Muristek
Whether it’s a classic pink fizz or a more seductive red wine, choose a lovely bottle to add some romance to your special celebration
Nyetimber Rosé, Sussex, England NV (£31.49, Waitrose) Drinking pink champagne on Valentine’s Day is, I realise, hardly the most spontaneous or original act of love. It is the drink the Valentine’s industry tells us we can’t do without – a vehicle for the wine business to prey on our insecurities and carve out a piece of that lucrative territory held by florists and greetings card companies. Well, cynicism be damned: of all the daft fabricated traditions on this daftest and most commercialised of festive occasions, pink champagne is the one I’m happiest to indulge. This is a style that has improved beyond measure in the past 20 years. Winemakers have been treating it much more seriously than they used to, and making a lot more of it, too (today rosé accounts for 10% of all champagne production; it was a mere 2% in 2000). Something similar has happened on this side of the channel, too: English fizz makers are mastering wines with the sensual pink tint and, in Nyetimber’s impeccable case, gorgeous tumbling red fruit flavours.
Domaine Julien Sunier Wild Soul Beaujolais Villages 2020 (bbr.com; robersonwine.com) Other seductive pink sparkling wines to charm your beloved tomorrow include the pillow-soft, aromatic, mellifluous (and mellifluously named) Fuchs & Hase Pet Nat Rosé from Austria (£20.40, peckhamcellars.co.uk); the punchy herby cherry-berry Co-op Cava Rosado Brut NV (£6.95, The Co-op) and the plump, satin-textured and tropically fruit-fragrant Ruinart Rosé Champagne NV (£69, jeroboams.co.uk). Do red sparkling wines count? Few would fail to be won over by the easy natural charm of Casa Belfi Rosso Bio Frizzante, which comes from Prosecco country, is made in the traditional way where the wine re-ferments in the bottle, and which has a gentle supple food-friendly cherry crunch and bite. For those looking for a Valentine’s without bubbles, in France the Valentine’s industry would push you towards a bottle from a particular village in Beaujolais: St-Amour. Domaine Billards 2019 (£15.99) is a bright, berry-filled delight. But, while it may not have the loving name on the label, Domaine Julien Sunier’s Beaujolais-Villages bottling has a real silky, slinky allure.
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