September Wine Plan Tasting Notes

Averys have collaborated with Chile's medal-winning Cremaschi Furlotti winery to produce Arauco, a delicious red from the Itata Valley. It fuses Cabernet Sauvignon's cassis flavours and firm tannins with Carmenère, the country's velvety Merlot-like varietal that is often referred to as ‘the lost grape of Bordeaux'. The resultant style encapsulates just what it is that people love about the rich reds of Chile. It offers a deeply satisfying drinking experience with perfectly sun-ripened fruits, abundant New World ripeness and Old World structure and finesse.

This superb bottle from dynamic winemaker Simona Barbanera is a real treat for lovers of classic Italian reds. Reminiscent of young Chianti, it is crafted from the grape that is the backbone of every great Italian from Chianti Classico to Brunello di Montalcino - Sangiovese. This pure-bred Sangiovese is from the same terroir that produces Simona's £15-plus Montepulciano. Some of her vines fall just outside of this prized DOCG, and it is from these grapes that this exuberant, unoaked red is made.

Tempranillo is Spain's champion red grape, and one that forms the rich, robust backbone of all good Rioja. Navarra is this premium region's next door neighbour in northern Spain, and Pleno shows just what can be achieved with this varietal from very similar terroirs, at a far more appealing price. This easy-drinking and food- friendly red was last year voted Decanter Magazine's 'Best Navarran Red' in its pricing category. As such, the 2005 sold out immediately so we are very keen to bring this fresh new vintage to your attention before it follows suit.

Pinot Grigio flourishes in the Veneto as does great Pinot Noir in Burgundy. It is simply its spiritual home. Fresh, delicate and versatile, this food-friendly white is a pre-requisite as we nudge into autumn. Portello is made with the sun-ripened Pinot Grigio fruit of this excellent Italian region, whose mouth-watering wines include the internationally acclaimed Valpolicella and Soave. Though often associated with Italy, Pinot Grigio is also grown elsewhere including France, where it is known as Pinot Gris.

This is a true wine discovery, unearthed by our intrepid buyer Emma Roberts high up amongst the vineyards of the Ardèche. Luxuriating on high-altitude terroirs to the west of the Rhône river, this region is a secret no more and has begun to attract investment from legendary names such as Louis Latour of Burgundy and Michel Capoutier of the Rhône. ipe yet balanced and with a distinctly Burgundian influence, Les Charrières is just the ticket for easy, everyday drinking. We are keen to introduce you to this prime example from this up and coming French region.

'Chile does a good line in crisp, clean, verdant Sauvignon Blanc' (Jane MacQuitty, The Times, 23.11.02) and this is a racy, thirst-quenching example from one of the country's top wineries. This family-owned estate garners frequent praise in the wine press, regularly scoring top marks in the Wine Spectator magazine. Contemporary Chilean wines are a credit to their producers and are terrific value to boot. With a sunny climate and disease-free conditions, it is a winemaker's paradise. This handpicked Sauvignon is from the Curico Valley, at the midpoint of this long, slim country.

In claret terms, Bordeaux truly hit the jackpot in 2005. Though its wines are still young the year is being touted as the vintage of the century, with textbook weather conditions throughout the growing and picking season. From a Grand Cru estate in the heart of the illustrious appellation of St Emilion, please welcome an ambassador from a great vintage, Château Clos St Emilion Magnan. This little-known Grand Cru estate has just five hectares of personally tended vines in the plum centre of Saint Emilion. Normally this wine would have gone on to get labelled as the estate's Grand Cru. However, a 21st-century refit left the Château needing a little cash injection, allowing us to buy up an excusive parcel as straightforward St Emilion, at £4 per bottle less than the cost of the Grand Vin. Given that the liquid in the bottle is exactly the same, we thought this was a rather good deal!

In the quest for a suitably impressive wine with which to welcome you to the Claret Club, we really could not aim much higher than this. It is produced by the Grand Cru winemaking team of Château Pichon Lalande, one of southern Pauillac's most celebrated estates. As this wine was bottled as a personal favour and is exclusive to Averys in the UK, we decided to call it La Cuvée Secrète.

This traditionally crafted claret offers very good value indeed considering its provenance. It is crafted with fruit from Château Bernadotte, one of the Haut Médoc's finest Cru Bourgeois properties, owned and managed by the aforementioned Grand Cru estate. Bernadotte's high quality soils are atop a fine plateau of gravel and clay, mere kilometres from Pauillac and Château Pichon Lalande itself.

Bearing the thumb-print of its parent Château, this fabulous claret has a reassuringly classic frame. Delivered in wooden cases of 12, it has ranked amongst our most popular clarets for four consecutive vintages. Once tasted, you will understand why.

This family-run property in the Graves region is capably run by Bertrand Dugoua and his brother François. The latter brought this fine Château to our attention for he works with Ulysses Cazabonne, a wine agent with whom Averys has very strong links. Inherited by Michel in 1965, the property has been producing wine since the 17th century.

