Our Spectator Winemaker Lunches are extremely cheery affairs, held in the boardroom at 22 Old Queen Street. There are never more than 16 of us — a dozen or so readers plus the winemaker and your humble correspondent — and, during a cold, four-course Forman & Field lunch, we enjoy around six or seven different wines.
Spittoons are scoffed at and consumption runs at an average and rather impressive one bottle per head, despite which I’m delighted to report that we’ve never run dry. We do sometimes resort to flicking the lights at meal’s end, though, just to remind readers they have homes to go to.
The following six wines were all huge hits at recent lunches and it dawned on me and Laura Taylor from Private Cellar that we’d be failing in our duty if we didn’t offer them to our wider readership. I’ve bought a number of these bottles myself and cannot recommend them highly enough.
Bodegas Pinuaga is a family-owned estate near Toledo in central Spain and we were delighted to welcome Esther Pinuaga to the boardroom a few weeks ago. The 2015 Pinuaga Nature (1) is made from organically farmed Tempranillo grown at high altitude, meaning plenty of hot sun during the day and cool temperatures at night. Its fresh, vibrant, pure, dark berry fruit disarmed us all and what it perhaps lacks in complexity it more than makes up for in sheer drinkability. £12.60 down from £13.60.
The 2014 Pinuaga Colección (2) is more profound and intense, a single vineyard wine produced from one fine Tempranillo clone. It’s fermented in stainless steel to ensure freshness and aged for nine months in oak to give weight, character and body. It’s rich, dark, concentrated and utterly delicious.
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