Chapel Down Flint Dry 2009 is a great example of a well-made, well-priced English wine that easily outperforms most Sancerre and Chablis in a similar price range.
It’s made from a combination of grapes grown around Southern England, including the wonderfully aromatic Bacchus grape. Here, the Bacchus is kept in check to produce a steely wine that smells of pears, elderflower blossom and stones and tastes of grapefruit, with hints of elderflower coming through. And, as the name suggests, lots of flint. It is high in acid so, while it would make a refreshing aperitif on a hot day, I think it works better with light-tasting food e.g. seafood, fish, poached chicken. We drank some with linguine served with a prawn, tomato, rocket and cream sauce – the acid matching the tomatoes and cutting through the cream. It retails for under £8 and Waitrose is one of the stockists.