Classics California Zinfandel, USA 2020 (£8, Marks & Spencer) A fun fact about California wine for your next quiz night: if the region were a country (as a small and somewhat ambitious independence movement in the state would like it to be), it would be the world’s fourth-largest wine producer after the big three of Italy, France and Spain. It is, therefore, easily the biggest non-European wine “country”, and is on its own responsible for 81% of the US’s total wine production, and a considerably higher proportion of its exports. And yet, for all its scale, I’ve never quite had the feeling its wines are treated with the same respect and affection afforded to the wines of Australia, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand and South Africa – let alone that shown to the big Europeans – on this side of the Pond. Much of the problem is down to the quality and style of the state’s cheaper, sickly sweet and artificial-tasting big-name brands. Indeed, sub-£10 pleasure is very thin on the ground, with M&S’s juicy bramble-jam-and-tea zinfandel a rare exception.
Le P’tit Paysan P’tit Pape, Central Coast, California, USA 2018 (£30.82, nekterwines.com) If the starting point, price-wise, for good California wine is higher than any other wine country, it is at least somewhat lower than it used to be – and the standard of wines once you get to that point is very much comparable with the best of the rest of the world. Tasting a range of about 70 California wines available in the UK’s independent wine merchants recently, I was struck by the quality – and diversity – of California wines in the £20 to £30 bracket. That’s nobody’s idea of cheap, I realise, but then the luminous complexity of Alma de Cattleya Chardonnay, Sonoma County 2019 (£27.95, jeroboams.co.uk); the fragrant ripe red fruits of Varner Foxglove Pinot Noir, Central Coast 2017 (£19.25, bowlandforestvintners.co.uk); the spicy-berry succulence of Qupé Syrah, Central Coast 2018 (£22, thewinesociety.com); and the meaty-peppery savouriness of Le P’tit Paysan P’tit Pape are all at least as good if not better than comparably priced wines made from the same grape varieties in Burgundy or the Rhône Valley.