Château La Vieille France is located on 60 acres of typical Graves terroir - a sandy and gravely surface with chalky clay sub-soils. Like so many French Châteaux, La Vieille France needed a small cash injection. After a very pleasing tasting, this fortuitous fact allowed us to secure this delicious 2004 parcel at a significantly lower price than normal.

This rich claret is composed of 50% Merlot, 50% Cabernet Sauvignon. The hand- picked fruit is then aged for 12 months in French oak barrels, of which one third is renewed each year to ensure the harmonious development of the wine.

Château Dubois Claverie is a wonderful 14-hectare estate based on clay and limestone soils in the Entre Deux Mers region, situated between Bordeaux's right and left banks. It is ably run by 4th-generation winemaker Frédéric Dubois, who has excelled himself with this vintage to create quite possibly his finest claret to date.

The 2005 is indeed shaping up to be one of the best vintages Bordeaux has seen for a good thirty years if not more, and Château Dubois Claverie truly captures its ripe and fruity essence, with unparalleled levels of exuberance and a juicy ripeness evident in the wine. With this wonderful Bordeaux, Frédéric has brought the prospect of drinking high quality claret every day a little bit closer to realisation, and we are thrilled to offer it to you as part of this sumptuous mixed dozen.

Château Puyblanquet is most definitely back on top form after something of a tumultuous history. Ravaged by the phylloxera that affected so many French vines, it has worked solidly to regain its rightful place as a well performing (though still relatively unknown) Grand Cru estate. Discovered by our man-on-the-ground in St Emilion, who has an aptitude for spotting quality and great value, we were particularly impressed by this 2001 claret, a year described by the Wine Spectator's James Suckling as 'a very good vintage, maybe even outstanding..'

Following the excellent 2000 vintage, Bordeaux's 2001s are priced very competitively and, despite being oft-overlooked, this year is turning into a wonderful drinking vintage. Current owner Jean-François Carille has truly done the Château proud, and this well structured and finely textured claret is testament to his achievements.

As any fan of Old Spain knows only too well, the smooth, barrel-aged wines of Rioja are one of the great heights of this wonderful country's achievements in the world of wine. The renowned Eguren family have run successful wineries in the region in an unbroken familial line since 1870, and Sierra Cantabria is one of their excellent bodegas.

This toasty Crianza has been aged in fine oak for at least 12 months, as dictated by Rioja's strict ageing regulations. It exhibits a very deep dark colour for Rioja, as yet showing no signs of brownness around the edges. The spicy, ripe fruit bouquet is broad but not yet fully developed, and promises to evolve into an even more complex wine over time. The rich early palate is full and intense, displaying great concentration for a Rioja. The tannins are very ripe and rounded so this wine can be enjoyed now but will undoubtedly improve with a little more time in bottle.

The Côtes de Castillon borders the celebrated appellation of St Emilion on Bordeaux's right bank, and is a great source of well crafted, fruity wines. With St Emilion's Châteaux stealing the limelight, Côtes de Castillon wines such as this offer tremendous value for money, too. Château la Bourrée has been in the Meynard family since the early 1800s, its terroir composed of clayey limestone and sandy soils, akin to those of St Emilion.

The estate has repeatedly proven itself capable of producing fine wines such as this Silver medal-winning claret (Concours Bordeaux Vins d'Aquitaine 2005). This oak-aged, nicely balanced Bordeaux is a finely knit and very complete wine. A deep red cherry in colour, it has plenty of body with complex aromas of ripe fruits. The tannic structure is supple and strong, and the oak well-integrated. Crafted with 75% Merlot and 25% Cabernets Sauvignon and Franc, this claret is simply delicious already yet has the constitution to last several years yet. Enjoy alongside a grilled beef tenderloin.

This estate has run along fully biodynamic lines for ten years and converts to certified organic status with its next vintage. It is run by wine-making brothers David and Nicolas Trapet, and was recently singled out by Bourgogne Aujourd-hui as a star grower in the region. This wonderfully balanced Pinot Noir has a refined raspberry-scented nose and a fruit-driven palate, its complexity derived from being aged in 50% fine new oak.

The fruit comes from two high-quality parcels of vines; a 17-acre plot in the little village of Couchey just five kilometres north of the world-renowned region of Gevrey Chambertin, and from a second parcel within Gevrey itself. As an introduction to the region and the style in this excellent vintage, this impressive Pinot is a good starting point. Try it with a salmon and fennel bake or a veal and rosemary stew.

Italian whites are experiencing something of a renaissance at the moment, with wines like this Soave developing something of a cult following. Pieropan is a leading producer of this confident, new-wave style of white. They have made great strides in shaking off Soave's out-dated reputation, with refreshing and characterful whites such as this.

Their Soave is crafted with 90% Garganega and 10% Trebbiano di Soave, two of Italy's most popular indigenous varietals. A clear, bright, pale lemon in colour, it has a lively and delicately fruity nose, with hints of ripe pear, grapefruit and a mineral complexity. A good aperitif white or accompaniment to herby foods such as fragrant rice or fish dishes, it offers a pleasingly soft early palate, with a lovely balance coming from its delicate acidity. Wines labelled Classico are from the qualitative heart of their region. As you are joining me in giving Soave a second chance, the least I could do was offer you one of its finest examples.

