March Wine Club | 28 February 2013

An excellent selection of European wines this week from Private Cellar, the first-rate East Anglian merchants who sell loads of fine, established wines but always keep an eye open for less expensive bottles which often are as good, if not better, than their more famous neighbours. And with the pound down against the euro yet again — why can’t it go back up to €1.50, where God intended? — we do need to keep an eye on prices. Many growers are happy to keep them down to hold on to the market, but they can’t hold out for ever. To encourage you, Private Cellar have discounted almost all of them, in some cases very generously. Unusually, I have picked just two whites but four reds.

So, many of these wines are more than acceptable substitutes for the bigger names. Take the Les Rafelières Sauvignon Blanc 2012 (1). It’s made in the Loire, it has grass and gooseberries and is slightly flinty, thus it has the quality of a Sancerre for roughly half the price.