Pinot Noir: pushing the boundaries

Put off by the high price of French Pinot Noir? You can still enjoy this grape variety by buying more affordable bottles from Romania, South Africa and Argentina

At her recent wine tasting of Pinot Noirs, LadySips ventured beyond the sacred soils and iconic vineyards of France to share quality wines with sensible price tags from anywhere but Burgundy.

That’s not to say LadySips doesn’t hanker after top-class Burgs and covets a cellar that features a few cheeky bottles of Monthélie 1er Cru and Gevrey-Chambertin. However, nothing short of a financial miracle or getting divorced and marrying a hedgy will get her a bottle of revered Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Grand Cru Pinot Noir - DRC to its devotees – that costs upwards of £4,500.

While she patiently awaits an uplift in circumstances, LadySips has been gleaning excellent advice from Dan Keeling’s new book Who's Afraid of Romanée-Conti?: A Shortcut to Drinking Great Wines. The co-founder of Noble Rot restaurants and editor of Noble Rot magazine has done the hard work for this Who’s Who of skilled winemakers, from the more established to the new kids on the block, who please with their fabulous ferments - and at prices within an achievable budget.

For my Pinot Noir wine-tasting, I stuck to sub-£30 bottles. The bargain was the £13 Calusari from Cramele Recas Winery in Romania. The wine is smooth, plummy and herbaceous - a good easy-drinking midweek option to go with a light mushroom pasta or pizza. It’s made by Englishman Phillip Cox and Romanian wife Elvira, who revived and replanted 650 neglected hectares at a former state-owned winery. They now produce more than 1 million bottles of wine a year at their state-of-the-art winery, but don’t let that put you off as they follow a considered, low-intervention approach to winemaking and champion indigenous grapes, blending Feteasca Alba and Tamaioasa Romaneasca with Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc for their Solara Orange wine.

Second up was the silky, perfumed Thorne & Daughters Copper Pot 2022, £28, from South Africa. It’s also made by a husband and wife team, John and Tasha Thorne-Seccombe, who source and blend the best Pinot Noir grapes from around the Western Cape. Its concentrated raspberry and pomegranate fruits, herbs, soft tannins, subtle baking spice notes from time in old French oak are all lifted by a refreshing acidity. It turned out to be the most popular wine of the day, so you can feel confident about taking this to a friend’s house for supper and it getting a positive reception.

Third out was Las Estelas Pinot Noir 2022 from Argentina - a personal favourite. It’s made by third-generation female-producer Estela Perinetti in Tunuyán in the Uco Valley. The higher altitude growing conditions produce ripe red berry fruits while retaining fresh acidity. Cooler nights not only build aroma and flavours over a longer growing period but also mean the grapes accumulate enough sugar to convert into a handsome, well-integrated 14% abv. The flavour of this wine lingers on the palate and has you yearning for another delicious sip. What a good wine should do, right? I’ll be having this with my Easter roast lamb.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Argentina even though I’ve never visited. My first interest in the country was aged 12 when my best friend got the Evita double album. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical has memorable lyrics by Tim Rice, which I can still recall to this day. Not surprising, as we’d sing along to it on repeat. Even now I think of Eva Perón’s put-down line ‘Who could ever be fond of the back of beyond?’ when I’m in less auspicious places. Not sure what the neighbours thought when we belted out: ‘Screw the middle classes! I will never accept them!’. I’ll be taking a trip down memory lane this summer to see Evita at the London Palladium, but it’s mainly Malbec and Argentina’s lesser-known native grape varieties that now have my attention.

Attending a recent event with an Argentinian producer for Drop Dulwich (where I work) , I tasted some very fine Malbecs, but I was also introduced to another Argentinian black grape variety, Criolla Chica, or Pais in Chile. It’s mostly drunk domestically. If you juicy red fruited wine likes Pinot Noir, then you’ll probably love it, too. It’s an ideal summer wine as you can serve it slightly chilled. It’s harder to find than Malbec, but Thorman Hunt imports the well-made and tasty Proyecto Las Compuertas Criolla, £28, from the Durigutti estate in the western region of Luján de Cuyo in Mendoza.

Brothers Hector and Pablo Durigutti make vibrant wines from organic grapes grown at 1,050m above sea level, which provides cooler growing conditions. These are fermented in concrete eggs using native yeasts. The Criolla has bright strawberries and cherries, quince and fresh plums. Along with a stable of elegant Malbecs, the brothers also make a fabulous Proyecto Las Compuertas Cabernet Franc with flavours of raspberries, blueberries and violet floral notes, £28.

I think I’ve talked myself into my next tasting - Argentina’s alternatives to Malbec. As Eva would say, they’d be ‘Surprisingly good for you!’.