Gorka Izagirre Txakoli, Spain 2018 (£12.75, All About Wine, Cheers Wine Merchants, Kwoff, Highbury Vintners) Is sour the defining flavour of our times? It’s certainly the title and subject of the award-winning tome by Mark Diacono. The cookbook, published last year, has brought an element of vitality to my kitchen, holding my hand through my first batches of kimchi and sourdough bread. Perceptions towards sourness in wine have changed enormously. Where once it would have been a term of abuse, it’s now at least occasionally accepted as praise. It’s a matter of moderation. I enjoy the wincing sensation of the sour in wine, provided it doesn’t take over completely (I’m not in the market for vinegar) and it’s balanced by other elements, such as the crisp apple, grapefruit and salty minerals in Gorka Izagirre’s otherwise bracing Basque dry white.
Simpsons Chalklands Classic Cuvée, Kent, England 2016 (£22.95, Roberson Wine) Gorka Izagirre’s is a refined version of one of those styles that only makes sense in context. There are some very sour examples of Txacoli which are perfectly fine when drunk with seafood in the Basque country. Another place with a reputation for sour is the UK. In lesser vintages, when the growing season has been too cold and wet to ripen the grapes, English whites can feel like sucking an unripe gooseberry. Even the best English wines have a slight touch of the tinglingly acidic. But, again, that only becomes attractive when it’s just one element of many, as it is in the increasingly excellent range of sparkling wines. In one of my current favourites that tangy twang provides an energising note in among the subtle baker’s shop and ripe apple of Simpsons’s Kentish fizz.
Burlotto Dolcetto d’Alba, Italy 2018 (£16.95, Lea & Sandeman) The absolute masters of sour in red wine are the Italians. There’s an understanding that sourness can act as both a mouth-freshening agent and as a kind of base-layer around which all the other elements in the wine can circulate. So many Italian red wines have this element of the sour-tang, which may be reminiscent of the smarting of plum skins or the tartness of just-ripe cherries. The sour is a big part of the appeal in the Piedmont variety barbera, for example, both in a cheerfully rustic example, such as the Co-op Irresistible Barbera d’Asti 2016 (£7.50, the Co-op), and as a background hum in Andrea Oberto’s glorious Barbera d’Alba 2017 (£17.50, Lea & Sandeman), while the sweet-sourness of black cherries is part of the appeal in a gorgeous, supple and vibrantly juicy dolcetto from Burlotto.
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