Domaine de L’Ausseil Le P’tit Piaf, Côtes du Roussillon, France 2015 (£13, Borough Wines) On the face of it, it’s rather strange that “drinkability” has become one of the wine world’s favoured superlatives. After all, being drinkable – as opposed to being poisonous or merely disgusting – ought to be the bare minimum requirement for any bottle, not some special achievement. And yet, the word keeps cropping up: on wine lists, on back-labels, in conversations with sommeliers and winemakers. The cap doesn’t always fit, but its use isn’t a vinous affectation. It’s a useful way of separating out those fleet-footed wines – particularly red wines – that have you reaching for another glass from those heavyweights that pall after a couple of sips. Wines such as this natural southern French merlot that, with its frictionless fluency and lightness of touch, really does have what the French might call “extrême buvabilité”.
Pittnauer Pitti, Burgenland, Austria 2015 (£11.50, Oddbins) Another French wine phrase that amounts to pretty much the same thing as drinkability and which has come into wider circulation in the past few years is “vin de soif”. These are not wines intended for ageing, contemplation and discussion – they’re not what the French call “vins de garde”. They have the more basic, but no less worthy intention of slaking the thirst. Generally these will be young red wines, relatively light in body but not necessarily in colour, with a sappy or crunchy character, and the acidity of just-ripe cherries or berries. A wine, in fact, like the herby, spicy Pitti, which, as with all vins de soif, works best when cool (if not really cold) and served with charcuterie, pâté and olives.
Jean-Claude Lapalu Brouilly Vieilles Vignes, Beaujolais, France 2015 (from £20.95, nywines.co.uk; smilinggrape.com; hedonism.co.uk) One of the most reliable sources of thirst-quenching reds of “Oops! The bottle’s finished” drinkability is Beaujolais, which also has the distinction of being one of the world’s best-value wine regions. That’s particularly true in an excellent vintage such as 2015, which yielded such exuberant easy-drinkers as the vivid, succulent Marks & Spencer Beaujolais 2015 (£8.50) and the red-berried prettiness of Aldi The Exquisite Collection Fleurie 2015 (£6.99). Jean-Claude Lapalu Brouilly, meanwhile, blurs the boundaries between vin de soif and vin de garde: it has all the freshness and joie-de-vivre of the former, but a concentration and purity of red fruit and a lacy complexity that demands close attention.
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