Wine and food matching is one thing but it’s every bit as much fun to match wine with mood. Just as there are some wines that are best with curry, cheese or seafood, there are bottles whose characteristics – the flavours they call to mind, or simply something about the way they’re put together – seem to fit a specific moment or even a season.
At this time of year, for example, when whatever pared-back beauty winter might have possessed has long since lost its austere allure, I start looking for wines that can both echo the scents and keep step with the rising spirits of spring. I find myself craving what I think of as the paradigmatic springtime wine: whether it’s the unashamedly herbaceous and gooseberry-exuberant classic New Zealand style, or the river-cool, grassy mode perfected in Sancerre in France’s Loire Valley, good-quality sauvignon blanc always feels full of new life.
Other whites that have an affinity with springtime flavour and feel include England’s own hedgerow-herbaceous still wine speciality, bacchus; the gentle blossomy floral tones and dancing acidity of youthful off-dry German riesling; and the coursing spring-melt Alpine-stream freshness of northern Italian whites such as Piedmont’s gavi or pinot grigio from Trentino-Alto Adige. Many sparkling wines have the requisite quicksilver tingle and friskiness, not least the foaming freshness of new-vintage pet nat, which has none of the biscuity tones of age you find in classic champagne-method fizz, and moscato d’asti, an aromatic dance of gentle bubbles, spring meadow flowers and muscat grapes.
White grapes don’t have the monopoly on spring wine. New-vintage rosés are beginning to emerge across the northern hemisphere, full of fresh, first-cherries-of-the-season charm. And there are youthful red wines filled with crunchy, subtly herbaceous tones that are every bit as redolent of the new season. Cabernet franc, particularly from the Loire, but also in increasingly convincing form from South Africa, Argentina, coastal Tuscany, Hungary, California and Australia, is perhaps the most spring-like red, and certainly the red wine style I drink more of than any other at this time of year. But lighter reds such as the berry-bounty of beaujolais and mencía from Ribeira Sacra in Galicia, northern Spain, the earthy red berries of new-wave cinsault from southern Chile and South Africa, and the black-pepper-sprinkled blackberries and cherries of Austrian zweigelt will all have their chance to catch the mood.
Six wines to put you in the mood for spring
Tesco Finest Viñas del Rey Albariño Rías Baixas, Spain 2023
(£12.99, Tesco)
A streak of chamomile (flower and grass) brings the spring allusions, combining with a tickle of citrus and some fuller, succulent peachy fruit. Add Rías Baixas’s salty, sea-spray hallmark for a wine that is full of energy and refreshment.
Dr Loosen Ürziger Würzgarten Kabinett Mosel, Germany 2022
(£16.25, Waitrose)
The depth and vivacity of the ripe peach, melon and lime belies this classic Mosel kabinett riesling’s 8% alcohol, which comes with a slight hit of sweetness. But it’s the lively, dancing feel of the acidity that gives this white its joys-of-spring vibe.
Greywacke Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough, New Zealand 2024
(from £20.45, ndjohn.co.uk; nywines.co.uk; haywines.co.uk)
Made by Kevin Judd, the founder of the original cult Marlborough sauvignon blanc, Cloudy Bay. This is a gorgeously fleshy, spring-heeled expression of this most exuberant of dry white wine styles, filled with elderflower, blackcurrant leaf and passion fruit.
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Domaine de la Noblaie Chinon Le Temps des Cérises Chinon, France 2023
(from £12.95, thewine society.com; hhandc.co.uk)
A late-spring wine with flavours, as its name suggests, of the first harvest of juicy but slightly crunchy cherries, as well as blackcurrants and a certain leafy-sappy freshness. An absolutely ideal Loire cabernet franc for drinking slightly chilled.
Domaine Jean-Louis Tissot Poulsard Jura, France 2023
(£17.50, yapp.co.uk)
The Jura in eastern France may be best known for its savoury, comté-matching white wines, but its reds from the local variety poulsard can be just as distinctively delicious, with, in this case, a wonderful beetroot and cherry-fruit quality and supple tannin and a pulse of seasonal energy.
Triangle Wines Sanha Tinto Bairrada, Portugal 2021
(£20, gnarlyvines.co.uk; cavebristol.co.uk)
Made from the baga grape variety in the central Portuguese region of Bairrada by the great Douro Valley-based winemaker Dirk Niepoort, this is a delightful lighter style red with just enough tannic nip for Easter lamb.
