You never know whether it’s going to rain or shine in the UK, so here are my favourite tipples for an unpredictable summer
Victoria Moore
Traditionally I’d turn up here with a big smile and bottle recommendations for the sort of summer I’d like us all to be having. Long, warm evenings in a garden, maybe with a bottle of chilled Chablis or a grassy sauvignon blanc. Rosé in the sun. Fizz with friends while we watch incredible Olympic feats. A fantasy, in other words. Instead, here are a few bottles for some more likely summer situations.
Sheltering under a golf umbrella in torrential rain eating fish and chips from the paper and drinking wine from a plastic cup: A brisk sparkling wine with a citrussy edge is great with salt and crunchy batter and will cheer everyone up. Either go for your local English sparkling (if you’ve got one) or Montaudon Champagne Brut NV France (£14.99, Lidl). Some wine experts I know have been pouring this and telling their friends it’s Moët and no one has called them out on it yet.
Love to be on the Sancerre but have you seen how much it costs? I know. If you like the grassy style of sauvignon blanc from the Loire then try Domaine du Courtillet Touraine Sauvignon Blanc 2023 France (£10, Morrisons), a properly good white wine with a frisson of citrus.
It’s grey and chilly but having pink wine in the glass somehow helps: In these circumstances I go for a darker shade of rosé. Señorio de Sarría Rosado 2023 Navarra, Spain (£7.95, The Wine Society) is lovely: bone-dry but with a deep flavour of raspberries, which feels comforting as well as refreshing.
Drought conditions, garden is brown, everywhere is too hot: Stick your feet in a bucket of cold water (or paddling pool) and pour a glass of something cold, unchallenging, slightly effervescent and a little bit sweet and open a bag of crisps. Vinho verde would be a good call. Or Taste the Difference Pignoletto Brut NV Italy (£8, Sainsbury’s) wh
