NEW RELEASES: The truly outstanding 2021 Barbaresco from La Ca' Nova - you heard it here first!

A simple statement: I don’t think you can easily find wines of comparable quality offered at the same price as Marco Rocca’s Barbaresco. This has been my unshakable view for the last six or seven years. Nothing has changed. One hundred and fifty pounds doesn’t buy you a six bottle case of red Burgundy from an outlying appellation, let alone a Bourgogne Rouge from a recognised grower...

Champagne Jacquesson - Mixed case of 2012 and 2013 Dizy - Terres Rouges

If you have never tasted Jacquesson Champagnes, I find their wines to reveal a crystalline kind of purity and a sense of mineral tension. They are elegant, refined wines, but show in a fuller, richer, perhaps even rounder style than examples from other houses. They can be judged as wines rather than solely in the sub-category of Champagne, if you see what I mean. They remind me of one critic's comment about the wines of another Champagne house, describing them as white Burgundy with bubbles.

2019 Boca, Tenuta Guardasole - one of the secrets of the world of wine?

The dominant grape variety in Alto Piemonte is Nebbiolo, just as in Barolo and Barbaresco, yet here it is often blended with Vespolina, another indigenous variety peculiar to the region, which adds to Nebbiolo’s aromatics and helps soften the palate, whilst adding a certain spiciness of its own. Whereas Barolo faces challenges in hotter vintages – where some full south-facing slopes are delivering more weight and alcohol – Alto Piemonte, with its cooler climatic profile and dramatic shifts between day and night temperature, often benefits from such conditions....

2020 Podium Verdicchio, Garofoli - 'a total pleasure'

I consider the Podium, Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi from Garofoli to be an absolute bargain – a wine with plenty of character, proven age-worthiness, all at the price of £130 per 6 bottle case in bond in its most recent release, the impressive 2020. On tasting the 2020 vintage, it seemed to me to be the product of a slightly cooler year, in contrast to its predecessor, a point that was borne out when I read Eric Guido’s instructive note on the vintage on Vinous.