Here’s a deliciously easy-to-drink California Pinot to celebrate the fact that this week the Oscar-tipped movie Sideways is released in the UK. As those of us who have already seen it know, Alexander Payne’s new film is basically a two-hour love letter to Pinot Noir from California and more specifically from the Central Coast. (There is a poignant aside in the hero’s first potential love scene when, instead of kissing the improbably gorgeous Virginia Madsen after they discuss their shared passion for Pinot, he volunteers, “I like Riesling too”. But then we fellow Pinotphiles would expect nothing less.)
Avila (www.avilawine.com) is effectively the second label of Laetitia, the Arroyo Grande producer initiated by Deutz champagne but now owned by Selim Zilkha, the Belair-based energy billionaire who, among many other business ventures, founded Britain's Mothercare chain (though sold it long since). He reportedly left it to be run by someone who managed to sell only a modest fraction of production. Hence the availability of some seriously underpriced wine. This is a wine made from estate-grown grapes that is full of charming, fragrant, relatively simple fruit and is quite ready to drink.
I tasted this wine over three nights and it showed no lack of freshness or depth the second and third nights, unusual in a Pinot. It's the sort of red wine you could, though probably should not, drink without food. The alcohol is not punishing. In fact, if you could clasp a glass while watching Sideways, you might just have a recipe for a wine lover’s perfect evening.
As you read this I shall be on my way to my very first trip to Central Otago in New Zealand, an exciting new frontier for Pinot Noir, and will of course be reporting on what I find. Meanwhile, it’s a pleasure to be able to recommend a wine that is widely available in the US at $9.99 – and, perhaps inevitably, £9.99 from Oddbins in the UK. But to be honest, I don’t feel that even at £9.99 it is absurdly overpriced.
As purple pagers will see from my hundreds of tasting notes on 2003 burgundies this weekend, you have to work hard to find this much pleasure from Burgundy at under a tenner a bottle.