DRINK DIFFERENT - GOING SOUTH FOR SEASONAL MELLOW FRUITFULNESS

As autumn is upon us, many people are looking for wines to reflect the season, with mellow savoury flavours, combining plum and cherry fruits with vegetal, almost gamey notes.

Pinot Noir is the grape which delivers all of this, and its home is Burgundy, where this tricky grape combines with perfect terroir to produce incomparable wines – at unforgettable prices. At a recent Norfolk auction, three middle-ranking Burgundies were snapped up for more than a thousand pounds a bottle, which is a price beyond most of us mere mortals.

Fortunately, the new World can help us out.  Outside of Burgundy, the most successful region producing Pinot Noirs is the Otago Valley in New Zealand’s South Island.  Here the wines have all of the fruit that you expect from this grape, but with age they can also develop the savoury side which makes Burgundies so interesting – at a fraction of the cost.