Beyond the very sheer wines of high summer, these whites will ease you gently into autumn
Victoria Moore
On thickly warm September days I often get messages from friends asking me to suggest wines that will help to make the evening feel like a joyful extension of summer. They’re done with the water-pale rosés that taste-tracked the holiday season and they’ve usually maxed-out on that assyrtiko, which tastes like blue seas when you have a lemony fish kebab and Greek salad on a plate in front of you. (It’s the Athlon Assyrtiko 2022, £6.99, Aldi, if you haven’t tried it and want to have a go.)
If you want to be reminded of Greek holidays, try Chosen by Majestic Greek White 2022 Peloponnese, Greece (£8.99 mix six/£9.99 single bottle, Majestic), which is based on malagousia, a grape that has subtle notes of jasmine and green mango, with roditis and assyrtiko, which bring a lemon oil freshness.
Other good options include Mediterranean whites made from vermentino (its Italian name; the grape is known as rolle in Provence and the Languedoc), which have a subtle aromatic shimmer, like the smell of warm air over long grass and wild flowers in a hay meadow. A good one is Miraval Studio Blanc 2022 IGP Mediterranée, France (£13, Co-op). Viognier is also a good Indian summer grape. At its most rich, peachy and honeysuckle-laden, in the French wine Condrieu, viognier can taste, as the American writer Jay McInerney once memorably put it, “like stepping inside a painting by the Tahitian-period Gauguin”. You can find similarly heady levels of richness in the oak-aged viognier made by the Australian producer Yalumba, but these, like Condrieu, come at a price. The fresher incarnations of viognier are both easier on the bank balance and to pour as an aperitif. I like Vignerons Ardechois Classiques Viognier 2022 Coteaux d’Ardèche, France (£9.99, Waitrose & Partners), which has a subtle perfume, like white peaches and sweet peas, as well as a cleansing citrussy crispness.
For a white that smells a little more like the
