Guest Post - Discovering a new wine

The wonderful Beccy is joining us again with another fabulous guest post for the wine of the week feature.

I have a little confession to make about this post. Rather than heading out to the shops to try something new or grab something on offer I have been a bit naughty and pulled a bottle of something I have fallen in love with out of our ‘booze fridge’ at home! (Yes – we actually have a separate fridge in our kitchen dedicated purely for alcohol!!)

It’s not a wine I had heard of a few months ago but myself and HID joined a company called Naked Wine (more about them another time) last year and ordered a few mixed cases to see us through the end of the BBQ season. Having really enjoyed all of the wines from their cases we decided to ask them for recommendations for our Wedding in August. We really wanted to choose a wine that the majority of people would like, that could be drunk with food and also that was a quaffing party wine and key, one that wasn’t too strong! I have a weird aversion to white wines that are 13 or 14%; I like to think I can blame my fuzzy head on them and try to get wines at 12% or less – especially for midweek consumption.

So with all those ideas in mind we contacted Naked Wines and a very kind chap suggested a few different red and whites wines, along with a Champagne for us to try and we had a rather exciting couple of weeks trying the lot. Not sure our livers enjoyed it as much though!

 The clear winner in the white wine category for me was a Benjamin Darnault – Picpoul de Pinet.

Picpoul de Pinet is a French wine and I guess if you haven’t tried it it’s probably closest related to a fresh crisp sauvignon blanc. This wine is really clear in the glass and dry with a hint of fruit. In short it’s incredibly drinkable. So drinkable in fact that last night I managed to have guzzled half the bottle before even serving up dinner – pea, mint and feta omelette with salad since you ask!

Whilst I am not certain that a serious wine snob would plump for this, it is genuinely a crowd pleasing wine which could be matched with most types of food and is a lovely wine to drink just on its own, which is exactly why we thought it would be perfect for the wedding. I think I have discovered a new favourite and we have had to store the copious amounts that we have bought at my Mum & Dad’s to stop us from dipping into it! Obviously an additional case had to be ordered to be kept at home, just to remind us how good it is!

If you wanted to buy from Naked Wine it’s about £10 a bottle. However they do case discounts and cash-back for members (Angels) and offer free delivery deals too so it’s definitely worth looking into. Otherwise a quick Google search shows lots of other Picpoul wines at supermarkets including Tesco and Waitrose. A slight aside but we liked it so much we ordered the same bottle at a fancy restaurant in Devon to go with our seafood. It was delicious but at £27 a bottle - more than we’d usually like to spend when we’re out - it’s an absolute steal if you can get a good bottle for at home.

I really want to hear what other people think of Picpoul de Pinet, particularly if you are usually a sauvignon blanc drinker like me. Could you be converted?

We think our wedding guests will really appreciate the efforts we’ve been too so that they don’t have to quaff the usual ‘catering house wine’ – otherwise known as paint –stripper!

Thanks for reading and if there’s enough demand, I’ll get HID to write a review on the red wine we selected for the wedding too – the Galodoiro Vinho Regional Lisboa 2009 from Portugal. He loves it and to be honest, whilst I wouldn’t normally drink red wine, I do too. 

Huge thank you to Beccy for another guest post - and I would love to hear 'HID's thoughts on the red wine!  Sauvignon Blanc is a favourite for me when drinking white wine, so I'll definitely be looking this one out when I can drink again!