Vino Lauria Radice Terre Siciliane 2023
1) 14420410 | $26.70

What colour! Like a gold ingot, but liquid.

Vito Lauria, a pacesetter in Sicilian organic wines, sends us the latest vintage of Radice, an orange wine made from catarratto grapes; a brief skin maceration helps to produce the pleasant taste.

The flavours go from pear to starfruit by way of scents of apricot, followed by a textured mouth, lined with fresh fruit and spices on a long, saline finish with lovely sour notes.

Delicious with a platter of smoked fish.

Domaine Ledogar Corbières La
Compagnon 2022
2) 14179726 | $28.65

Add to this arrival a red from the Ledogar estate in Corbières, which astounds me with its accessible price knowing that the vines in this wine region are front and centre in the challenges of climate change, with heat spells—often at night— that certainly don’t help in the quest for freshness in a wine.

Whence my surprise when I found, upon tasting, the liveliness of sour cherry and Mirabelle plum, into which slide notes of balsamic olive and peppery blackberry. The tannins of this clever mixture—syrah, carignan and grenache—melt in a tonic body that had me salivating right to the finish.

One sip calls for another.

Clos de Gamot 2022
3) 913418 | $27.00

Also in this delivery, a wine that joins the longstanding wine tradition of the Jouffreau family of Cahors. It’s a story that begins in a house built among the vines in 1450 and in which have developed, year after year and still today, generations of winemaking know-how.

A malbec from the old vines, some of which were replanted in 1885 after a phylloxera epidemic ravaged all the vines of Cahors in 1882.

Deep ruby-red with tastes of ripe wild berries, spiced with notes of pepper and cloves. The mouth is smooth and crisply fruity, which plays with gentle, alcohol- coated tannins.

Elegance that elevates a grilled flank steak.