Susana Balbo Signature White Blend, Mendoza, Argentina 2022 (£24, greatwine.co.uk) The measure of a truly talented cook is the ability to make something delicious out of any ingredients they’re given. That’s not quite the case with a winemaker: as an old wine trade rule of thumb would have it, it’s easy enough to make a terrible wine out of good grapes, but you simply can’t make a good wine from bad grapes. Still, there is something of the flexible cook’s store-cupboard pragmatism to some of my favourite wines. Certainly, that’s part of the story of one of Argentina’s best whites. When leading winemaker Susana Balbo wanted to make a Bordeaux-style white blend, she had access to plenty of the two key ingredients: sauvignon blanc and semillon. The third, muscadelle, was more elusive. A cunning substitution of the similarly aromatic local grape variety torrontés was her answer, and the result, as the latest vintage once again confirms, is a peach-skin soft, white peach fleshy, mandarin-tangy, subtly herbal wine that simultaneously recalls and transcends its inspiration
Triade Bianco, Campania, Italy 2022 (£7.49, down from £9.99 until 30 July, Waitrose) Susana Balbo isn’t the only talented South American winemaker coming up with inventive white blends that offer something very different to the Chilean and Argentinian white wine norm, which generally features single-varietal wines made from a handful of famous grape varieties. I was immensely impressed, for example, by Viña Estampa Inspiración Italian White Blend 2021 (£24.99, carruthersandkent.co.uk) a three-way blend of fiano, greco and vermentino from the Pacific coastal vineyards of Paredones in Chile’s Colchagua Valley. It’s a combination that I’m not sure I’ve ever come across outside the original home of each of those varieties in southern Italy, but it works beautifully here: there’s an essential oil intensity and texture, oranges, lemons, fresh white peaches, a salty-fresh finish. Rather more accessibly priced, certainly on the offer price, Waitrose’s Triade goes back to the source, with falanghina taking vermentino’s place alongside fiano and greco di tufo in a lovely soft, tropical fruity summer white.
Tesco Finest Côtes du Rhône Villages Blanc, France 2023 (£9, Tesco) France’s southern Rhône is another region with a tradition of blending multiple white grapes that winemakers all over the world have used as inspiration. In a wine such as Tesco’s very smart own-label bottling from the region, the skill of the winemaker Julie Rouffignac is very much akin to the cook making a complex curry or soup, as she harmonises seven grape varieties (grenache blanc, clairette, viognier, roussanne, marsanne, trebbiano and bourboulenc in case you were wondering) to create a wine that shimmers with perfectly ripe stone fruit. The blend is not quite so symphonic in Montirius Côte du Rhône Blanc la Muse Papilles 2022 (£18.99, thesourcingtable.com). But this trio of grenache blanc, roussanne and clairette from Christine and Eric Saurel’s biodynamic vineyard in Vacqueyras, is even more sophisticated and evocative with notes of fleshy red apple and chamomile, subtle almond and nougat and a refreshingly gastronomic salty finish.
Follow David Williams on X @Daveydaibach
