Occasionally the English language proves inadequate when you are searching for a term and you have to steal a foreign phrase to fill the gap. Here's a case in point. This wine leaves an impression on you that is hard to express in English, but thankfully the French have come to the rescue with a pithy little phrase of their own. They call it 'le feelgood factor'. 

When you are longing for the sun to dip below the yardarm, this is the wine you want to have waiting for you. It induces that well-known sigh of satisfaction, which announces the end of a long day and the start of a wonderful evening. We're not going to tell you the grape variety, because this wine isn't about expressing varietal character, it's about the whole A to Z experience and assessing its merits based on its success at expressing specific 'trademark' flavours would be a silly distraction, like judging a figure-skater on the colour of their dress.

It's a wine that bristles with citrus and minerals. It's inadvertently cutting-edge, brushing shoulders with the ‘natural’ wine movement, without getting embroiled in all their dogma. It’s a wine that gives back as much in complexity as you give it in attention. It has clearly been shepherded from the vineyard to the bottle by a gentle hand; it’s not a technical wine that has been tweaked with knobs and dials. It’s minimalist, in the sense that it’s restrained, precise and linear, but it’s spring-loaded too, serpentine, with a fine line of acidity from start to finish. It’s fruity, but earthy too; dry, but ample on the palate. Damn it, it’s just delicious! It goes extremely well with a simple grilled fillet of sea bream with just a sprinkle of salt and a squeeze of lemon. Or I can imagine it being great with charred squid or a lemony risotto. We put it through its paces with salmon sashimi and it worked a treat, the pristine fruit cleansing the palate. Why not try a bottle or two and give back your impressions. We think it's le tops, as the French would say. 13% alc. Aged in large oak barrels for 10 months. Low yields of 32 hl/ha. Drink now-2028.

Press review:

Jancis Robinson (Tamlyn Currin): “If ever a wine smelt like struck flint ... Or like the old moss-covered stones under a little highland waterfall. Don't expect conventional Sauvignon Blanc from this smoky, punctuated, green-and-gold wine that is ripped with herbal bitterness, rugged with stones, pithy with grapefruit peel and glistening with a tiny smudge of wild honey. If you can, give it time to warm up a little in the glass and relax – when it's cold it is a little bit hunched up in the shoulders. No hurry to drink this (so buy a few extra bottles to tuck away). It will evolve over the next few years. Drink now-2028.” 17 points