The perfect Easter wines for roast lamb, spring drinking and sparkling celebrations
The long Easter weekend has become a sort of mini-Christmas, a time for family and friends to gather round the table and eat and drink together. It is also the start of spring, so the wines I choose for this reflect not just the food we are planning to eat but also the fact that I am hoping we might be able to open the windows or wander outside with a glass in hand (even if I’m wearing a thick jumper and jacket).
If you’re planning your shopping list or ordering in wine I hope you will find this guide useful. It includes red wines that are good with lamb (but not just with lamb, so don’t hold back from trying them if you’re eating something else), sparkling wines and champagnes to pour with friends, half a dozen white wines (ranging from a pithy Italian vernaccia to a lyrical white burgundy) and a handful of reds (from a malbec from Australia that is part of Aldi’s new range to a classic claret).
For me this isn’t – quite – the time for pale rosé but I will be optimistically getting in a few bottles of deep pink wine in case the sun does shine. Contesa Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo 2022, Italy (13.5%, The Wine Society, £8.95) has a fruitiness that feels comforting and hopeful when the sun is shining but the air is still nippy.
A dry, raspberry-coloured rosé, it is made from montepulciano grapes and has a glossy feel with crisp edges and flavours of red cherries and crunchy redcurrants. Cheers!
With lamb (and beyond)
A leg of lamb, pink inside and aromatic with rosemary, thyme and garlic, is gorgeous with fragrant cabernet franc, and with Mediterranean reds from Corsica, Sardinia and southern France. Think languedoc blends, feral bandol, herb-infused grenache, smoky syrah from the Rhône, or fragrant cannonau from Sardinia. Grenache-syrah-mourvèdre blends from Australia and South Africa also work well.
If the lamb is slow-cooked so that the meat is unctuous, falling off the bone, then I pick a mellow rioja, rich ribera del duero or flavour-saturated Aussie grenache. With lamb cooked either way, try the subtle bite of sangiovese from Tuscany, Australia or Corsica (where it’s known as niellucciu), a Greek xinomavro, Lebanese red, Douro red or the classic match of cabernet sauvignon.
I’m assuming that you might push the boat out for the big Easter Sunday roast, so these wines are mostly on the more expensive side. Some of the bottles in the “Useful Reds” section (below) would work well too.
Bosman Generation VIII Cabernet Sauvignon-Malbec 2021, Wellington, South Africa
13.5%, Sainsbury’s, £9
A family estate now in its eighth generation, hence the name of the wine. This is a beautifully juicy blend of about three-quarters cabernet sauvignon with some malbec, which tastes of brambles with spice.
Carius Cairanne Grandes Serre 2019, France
14.5%, Co-op, £10
From the village of Cairanne in the southern Rhône, this wine behaves a bit like a mini Châteauneuf du Pape, opening up like a peony to display layers of white tones and soft red fruit with subtle floral notes. A great buy.
D’Arenberg The Footbolt Shiraz 2019, McLaren Vale, Australia
14.5%, Tesco, £12 or £10 for Clubcard holders until April 10
In business for more than a century, initially as grape growers, the Osborn family makes excellent wine, including this plush shiraz, spicy after being aged in new and old French oak.
Thymiopoulos Xinomavro Jeunes Vignes 2021, Greece
13%, The Wine Society, £12.50
Xinomavro is very fashionable right now and Thymiopoulos does a few excellent versions, of which this is one. Think pinot noir crossed with nebbiolo for structure and strawberries and tomatoes for flavour.
Domaine Torraccia Rouge 2017, Corsica, France
13%, Yapp.co.uk, £18.25
Of the great many wines I tried to accompany leg of lamb, this was one of the fastest empty bottles. A blend of niellucciu (aka sangiovese), sciaccarellu, grenache and syrah, it melds berry flavours with earthy tones, the smell of dried thyme and a refreshing edge.
Domaine des Lises Crozes-Hermitage 2020, France
13%, Yapp.co.uk, £27.95
Made by Maxime Graillot, son of the late, great winemaker Alain, this is in a lusher and earlier-drinking style than a classic Crozes Hermitage, but retains syrah’s dark and savoury mystique, with an edge of farmyard funk. Delicious.
