Anyone else triggered by the phrase, ‘it’s always darkest before the dawn’? I find it almost as irritatingly noncommittal as, ‘it’ll get worse before it gets better’. Basically, things are bleak with no known end in sight, have I understood that right?
It’s like a doctor delivering a damning prognosis without giving a timeline, possibly via a game of charades to lighten the mood.
According to the NHS, the lack of sunlight in January prevents a part of our brain, called the hypothalamus, from working properly.
This increases melatonin, making us sleepy, and decreases the production of mood-enhancing hormone, serotonin. Everything from your appetite to your body clock is affected.
And thank heavens we’ve passed the most depressing day of this year, Monday January 16, or ‘Blue Monday’. What with the bleak weather, financial worries, low motivation, thank Bacchus’s beard there’s always decent booze to lift our mood.
Yes, I know I’m tardy for the party as we’re already well into the month, but is it too late to tell the 6.5million people currently on the wagon for January that moderation could be better for them than complete abstinence?
Now isn’t the moment to shun alcohol completely, it’s time to mess about with something you haven’t tasted before.
There’s a world of new wines out there you need to latch your lips around, so forget darkness, dawn or Dry January, and do Try January instead. Here are my suggestions:
Sparkling
Taste the Difference Pignoletto Brut, Italy
It may not sound as catchy a name as Prosecco, but Pignoletto is the budget Italian sparkling wine in waiting – and with post-festivity Prosecco fatigue, now could be its moment.
Taking its name from ‘Pigna’, Italian for pinecone, after the shape of its grape clusters, it whips up more interesting wines than Glera, the grape that makes Prosecco.
Pignoletto hails from Bologna in northern Italy, most supermarkets have one and it typically has softer ‘frizzante’ bubbles than its rival.
Buy for £7.50 (Save £1.50) from Sainsbury’s
White
The Wine Atlas Feteasca Regala, Romania
Romania makes great wine, I’ll let that sit with you for a second. Hush though, nobody knows about it yet, so the value for money is incredible.
Feteasca Regala is a local variety that translates as ‘Royal Maiden’, produced by Cramele Recas, the winery that’s putting Romanian wines on the map.
A fiver for a gold medal-winning, well-made, tropical-fruit-stashed wine must surely be a typographical error, so get in there quick before someone corrects it.
Winzer Krems Grüner Veltliner, Austria
I always pitch the Grüner Veltliner grape as a good alternative to Sauvignon Blanc, and I’m doing it again.
It translates as ‘The Green Wine of Veltlin’, which makes it sound Grinch-coloured – it’s not, though it delivers a more spicy, exotic and herbaceous tipple than Sauvignon, with a refreshing spritz on the finish.
The winery is located in Wachau next to the Danube river, dryly described by Unesco as a landscape of ‘high visual quality’.
Tesco Finest Pecorino, Italy
I love a grape named after the animal that enjoys eating it. Pecorino grapes are beloved of the ‘pecora’, or sheep, that snack on them.
Another grape, Passerina, is named after the sparrow that’s partial to pecking it, while Merlot is supposedly derived from ‘Merle’, the blackbird that loves the fruit.
I could go on. If you’re a Picpoul lover though, Pecorino has all the peachy, citrussy, saline hallmarks of your new wine bestie.
Orange
The Future’s Bright Orange Wine, France
Don’t be alarmed, no citrus fruits were harmed in the making of this wine. Orange wine is white wine made in a red wine style, where the juice is left to sit on the skins, becoming amber-coloured as it does so.
Lately, it has become quite the fashion accessory, you could even say it’s the new rosé. Shades range from rose gold to full-on traffic cone, while flavour-wise this a fresh, citrussy and spicy Viognier/Chardonnay blend.
Buy for £10.99 from Laithwaites
Red
Baturrica Tarragona Gran Reserva, Spain
If it weren’t for the cost of living crisis, I wouldn’t be recommending a £5 wine, simples. To break it down, £2.23 of the retail price is duty, margin is £1.07, VAT is 83p, packaging is 39p, logistics is 23p, so money spent on the actual wine is 25p.
How Lidl came up with a delicious Rioja-a-like, Tempranillo-Cabernet Sauvignon with five years oak ageing that tastes of silken blackberries, I don’t want to know…
Canyon Springs Californian Old Vine Zinfandel, US
Like an excitable frat boy at a party, Zinfandel makes itself known, especially when it’s old-vine and from Lodi. Bombastic, lusciously intense black fruit, check.
Lodi is one of the finest areas in California for producing Zinfandel, located between San Francisco Bay and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, hosting some of the oldest vines in the region.
If you love Châteauneuf-du-Pape or Barolos, it would be a Zin not to try this.
Buy for £6.99 from Aldi
Santa Julia Reserve Valle de Uco Bonarda, Argentina
We must be Malbec’d out by now, though not according to research company NielsenIQ. Apparently, British drinkers spend more on a bottle of Malbec than any other red wine.
It strikes the Goldilocks balance between juicy, full-bodied and spicy, as does the other Argentinian red grape, Bonarda, and you should try this one –medium-bodied and teeming with plums and spiced black cherry flavours.
Buy for £9.99 from Waitrose Cellar
MORE : A grape geek’s guide to Tuscany’s best wine, food and culture
MORE : A grape geek’s guide to Napa Valley – from hot air balloons to the Wine Train
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