Spectator Mini-Bar Offer | 2 June 2007

Fashions in wine change, like everything else, so it was inevitable that when New World wines swept all before them, Europe would learn to follow the trend. Which is why in southern France, northern Spain and northern Italy these days you find much more highly flavoured wines — ‘fruit bombs’, some cynics call them — though often still showing some of the strength and backbone that comes with a less evenly sunny climate. In the past, the subtlety could be more important than the flavour; now there’s a better balance. And in turn the New World has copied that. These wines, from Graham Mitchell Vintners, who specialise in high-class wines from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, have all the richness and power you’d expect from those countries, but also a European degree of sophisticated understatement.

The Edwards Vineyard Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2005 (1) is from the great Margaret River area of Western Australia.