Useful reds
If you’re looking for a house red to see you through the next few weeks of barbecues and bank holidays, or a bottle to open with Sunday lunches and Saturday dinners, I hope you might find something here.
The two clarets and the rioja in this section are also excellent (cheaper) lamb matches, and if you’re a fan of the Bordeaux blend then do also check out Château Bel Air Bergerac Rouge 2020, France (14.5%, Majestic, £8.99 or £7.99 in a mixed six) which comes from the Bergerac region, close to Bordeaux, on the river Dordogne, and is an excellent hunting ground for wines that sometimes have a touch more rusticity than a bordeaux. I particularly like the sense of crunchy fresh fruit in this one.
All the wines on this list would also go extremely well with beef, while the Cono Sur pinot noir can also take a bit of spice and is a great match for spicy sweet potatoes.
Cono Sur Bicicleta Pinot Noir 2021, Chile
13.5%, Morrisons, £5.99; Tesco, £6; Asda, £7
Cono Sur does pinot noir remarkably well. For those who enjoy light-bodied reds, perhaps drunk a bit chilled, this tastes of rosehips and smoky cherries. Good with barbecued chicken wings and thyme-roasted new potatoes.
Château Gillet 2020, Bordeaux, France
13.5%, M&S, £7.50
Bordeaux didn’t used to be a place for cheap reds but this, from the Entre Deux Mers, shows how competitive the region has become. Smooth and unoaked, and roundly ripe, it is based on merlot with a chunk of cassis-scented cabernet sauvignon and fragrant cabernet franc.
Finest Viña del Cura Rioja Reserva 2017, Spain
14.5%, Tesco, £9
Made for Tesco by Baron de Ley, this is a lovely mellow rioja, aged in 100 per cent American oak, with flavours of strawberry pie, vanilla and spice. It will make a good partner for lamb, or for a chickpea, paprika and tomato casserole.
Grignan-les-Adhémar, Delas 2020
14%, The Wine Society, £9.50
Catch these lovely 2020 Rhône wines while you can. This is a lovely blend of grenache and syrah, ripe but also structured, which looks very smart too in its embossed glass bottle.
Specially Selected Kooliburra Malbec 2021, South Australia
14.5%, Aldi, £9.79
This limited-edition malbec was new into Aldi this week, and it’s lovely: rich and sturdy with a whisper of cloves and chocolate, and somehow reeking of both Australia and malbec. Cracking out the BBQ? Crack open this.
Château La Petite Roque Mémoire 2019, Blaye, Côtes de Bordeaux, France
13%, Grape + Grind in Bristol, £11.99; Shaftesbury Wines, £12
A remarkably good claret for the price, this right bank blend of 70% merlot and 30% cabernet sauvignon is impressive for its juicy concentration. It would also work well with beef.
Spring whites
Fling open the windows and grab a bottle of white wine from the fridge – spring is here.
The cheapest of this collection – La Vieille Ferme – will be familiar to regular readers, but I always think it’s worth flagging when a wine this good is on promotion. The white is my favourite of the Southern Rhône-based Famille Perrin’s portfolio, but all are good value, so the others are worth looking out for too.
I have two more excellent whites to flag. One is the Filos Estate Chardonnay Single Vineyard 2022, Florina, Greece (13%, Aldi, £8.99), which is new to Aldi. I loved this white, but it’s really not a very typical chardonnay, it is vibrantly zesty and smells like just-snapped parings of grapefruit and lemon peel, with a firm mineral note. It is incredibly refreshing and I would give it to fans of assyrtiko or gavi.
The other is a brilliant English still white: The Society’s English White 2022 (11.5%, The Wine Society, £9.95), which smells like sunny Cornish hedgerows.
La Vieille Ferme White 2022, France
13%, Sainsbury’s, £6.50 down from £7.50 until April 11; Tesco, £7.75 or £6.50 Clubcard price
The new vintage of this hidden gem is a beauty: a blend of bourboulenc, grenache blanc, ugni blanc and vermentino, it has a little weight and texture (think faint clouds of almond blossom and apricot) with a gentle grassy freshness.
Taste the Difference Vernaccia di San Gimignano 2021, Italy
12.5%, Sainsbury’s, £7 down from £8 until April 11
If you are after a bracing white that tastes crisp, slightly astringent and citrussy, then this Tuscan white does an excellent job. Think atomised lemon pith with notes of chalk and white grapefruit oil. Good with food.
