Rack Draining Wine Reviews pt1 – Wickham Vineyard Special Reserve

This is the first instalment of the first regular feature on this blog: 'rack-draining wine reviews'. I am getting married and moving house within 6 months of each other next year, so my booze tokens are depressingly low. The unfortunate result of this is that I'm going to have to start draining my wine rack of all the little delights I have been laying down to age and do their thing. To justify this culling of my little dusty friends in the darkest corner of our kitchen I will be lamenting how much a few more years laying down would have benefited these wines, and also hopefully telling you how delicious they are.

It's a sunny Sunday afternoon and I'm meeting up with good friends at the excellent BYO Lebanese canteen Comptoir Libanais so what better opportunity to crack something half decent?

Comptoir Libanais is a small but growing chain well worth a visit. Our service was superfast and cheerful among the colourful, relaxed surroundings. But the food defies the lighthearted décor; a plate of warm flatbreads with generous dollops of humous, yoghurt and a subtly smoked baba ganoush was a comforting shared starter, and our mains of zingy chicken and green olive stew and a hearty lamb tagine – delightfully tender – were great value at under £8 each (including rice or cous cous). Ideal, I thought, for the first wine I pulled kicking and screaming from the rack...

Wickham Vineyard's Special Reserve red (£12.50) is a blend of rondo and pinot noir grapes from Hampshire in the south of England. Rondo is a popular grape for English reds and rosés due to its affinity to the colder climate, though I find it often makes odd wines with a bright purple colour and very confected flavours which I'm not too fond of.

This wine, luckily, has plenty of pinot noir in the blend, which, on it's own is now actually making hard-to-find but really fantastic wines in England. I have to say though the rondo in the blend does deserve some credit, adding a well received juiciness. It's deep purple in colour with some classic earthy and ripe cherry aromas from the pinot noir. On the palate it has some good grainy tannins which were a nice surprise, along with lots of acidity, which you would expect from a wine from this cool a climate. That acidity combines with the fruit character to bring out bags of juicy blueberry and redcurrant flavours. It paired with my delicious lamb tagine rather well, latching on to the prunes and apricots in the dish wonderfully. It didn't go too badly with my fellow diners' chicken stew either, snuggling up to the green olives in the dish.

It could have lasted happily another year in the rack but I don't think it would have evolved a huge amount more. So, no hard feelings this time; lovely wine, drink young, and don't feel bad about draining it from the rack.