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Saturday 21 March 2020

Top Selection Portfolio Tasting

A portfolio tasting of Top Selection's wines

Top Selection is not a great name for a wine merchant; it has something of a budget supermarket's premium own brand about it. Which is a pity because the wines themselves are superb.

From traditional classics, to emerging regions and some really off-piste wines, if you are prepared to start buying in low double-digits and move up from there, there is a huge breadth to explore.

I liked every wine I tried and scored all of them at least a Good, so here are my highlights:

- more Hungarian dry Furmint, especially Szepsy, and Heimann's red Kekfrankos

- Styrian Sauvignon from Tement; it is lovely to see these wines back in the UK, steely, precise and mineral, they are some of my favourite Sauvignons

- elegant Swiss wines; they're not cheap, they're not good value but they are unique, pure and sometimes so silent that it takes time to hear them

- Nathan Kendall New York whites; fresh and distinctive

- Anton Bauer Austrian Gruener, a long-time favourite, plus his Blaufraenkisch and superb sweet wines from Burgenland's Kracher

- Moroccan wines from Meknes; a first for me

- aged Italian wines are really quite amazing; Campaperi, Ca' la Bionda, Terenzi

- really outstanding Cahors wines from Lagrezette; at £80 the Paragon is pricy but still exceptional value for the quality

- Yves Cuilleron Condrieu; not cheap but lovely

- 100yo solera sherries from Bodegas Yuste

- Canadian aged ice cider is a thing; Leduc -Piedemonte 2011

- Frederiksdal Kirsebaervin's Danish cherry wine; complex and savoury from long fermentations

- German Riesling beer; a "personal project" blend of 1/3rd Riesling with 2/3rds beer to give fruit-pickers something refreshing after a long day in the vineyard

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