Need a new WINE RECOMMENDATION? This French-made Spanish-style wine is made with Irish help and is light, refreshing and perfect for summer, writes MARY DOWEY of the Laurent Miquel Albariño, VIN DE FRANCE 2015
Picture the scene: a vast vineyard high on a sunny limestone plateau within sight of the snow-capped Pyrenees. It’s in Corbières in the Languedoc, a region mainly associated with rich reds. But strangely, the focus here is on white wine – and, even more strangely for France, the grape is the Spanish darling, Albariño. The result is this zippy number – exactly right for summer drinking.
How did such a bizarre birth come about? To find out I recently visited the Les Auzines estate. The owners are young winemaker Laurent Miquel – a chap whose fondness for white wines has been well nurtured at his family’s property in Saint-Chinian – and his Irish wife Neasa Corish. ‘One day in 2009 when the place was for sale we just drove up here and said wow,’ Neasa explains. ‘Laurent has always loved wines with freshness and elegance so the altitude was an obvious attraction. We’re not far from Barcelona, where we’d often enjoyed drinking Albariño, so right away we decided to give it a go.’
Their experiment has been a runaway success, no doubt eyed with envy by sceptical neighbours. The wine is ultra-refreshing with the delicate peach and lemon notes that typify classic Albariño; in fact, after a few minutes in the glass, those fruity notes – discreet at first – begin to fan out a little, tempering an initial impression of briskness. To help them emerge, be sure to serve the wine chilled but not ice-cold.
Try this with light food – maybe white fish or shellfish or, for absolute perfection, a salad of peaches, prosciutto, rocket and goat’s cheese with a lemon dressing.
Alcohol: 13%
From Dunnes Stores, €11.50
Love THEGLOSS.ie? Sign up to our MAILING LIST now for a roundup of the latest fashion, beauty, interiors and entertaining news from THE GLOSS MAGAZINE’s daily dispatches.