Chablis is a tried and trusted dinner table white Burgundy, and this textbook example is from a quality-conscious family estate in the heart of this great region. The 2006 vintage is of a very high calibre, and is as impressive as Chablis' offerings in recent vintages such as 2004 and the universally well-received 2005. Domaine Vrignaud makes Chablis in the classic mould, with stylish, pure fruit flavours and piercing currents of steely minerality running through it.

This estate spends far more time concentrating on its wines than worrying about marketing its name, and is therefore just the kind of estate we love to champion. Grown following ‘lutte raisonée' or minimal interventionist lines, this pale gold wine has quite a tight nose, with nice fruit characters and hints of yeast and wet stone. The palate has depth and is surprisingly soft and round, with rounded acidity and a touch of alcohol on the finish. If you enjoy the unique characteristics of fine Chablis, you'll find them in abundance here. Particularly good with oysters, lobster or swordfish.

New Zealand's white wine scene may be dominated by the Sauvignon Blanc of Marlborough but its rich, single-vineyard Chardonnays are quietly acquiring a loyal following all of their own, especially amongst white Burgundy fans. Due to my pioneering efforts in the seventies, Averys has been importing such Chardonnay for decades and in my opinion, the terroirs of Gisborne on the North Island are best suited to this expressive varietal. This fail-safe dinner table white from Matua Valley's Judd Estate has Burgundy's stature alongside New Zealand's signature tropical fruits.

More Puligny than Meursault in style, there is rich, ripe Chardonnay fruit on the bouquet, an oatmeal complexity and no excess oak. The early palate is surprisingly rich with a buttery softness and nice acidity on the finish. Lees-aged for creamy complexity and aged in American and French oak barrels, this is nothing short of Grand Cru winemaking.

This sumptuous Merlot comes with unimpeachable wine credentials. Though re-labelled for the export market, it is actually a rare parcel of excess production from a prestigious South Australian estate, whose succulent wines you can confidently 'buy without hesitation' according to Australian wine authority James Halliday (Australian Wine Companion 2006).

It was crafted by one of Australia's most celebrated winemakers and the leading proponent of terroir-driven wines of personality and authenticity. Deep purple in colour, this wine exhibits smoky notes from the French oak on the nose, alongside rich plum and succulent black fruit notes. The smooth, full palate has luxurious chocolate qualities and suggestions of after-dinner mint, characteristics for which this region is renowned.

Exhibiting the maturity and complexity that come with age, this Merlot is drinking very well now.

Fifth-generation winemaker Grant Burge runs one of Australia's top performing privately owned wine companies, based in South Australia's incomparable Barossa Valley. James Halliday's respected Australian Wine Companion 2006 remarks how ‘this very experienced industry veteran makes consistently good, full-flavoured and smooth wines chosen from the pick of the crop'. This Benchmark bottle features a inimum of 70% Barossa fruit and is a mouth-watering introduction to Grant's world-class Shiraz range; his Meshach Shiraz is of Classed Growth stature.

Deep cherry red with vibrant, youthful purple hues, this Benchmark Shiraz exudes enticing aromas of black pepper and spice, balanced with hints of raspberry and black cherry. The generous palate offers a tight-knit matrix of red berry and cherry flavours, its complex infra-structure the result of nine months' maturation in French and American oak.

Averys exclusive 'Block Series' pairs a top terroir with its signature grape variety to produce a range of regionally distinct wines. This skilfully-crafted Chardonnay is from our friends at the well-connected Kingston Estate and has already been singled out as one of Oz Clarke's Top Wine Buys for 2008. This acclaimed producer has access to premium South Australian regions from Clare in the north to Coonawarra in the South. Its intelligently made Chardonnay might just shatter your preconceptions of Aussie Chardonnay forever.

The elegant Block 66 is a million miles from the heavy-handed Chardonnays of yore. Winemaker Frewin Ries has excelled himself to produce a delightfully food-friendly white, with the lightest touch of French oak to add balance and structure. Bright pale lemon in colour, it emanates Padthaway's signature aromas of lime, mango, melon and pineapple. On the mid-palate, ripe tropical fruits such as white peach and mandarin stand out, with a crisp acidity on the finish.

Yalumba is Australia's oldest family-owned winery. Independently run by the Hill Smith family for over 150 years, Yalumba has bravely carved its own niche, sticking by decisions that at times have appeared slightly risky. This is evident in the winery's pioneering work in South Australia's Barossa and Eden Valleys with the Rhône's alluring and notoriously fickle variety, Viognier. Best-known for its examples from Condrieu, award-winning winemaker Louisa Rose shows what can be achieved with great terroir and a life's devotion to Viognier's very worthy cause.

Pale gold in colour with green hues, this spicy Viognier has musky aromas of white flowers - the honeysuckle in particular stands out - and hints of apricot nectar. The palate is rich and long, with citrus and tropical fruit flavours from guava and passion fruit to melon. This wine exhibits Viognier's typical silky textures and is rich and luscious with a fresh, lingering finish.