Paul Mas Reserve Viognier 2021, France
13%, Tesco, £10
The elegant blossomy scent of this viognier, like distant jasmine and honeysuckle in the cool of the morning, feels like a good way to welcome spring. The floral notes are underscored with a kind of crunchy white peach and faint spice. Lovely with a spring vegetable risotto.
Rustenberg Chardonnay 2022, Stellenbosch, South Africa
13%, Waitrose, £10.99 down from £14.99 until April 11
Chardonnay has got very expensive, but this example from the Cape is superbly good value. It is barrel-fermented, using wild yeast, and tastes slightly nutty, like a good montagny, with warm hints of orange oil and a fresh lemony finish.
Francis Jourdain Chèvrefeuille Valençay 2021, France
12.5%, Banstead Vintners, £12.99; Shaftesbury Wines, £14
A lyrical white from Valençay, an appellation in the Loire about 60 miles to the west of Sancerre, this is mostly sauvignon blanc, from which you get a grassy freshness, while 20% chardonnay gently rounds out the wine.
Domaine Guillemot-Michel Quintaine Viré-Clessé 2021, Burgundy, France
13.5%, The Wine Society, £24
This unoaked white burgundy from a cool vintage was one of the stars of a recent Wine Society press tasting. It comes from a very small biodynamic estate in southern Burgundy and feels almost like it is dancing through your mouth. A real treat.
Sparkling
Now that the evenings are light and the daffodils and forsythia are blazing yellow, it is tempting to open a bottle of sparkling wine to welcome in the spring, so here is a selection, ranging from inexpensive bubbles to a gorgeous rosé champagne and an English sparkling wine.
Telegraph readers need no encouragement to support English sparkling wine producers. I’ve listed Nyetimber here because the price is particularly keen but Waitrose also has an offer on the wonderfully upbeat, berry-scented Camel Valley Pinot Noir Rosé Brut 2019, England (12.5%, Waitrose, £31.99 down from £35.99 to April 11) and there are many more worth trying – if you live close to a vineyard and have yet to taste its wine then perhaps now is the moment.
One more cheaper wine I couldn’t fit in here: Graham Beck Pinot Noir Chardonnay Brut NV, South Africa (12%, Waitrose, £11.99 down from £15.99 until April 11) is an excellent, biscuity drink.
M&S Found Blanquette de Limoux NV, France
12.5%, M&S, £8 down from £10 until April 10
Gleaming, fresh and briskly frothy, this sparkling wine from the Pyrenees is made from the mauzac grape. It tastes of tart cooking apples and lemon curd and makes a lively aperitif as well as being good with cheesy biscuits.
The Society’s Saumur Brut NV, France
12.5%, The Wine Society, £10.95
I’m always pleased when I find I have a forgotten bottle of this Loire sparkler knocking around. Made from chenin blanc by Gratien & Meyer, it has a subtle biscuity note, a hint of honeysuckle and a refreshing edge.
Mirabeau La Folie Sparkling Rosé NV, France
11.5%, Waitrose, £10.99 down from £14.99 until April 11; Tesco, £14
From Provence specialists Jeany and Stephen Cronk, this is a wispily pale sparkling wine with very light flavours, perfect for casual drinking with a bunch of friends.
Les Pionniers Champagne Brut NV, France
12%, Co-op, £20.50
An incredibly classy champagne with a sappy, slightly toasty black-cherry flavour, this is made from 51% pinot noir, 31% pinot meunier and 18% chardonnay. This is right at the top of the supermarket own-label tree.
Nyetimber Classic Cuvée NV, England
12%, Waitrose, £28.99 down from £38.99 until April 11
Most (though not all) English wine drinkers know Nyetimber, whose Classic Cuvée never disappoints, with its confident notes of brioche and lemon posset. So it’s worth knowing when it’s on offer.
Champagne Ayala Rosé Brut Majeur NV, France
12%, GrapeSmith in Hungerford, £44; Tanners of Shrewsbury, £38; Jeroboams, £43.95
Bollinger’s sister house Ayala makes beautiful champagne. Its seductive rosé is unapologetically pink, brimming with red berry scent, and comes in a slender-necked bottle.
