South American Surprise

We went to Ransome's Dock for lunch yesterday with some friends. We were keen to try some of the new Austrian wines that are on the wine list. We started with a lovely riesling, which we all agreed was a perfect match for the spring day!

As only some of us were having dessert, we decided to order a sparkling wine with that course so that those of us who weren't eating pudding could at least sip on something. The restaurant always has interesting things to choose from, and we selected the Miguel Torres Reserva de la Familia, a brut pinot noir sparkler from Chile. My past experiences with sparkling wines from Chile have been mixed - they can be very good and they can be a bit of nothing. But I trust Ransome's Dock, they're only going to put something good on their list. And this wine was very good!

It had tons of bubbles, always a big bonus for me. It also had a light, pleasing aroma, with hints of fresh flowers like jasmine combined with crisp orchard fruits. It tasted like juicy apples, with neither too much sweet or acid flavour. Best of all, it was enjoyed as much on its own as by those drinking it with their desserts, everyone around the table had positive things to say.

If I could find this in a shop, I would buy it as an easy-drinker at home. It can easily compete with the better proseccos and cavas that I've had, as well as some of the small-maker champagnes.

Cocktails Anyone?

While we were stocking up on sparkling wines during our recent trip to Majestic Wine, we decided that along with some of the pricier (albeit good deal) wines, we would try a couple of the real bargains. One of them caught our eye - the Undurraga Brut from the Maipo Valley in Chile. It was around £11 for two bottles, and since we had tried and liked a sparkling wine from this region before, we thought we couldn't lose on this one.

Saturday was a beautiful day, and we were grilling steaks for dinner. Since the Undurraga is a chardonnay/pinot noir blend, we thought we'd open it with our meal. It was incredibly bubbly, but smelled like sweet grape soda - not a great start. Then we tried it. Nothing. I sipped again, and my husband asked me what I thought. Still nothing. It tasted of absolutely nothing. A big bottle of alcoholic bubbles.

So, we got our mixers out - blackberry liquer for him, passion fruit puree for me - and made 'champagne cocktails'. This is the perfect wine for this, because the bubbles lasted all the way to the end of my glass, despite having diluted the wine. And, there's no reason to preserve the flavour of the wine (since there isn't any), so you can mix it with just about anything.

We've got a second bottle - any good recommendations for cocktails out there?

The Other End of the Spectrum

Having tried an expensive-but-not-*that*-impressive champagne on Valentine's Day, a couple of nights ago we popped open the £5 bottle of sparkling wine, a chardonnay, riesling, chenin blanc blend from Vina Maipo in Chile, that we bought at the supermarket. Not for any special reason - two sodas would have cost us almost the same amount, so we just opened it as my husband ate a homemade calzone and I finished off some leftover venison stew.

Drinking this wine after having recently had a champagne from a wonder year was an interesting experience, though. The Vina Maipo had a very nice flavour - a strong grapiness at the start, mellowing to tropical fruits with a hint of pineapple at the finish. But it also had a totally different and very thin mouth-feel - almost like drinking skim milk after being accustomed to drinking full-fat.

In a blind tasting, would you know this wasn't an expensive wine? Yes. Would you care that it wasn't the priciest or the best if you were drinking it in the middle of the week with leftovers for dinner like we did? Absolutely not. You'd enjoy it, and it would give your meal that little bit of something extra that mid-week meals need. That's the beauty of well-made, inexpensive sparkling wines.