Weekly Varietal: Torrontes

The Queen of Argentina.

As the only native variety to come out of Argentina, Torrontes reigns on high as the emblematic white wine of the country. Made famous in the high altitude wine regions of Salta, this unusual white wine is actually a blend of white wine Muscatel de Alexandria and with red wine Criolla, however Torrontes itself is completely white.

Known to locals as ‘the liar’ this wine is a tricky one to pin down as the nose can be quite deceiving making you think with its floral and tropical fruit notes that it will be sweet. It is in fact completely dry and sometimes has a trace of bitterness.

Highly aromatic, it pairs nicely with lighter Asian cuisine especially Thai flavours and sushi.

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Weekly Varietal: Carignan

Discovering the unassuming Carignan.

The second most planted red variety in the world, it is a sad truth that Carignan is rarely made into a very high quality single variety wine. Instead it is mainly used for its great acidity, tannins and colour to blend with other red wine varieties, mainly in France and other European countries.

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Weekly Varietal: Sauternes

The Queen Mother of wine.

One of the true royal family of the wine world. Although Sauternes would definitely be more like the Queen Mother. Sweet, aged and a little bit past its ‘prime’, Sauternes white wine is characterised by having ‘noble rot’. You might assume that rot in a wine is a bad thing, but in this case getting rot in the grapes is completely desirable, in fact it is intentional.

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Weekly Varietal: Grenache

The spicy red from Chateauneuf-du-Pape

Even though it is the most widely planted red variety in the world, Grenache is not very often found as a single variety. Rather it is usually blended with other red varieties. The most famous incarnation of Grenache is in Châteauneuf-du-Pape from the eponymous village in the Rhone in France. Literally meaning the Pope’s New Castle, this village was home to Pope Clement the Fifth in the 1300s but is now home to some of France’s most famous wines, which are principally made from the Grenache grape. The wine became so treasured in French wine culture that it was one of the first to have been given an official wine appellation.

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Weekly Wine Varietal: Muscat

The white wine that sweetens hearts around the globe

As one of the oldest and most widely planted grapes in the world, it would be difficult not to have tried a Muscat in your life before! Although with all its different names and guises, perhaps you just don’t realize it.

This large and generous grape was used by the Ancient Greeks to make wine and is now widely planted across the globe, producing different outcomes depending on the climate and clone but usually resulting as an aromatic, slightly sweet white wine.

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