Some wines are satisfying from the first sip. There are reds that are immediately smooth, silky, velvety: attracting adjectives associated with luxuriant comfort and ease. Whites that are dubbed refreshing, mouthwatering, bright: wines with an immediate, thirst-quenching drinkability that keeps you coming back, unthinkingly, for more. Then there are wines that make you wonder if something has gone badly wrong. Wines that feel awkward, uncomfortable, or even trigger your gag reflex.
But if some, perhaps even most wines that we hate at first taste are irredeemable, unlovable duds, there are others that might just go on to be those we love the most. They’re part of a category of wine we might call “challenging” or “extreme”. As with a difficult piece of music that can eventually bring a bigger and more lasting emotional payoff than an immediately catchy tune, these initially edgy, odd, or overwhelming wines can end up being those we crave once we’ve become accustomed to their unusual ways.
It’s a disparate category, but extreme wines often have a certain WTF? element, an exaggerated quality or set of qualities, that make them distinctive and fit to be judged on their own terms if they’re to make sense. Good examples are wines that don’t soften or hide the tannins, giving them that radically mouth-drying quality you’ll also find in oversteeped tea. This means reds such as those made from tannat in Madiran, south-west France, or the sandpapery but perfumed wines made from nebbiolo in Barolo and barbaresco in Piedmont, north-west Italy. But orange wines, made from white grapes which have had a long time in contact with their skins, which are now produced all over the world, can have an even more pronounced and, to the uninitiated, offputtingly tannic feel.
Other extreme wines deal in high levels of sweetness (the treacly black sherries known as PX) or acidity (the startling, minimally fruited hit of sourness of classic Basque white txakoli or the wincing, red-fruited tartness of Croatian teran or red Portuguese vinho verde). Then there’s the alcohol content and sheer syrupy mass found in certain styles of California zinfandel and Australian shiraz.
Some are extreme in terms of flavour or aroma, such as the curry-leaf and yeast of vin jaune from France’s Jura, the headily musky, Turkish delight of Alsace gewurztraminer or the strong whiff of petrol of old riesling. All of them are hard to love at first sip or sniff but like Marmite, stilton, coffee, beer, Campari and dark chocolate, that only makes the craving stronger once they get under your skin.
Six ‘extreme’ wines
Morrisons The Best Pedro Ximénez
Jerez, Spain NV (£7, 37.5cl, Morrisons)
Made from pedro ximénez grapes that have been dried to raisins, PX sherry is the closest wine comes to molasses: thickly syrupy, dark and intensely sweet. It makes for a superb dessert poured over vanilla ice-cream.
Cramele Recas Solara Orange Wine
Viile Timisului, Romania 2022 (from £12.50, reservewines.co.uk; flagshipwines.co.uk)
Orange wine’s tannins can shock the unprepared: “What’s this red-wine-like texture doing in a wine that looks like an old white?” This well made, well priced example has a little of that but not too much grip and it’s combined with creamy apricot and subtle bitterness. A great starter example for the style.
Kozlovic Teran
Croatia 2021/22 (from £14.95, slurp.co.uk; strictlywine.co.uk)
Another wine that startles with the sheer intensity of its acid attack, teran is a red Croatian that can bring a tear to the eye like an unsweetened cranberry, a sensation that can have an addictive quality if it’s accompanied by delightful, riper red fruit, as it is in this top-notch example.
Ameztoi Txakoli de Getaria
Basque Country, Spain 2022 (£17.90, nattyboywines.co.uk)
Classic dry white txacoli’s high acidity and austere, minimal fruit flavours of tart green apples and lemon, not to mention the prickle of fizz, may seem to have limited appeal if sipped in isolation. Tried in context – ideally with seafood in a Basque pintxos bar – it makes complete, pleasingly sour sense.
Brazin Old Vine Zinfandel
Lodi, California USA 2020 (£17.99, Waitrose)
A classic zin in the big and muscular style, this is absolutely stuffed with blueberry fruit, cola bean, figs, plums and chocolate, plus plenty of alcohol (15% here, but zin can easily reach more than 16%). The intensity may be too much for some, but is fantastic with hard cheeses.
Domaine Berthoumieu, Cuvée Charles de Batz
Madiran, France 2017 (from £22.50, josephbarneswines.com; buonvino.co.uk)
Few wines have quite the intense, bear-grip of tannin you find in the dense, dark tannat-based red wines of Madiran in south-west France. Here that is matched with mountain freshness, savoury meatiness and dark currant fruit in a wine that’s ideal for a fatty cassoulet.
