2 bottles of each of the following wines:

Alice Vieira de Sousa White, Douro, Portugal 2024 (white)
Here’s a wine that tiptoes across the palate thanks to its relatively light alcohol content of 12.5% abv and the delicate character of its 3 grape varieties: Gouveio, Rabigato, and Viosinho. Flavours and aromas of grapefruit, lime peel and mandarin are stimulated by a mouth-watering acidity, like a squeeze of lemon juice. Sourced from vines on hardscrabble schist slopes at 500 metres above sea level, where it is significantly cooler than lower in the valley, which shows itself in the freshness and lightness of touch. Lucia and I tasted it together and, being a gentleman, I gestured for her to use the spittoon first. She gave me a guilty smile, which implied that she had swallowed it. I smiled back. And all the wine spilled down my chin. No, of course it didn’t! I had swallowed it too. 12.5% alc. Drink now-2028.

A.A. Badenhorst 'Secateurs' Chenin Blanc, Swartland, South Africa 2025 (white)
“If it’s pure Chenin perfume at a good price you’re after, this is your wine. Good Value.” - Jancis Robinson MW
I met up with Adi Badenhorst recently and he confided sotto voce that I had always been a huge inspiration to him. “Huge,” he repeated, for the avoidance of doubt. I accepted the compliment with tremendous humility, knowing full well that he was taking the absolute mickey, because with Adi, you take him at face value at your peril and that is one of the many reasons why he’s my favourite winemaker on the planet.

Born into extreme silliness, Adi has done more to raise the profile of South African wine than my cousin, Paul, a paramedic from Aberdeen. But don't let appearances deceive you, Adi may look like the secret lovechild of a freight-hopper and an Appalachian Elvis impersonator, but he's actually incredibly odd and his wines are beautifully imperfect expressions of the Swartland, its vines, its people and their dungarees. Secateurs Chenin Blanc is Adi’s calling card and is the most important wine he makes, because it’s his entry-point white, the first wine that most people try before thinking “Wow! That’s lekker! What else shall I try?”. It’s made from dry-farmed Chenin Blanc bush-vines grown on decomposed granite in the Paardeberg mountain range, where Adi has his homestead.

Gavi di Gavi 'Nuovo Quadro', La Battistina, Piedmont, Italy 224 (white)
Kick your shoes off. This is that glass of white wine, frosty from condensation, with silver green reflections, that you have been thinking about all day. Crisp and refreshing, but far from hollow in the middle, it’s zesty and stony and flinty with flavours of cut lime, lychee, mint, white flowers and green melon. It’s almost worth having an awful day at work, just to be able to come home to this! 12% alc. Drink now-2028.

Saint-Chinian Blanc 'Montmajou', Les Eminades, Languedoc-Roussillon, France 2022 (white)
“Most wine I taste gets given away. Not this bottle.” - Tamlyn Currin for JancisRobinson.com
The Montmajou is packed with minerally chic, but it’s not all sharp edges and paper-cuts, as can be the case with early-picked impersonators, there’s a toothsome succulence at its core too. It’s a blend of Grenache Blanc (80%), which, when grown on chalky soil, gives the flinty, limestone bite that we love, and Marsanne (20%) which brings a hint of honeysuckle nectar that tempers the wine’s elemental side. Drink it from a large glass, because the aromas will fill the void with citrus peel and quarry dust and jasmine. A beautiful, understated wine for fine-dining and an imaginative departure from the usual suspects. 13% alc. Drink now-2027.

Zillinger Neuland Grüner Veltliner, Weinviertel, Austria 2024 (white)
We’ll be honest, when Gruner Veltliner first started turning heads, we barely noticed. “It’s like a meadow in a glass!” they said. “Pair it with anything, it’s flawless!” they swore. And there we were, shrugging, feeling like the only ones at the party who didn’t recognize the hit song everyone was dancing to.

Tasting the Zillinger Neuland Grüner Veltliner 2024 gave us a glimpse into the hype. It’s a wine of great clarity and purity—like crystal-clear alpine water running over broken slate. Aromas of sweet lime, white peach, and a hint of delicate wildflowers and white pepper invite you in, while the palate is steely-dry, zippy and sleek. A whisper of chalky minerality lingers, reminiscent of a fine Chablis, making each sip refreshing and precise. There’s a graceful versatility here: it pairs seamlessly with food yet is compelling on its own. Bright, polished, and utterly drinkable, it’s a delicious reminder of why people fell for Gruner Veltliner in the first place. Honestly, this is one bandwagon worth joining. 12% alc. Drink now - 2028.

Domaine de Triennes Rosé, IGP Méditerranée, France 2025 (rose)
As many of you who have bought this wine before will know, this rosé is the result of a collaboration between two superstar Burgundy winemakers, Aubert de Villaine of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, and Jacques Seysses of Domaine Dujac. Given the renown of these two bona fide wine legends, it almost beggars belief that the wine sells for as little as £15.95. It’s everything we love about Provençal rosé. It’s dry and delicate, but it has texture and is discreetly concentrated, so the flavours spread evenly across the palate and don’t finish abruptly or want for depth. We found hints of dusty rose, grenadine, white cherry and peach, perked up by a little tickle of blood orange. 12.5% alc. Harvested at night so that the grapes are cool upon arrival in the winery. Pressed after a few hours of skin contact. Fermented at low temperature until fully dry. Drink now-2027. Organic.

Le Bon Côte Rouge, Domaine des Lauriers, Languedoc, France 2023 (red)
This might not be what you expect from a Languedoc red made from Syrah, Grenache and Cabernet Sauvignon, grapes which can gang up on your palate if you let them run riot, but here they have been calmed and cajoled into something altogether more supple, soft and easy. It’s a lovely moreish red, weighted more like a Pinot Noir, but with a sunny Mediterranean disposition and flavours of strawberry ripple, soaked cherry skins, bell pepper and sage. Perfect for barbecues and picnics (unless you hate picnics as much as I do!). 12.5% alc. Drink now-2029. Terra Vitis certified.