Bodegas Garzon, Albarino 2013, Uruguay
Though the supermarkets and high street chains do a good job of bringing a fair variety of world wines to the UK public, sometimes you have to go just a little more off piste to find the more esoteric and unusual, and that certainly applies to this week's Wine of the Week. You will have to seek it out from a small number of independent wine merchants, though thankfully all of them have online ordering too.
The wine is an Albariño, a grape variety that is currently finding a lot of fans for the crisp, fruity and elegant white wines it tends to make. But Albariño wines have so far come almost exclusively from the cool coastal vineyards of the north of Spain and Portugal. Not this one though, that comes all the way from Uruguay. Whilst Uruguay is not well known for wine in the UK, the country produces a lot of wine, and this comes from vineyards very near to the Atlantic coast, so not so different from Spain in some ways. The wine has a lovely nose, focused on peachy, apricot-like stone fruit aromas, with a little lemon and lime beneath and a hint of something breezy and salty. On the palate it is brimming with fruit. It is clean and fresh, but has a rounded and mouth-filling ripeness to its fruit, though never at the expense of clarity as its modest but telling acidity keeps it fresh and very food-friendly. Something undoubtedly a bit different, and very good it is too. It's currently £10.95 from Ministry of Drinks, £14.25 from Turton Wines and see all stockists on wine-searcher.com
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