Stockist/Retailer: Sandhams

(2025) Gloria is an estate established only in the 1950s, long after the famous 1855 classification of the Médoc, but over the years it has been consistently rated as equivalent to many of the Crus Classé wines. In 2019 the blend is 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot, with Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot from a ripe vintage where this wine weighs in with 14% alcohol. That sumptuous nature is immediately evident, the black fruit deep and glossy, but plenty of cedar and graphite precision and a sense of mineral freshness too. In the mouth it is medium-bodied and again rich, the weight of fruit on the mid-palate flows into tannins that are just softening from chewy density, the acid and tingle of cigar box spices into the finish. Drink this now after decanting or cellar for a decade surely and note that by the six-bottle case suppliers including Mann Fine Wine will bring this in at under £35 a bottle equivalent. Watch the video for more information.

(2025) What a lovely, juicy and fragrant wine. The nose offers a basket full of ripe cherries, spring flowers and red liquorice, buoyant and swirling in the glass. On the palate spices join those juicy red fruits, a background of gravelly tannin and pert acidity. Most enjoyable and well priced for a wine of this style and quality. Other stockists have it for around £12 per bottle. Watch the video for more information.

(2023) Has quite a leesy and flinty initial character. That is nicely underpinned by that figgy ripeness and nectarine juiciness, creamy and yet sharp. There's roundness and texture in the mouth, hints of exotic fruit, but the clarity of the acid wins through. Relatively low acid and slightly higher pH here, but a generous and effortlessly enjoyable wine at eight years of age. Bottled November 2017. pH 3.20 and acidity 6.0g/l. At time of writing only magnums showing for sale, but 75cl bottle price equivalent is given.

(2021) Really nicely done this Marlborough Sauvignon, brightly packed with tropical fruits, enough elderflower and a wisp of cracked stone smokiness to add interest. In the mouth it has ripe, juicy and sweet nectarine, then a more direct and pithy grapefruit and lemon acid character picks up on the finish. Very tasty and stylish.

(2018) From vineyards at 485 metres in the Banksdale Vineyard, King Valley, Victoria, this Chardonnay at 12.5% alcohol will have been picked quite early and handled reductively (without exposure to oxygen) to give a lightly flinty character in the modern New World Chardonnay idiom. The nose has a little whiff of cheesiness that's not altogether unwelcome, as the lime and red apple fruit is good. In the mouth it is maybe just a trifle less sharply focused that one might hope, and perhaps lacking a dimension of complexity, but having said that it is nicely weighted between creaminess and citrus freshness, and is well balanced into quite a long finish.

(2017) As it says on the label, a wine made by the 'methode traditionelle', from the three Champagne grapes. It has a lively, foamy mousse and aromas that show plenty of citrus and a touch of yeasty autolysis, quite Champagne like indeed. On the palate it seems rather sweet. I am not sure whether it's maximum dosage for Brut that's doing it, or just the fruit quality, but it does tend to make the wine feel slightly simple, which with its very good acidity and touch of biscuity character it is not.

(2016) Made from 100% Garnacha (Grenache), this has a fashionably pale peachy/salmon colour and pretty nose with dry red fruits, some floral notes and a cool watermelon character. Bone dry, it has more tight reducurranty fruit and a bit of texture, in a savoury, food friendly dry style.