented and then aged for seven months in old Burgundy barrels. Its flavour is like no other I have ever tasted. It is a rosé, albeit the palest you have ever encountered and this is not intentional! The nose and palate parade white pepper, ginger root and barely ripe grapes, and the experience is invigorating, prickly and fascinating.

This wine is sensational, challenging, rare and unmissable. It is like finding a missing page in the encyclopaedia of wine. Sergio’s wines are always enlightening, but Controversy is genuinely unique.

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

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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.