Wine of the week: a lively glass full of cricket-pitch cuttings

While researching a piece on urban wineries for my monthly column in elite English viticulture journal Vineyard, I found myself in one of the hippest, smallest and most inviting wineries I have ever visited. Aussie winemaker Alex Hurley conducted a winery tour (which took 14 seconds) and then we sat in what every other winery calls the cellar door or visitor centre, but in this cool company looks more like a Byronic dining room, to taste the range.

In the past, this Fulham-based winery brought grapes in from as far afield as Calatayud and Limoux to make superb wines in our capital – 2015 Cabot Sq (£15) is a particularly toothsome biodynamic cabernet from the Languedoc, but the future focus for this exceptional set-up is, rightly, English wine.

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Alex has just released a dreamy 2018 Rosaville Rd Pinot Noir Rosé (£15), which should grace every dinner party table in the country, but alongside this diva he has a scintillating Bacchus. Here there is a haunting perfume of elderflower and cricket-pitch cuttings, which glides above the citrus pith core. It is lively, perky and lifted with a lust for life that so many pretenders to the Bacchus throne fail to engender.

It is not a wine that needs time to settle and evolve like the raw, stinging-nettle-imbued Bacchuses of the past. It is ready to go and it ought to be your go-to apero of this summer. Ooh, and Alex has arranged a special price for us MoneyWeek acolytes for the next ten days, too!

2018 London CRU, Baker St Bacchus, England – £15, reduced to £13.50 until 12 August, robersonwine.com

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

This article was originally published in MoneyWeek