I am looking for that perfect summer refresher, you know the one that isn’t going to cost you a fortune. Yes, today’s mission is to focus on stress-free wines that cost less than $15. Time to eschew those high-priced 90+ pointers that make you genuflect out of respect.

Fortunately, today’s Vintages release of 97 items has lots of seriously tasty efforts. Indeed, much to my surprise, there are some truly great buys out there that are bound to disappear immediately from LCBO shelves.

Starting with Ontario, the one key wine worth searching out is the excellent Thomas & Vaughan 2000 ‘Vintners Select’ Chardonnay (723775) at $14.95. Look for a bouquet of hazelnuts, toast, melted butter and ripe pears. The palate is flush with cloves and all spicy tangy, dry, honeyed, ripe pear and red apple purée flavours on the long lingering finish. At its peak, it is best with white meats and poultry.

In the distinctive flavour department, a well-made Australian Sémillon is one of the great treasures of the wine world. While most associate it with a French Sauternes or great Bordeaux Graves, it is the Hunter Valley of New South Wales where some awesome Sémillon originate.

In terms of this grape, I don’t think that there has ever been better LCBO value than the just-listed Margan 2001 Sémillon (961516) at $13.95. The grapes were selected from both the Ceres Hill vineyard, which produces a very grassy herbaceous style; and the Fordwich Hill vineyard (35-year old unirrigated vines yielding a tiny 1 ton per acre), which produces intense citrus flavours.

Winemaker/owner Andrew Margan’s first release from his state of the art winery was in 1997. In case you didn’t know, Margan has over 25 vintages of experience both in France and with Tyrrell's as winemaker until 1996. This $13.95 stunner won Gold at the 2001 Royal Melbourne Wine Show and rated No. 2 with 92++ points in Philip White’s Top 100 Australian Wines for 2001.

So how doe it taste? Great - it has a complex, spicy, honeyed, baked tangerine nose with rich, dry and yet harmonious, ripe tangerine, lemon grass and baked apple flavours. With just over 13% alcohol, you can enjoy it today while knowing that it will evolve nicely over the next 10 years.

At just under $10, the Hungarian Vinarium Borgazdasagi 2001 Budai Irsai Olivér (718239 - $9.95) offers fine summery fragrance. Irsai Olivér is a table grape cross that resembles Muscat. Ergo, the delightful, slightly sweet, honeyed, tangerine-Muscat nose. It is surprisingly dry and refreshing on the palate with tangy, spicy, lemony, Muscat flavours. A perfect partner for poultry or cold soups, it is ready for immediate consumption.

Another best buy white is an unpretentious Portuguese blend at a $10.95. Had I not tasted it myself, I would be wary as indigenous-vinifera blends often don’t cut the mustard and simply capitalize on the vinifera grape - in this case Chardonnay. Thankfully, Quinta de Pancas 2001 Chardonnay & Arinto (711929) at $10.95 really works. It has a spicy, honeyed, sweetish, pear purée nose and fairly dry but rounded, gently toasty, ripe pear flavours. Although now at its peak, it still has a refreshing finish and shows great versatility.

Originating in Portugal’s Estremadura region, which accounts for one in every five bottles, there are quite a few subregions to contend with, including 8 separate DOC’s. Some of the very best estates (or quintas) are located near the DOC town of Alenquer. Owner Joaquim Guimaraes has transformed the quinta’s vineyards into the region’s best, while youthful winemaker  Rui Reguinga has come up with a great blend of stainless steel fermented high acid Arinto (which Jancis Robinson calls “Portugal’s saviour”) along with the Portuguese oak barrel fermented Chardonnay. Ontario agent FWP Trading (meaning Fine Wines of Portugal) is to be congratulated for bringing this winner to Vintages. To visit their website  (click here).

Unfortunately, such fine Portuguese values are still a best-kept secret. To get a grip on the excellent values that will be arriving on LCBO shelves, get a copy of the just-released soft cover The Wines and Vineyards of Portugal by Richard Mayson in the Mitchell Beazley classic wine library series. This well researched effort is available on the Chapters/Indigo website for only $27.96, a great deal when compared to its $39.95 retail. To see the book (click here).

Moving on to the reds, if I had one wine to buy regardless of price, it would be Lammershoek 2001 Pinotage Barrique (954594) from South Africa’s Coastal Region. It was a luck day when Vintages decided to buy 300 (6 bottle) cases of this release highlight, which sells for a mere $13.95.

A recent trip meant that I missed the initial pretasting for today’s Vintages release. Fellow wine writer Barbara Ritchie wrote some tasting notes for my monthly newsletter. When I saw her just shy of three-star rating (out of three stars), I was in disbelief. Could such an inexpensive red garner such a high score – something that one might associate with a $50+ effort?

Well, it is true! While owners Paul and Anna Kretzel have only been at it for three years, this amazing first release of Pinotage (a 1920’s cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsaut) is almost too-good-to-be-true. It is unfiltered and unfined, meaning that the flavours and extract have not been stripped out.

Look for a complex, sweetish, spicy, ripe black cherry-cassis nose with some licorice notes. On the palate, it is complex, dense and mouthfilling (14.6% alcohol) with rounded ripe tannins and sweetish, ripe plum and black cherry purée fruit. A sublime BBQ wine and incredible value.

An indispensable book for anyone even remotely interested in these wines is the fully updated comprehensive, 520-page hard cover “pocket guide” John Platter South African Wines 2003. Now in its 23^rd year, this new edition introduces 44 new wineries and 33 new ranges. Better yet, you can order it locally from keenan@propellerpr.com for the incredible price of $17 including taxes and shipping.

Finally moving to the best rosé of the release, Bodegas Faustino Martinez 2002 Faustino V Rosado (700534) at $10.50. This 100% Tempranillo DOC Rioja has a reddish pink colour and a ripe cherry nose. It has fresh, dry, crisp, bright, ripe red cherry flavours that are both versatile and accessible. Try with a steaming bowl of moules à la marinière.

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August 2003 InStore Discovery

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