Brumont, Gros Manseng, Vin de Pays des Côtes de Gascogne 2008
Brumont
Closure : cork
Abv : 12%
~£9 from e.g. Cork’s of Cotham, Highbury Vintners, Reid Wines, Butler’s Wine Cellar
This is a wine full of uncomplicated joy and flavour. Gros manseng is the grape variety, local to the south west of France, where it’s often made into some delicious sweet wines, but this one is dry. It has bright, exotic, tropical fruits on the nose which follow through on the palate with the addition of perfumed apricots, hints of lychee exotica and sweet allspice. It’s zesty, refreshing and palate-tingling in its immediacy of gratification, and it has a nice bit of length on the finish too. It has more weight than an equivalently priced sauvignon blanc, for example, and is a little softer with the acidity. It’s a bit of a Stuart Broad this wine: it’s young, it’s good-looking, it’s a winning all-rounder.
