Olly Smith —

Ask Olly

Q&A – July 2010—

1. My girlfriend Becca and I are heading down to the Langue D’oc region in the Southwest of France for a couple of weeks in August. I’d love to know what you think of the wines of L’Occitania and wondered if you had a suggestion for a “Right Good Red” and a “Wicked White” that we should checkout while we’re there?

There’s some amazing wine in the Languedoc – robust spicy reds and funky whites, Paul Mas produces sexy kit worth sampling, also worth looking for Laurent Miquel’s wines, Picpoul de Pinet is a crisp zinging white that’s beautiful with bouillibaisse fish soup or a chilled summer sipper and if you’re hungry for wines when you return, have a crack at these two: Château de Caraguilhes Corbières 2007 £7.99 Waitrose for a hefty red or Château de Pennautier Chardonnay ‘Terroirs d’Altitude’ 2008 £8.99 Majestic for a funky white

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2. You have the best job in the world! How on earth did you get into it?

I went to a free tasting at Oddbins in Edinburgh when I was a student, got involved with a bargain white for £3.29 with zing and ping and instantly wanted to share it with all my mates! I worked in Orange & Co Vintners for a while and later entered a reality TV show called Wine Idol which I managed to win. These days the opportunities for blogging, social media, filming and uploading your own comments to the web are fantastic. In theory everybody can broadcast from their front room!

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3. I love wine and really want to drink as much good stuff as I can, but I can’t afford to spend loads. Do you have any tips for hunting down bargain bottles that are still worth drinking?

If you hunt wines that are out of fashion you can get good value such as Muscadet Sur Lie which is crisp and fresh wine from Northern France with superb freshness and magnificent with seafood or as a summer aperitif served chilled. In general Chile still offers good value, especially for reds, Sicily has some interesting local grape varieties and offers good value too – have a crack at Tesco Finest Fiano 2009 (peachy white) for £5.99 and Tesco Finest Nero D’Avola 2008 (summery red) for £6.49.

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4. What are your thoughts on screwtop wines? Is the quality of the wine as good as traditional cork?

I love screwcaps – we’ve no problem with using them on high end spirits such as whisky, vodka and gin – and even olive oil – and they can be used for quality wines as well as good value wines. Cork still has its place and there’s some superbly inventive work going on with new synthetic closures, glass stoppers and all sorts. I think if the wine reaches you in the best nick possible, then that’s the right result, whichever closure works best!

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5. Do real men drink rose? What’s the most masculine rose you could recommend?

Ha ha! Yes, they do, there are rosés of all shapes and sizes and real men have never had a problem in the past sipping, for example, top end rosé Champagne. Rosé is a great place for expanding your wine horizons as it’s an informal style that’s simple to get your head round but comes in very dark fruity styles right through to fizz and very pale rosé from, for example, Provence. For a butch hoofing rosé try a New World fruity one such as Casillero del Diabolo Shiraz Rosé 2009 which is widely available for around £6.99 (try Waitrose and Tesco). I wrote a column about butch rosé for the Mail on Sunday which you can find here