Regular readers will be aware that I love to learn about different types of grape, an amateur ampelographer. One of the most precious books I own was given to me by Jeff Coutelou, Pierre Galet’s ‘Dictionnaire des cépages’ full of detail about every wine grape known. One of the things I have loved about spending time with Jeff is that shared interest in grapes and his willingness to plant grapes old and new to the Languedoc. Visiting Domaine Vassal, a repository of all French grapes, planting Piquepoul Noir and Gris, Riveryrenc and others in March 2015 was one of the highlights of the three years I was there full time. Last autumn we planted Mauzac and Fer Servadou in his new vineyard at St. Chinian, he has also planted one of my favourite white grapes Xarel-lo amongst dozens of others.

Therefore, I have been delighted to see some of the UK supermarkets seek out wines from grapes not usually found on their shelves. Marks & Spencer has been one of those supermarkets with their range of wines called ‘Found’. Commercial wines are mostly not organic or natural in any way but I bought a few to try.

Some countries have lots of grapes not familiar to most, Portugal and Greece for example. I have written about Portugal a fair amount with the publication of Foot Trodden so I concentrated on Greece. Two bottles came from the latter. Moschofilero and Roditis made up the first wine, both white grapes, though the latter has a pink skin. Moschofilero is very aromatic and the first sensation on trying this wine was of the aroma of spice and flowers, rather like an Alsace Gewurztraminer. The wine was dry and fairly flavourful without exciting. The other wine from Greece was from Xinomavro and Mandilaria grapes. The former is fairly well known, the latter is often used to add depth of colour. This was, indeed, a very dark red/purple colour and quite tannic with full flavours of plums and other black fruits, certainly a food wine.

Two Italian wines next. The first came from Sicily and the Nerello Cappuccio grape which I have had in blends before but not as a single variety wine. I liked this, a medium colour with attractive red fruit aromas and flavours, balanced with some sweet fruit in the mouth. I would try this again. The Ribolla Gialla comes from the Venice region of northern Italy, a grape I have enjoyed before often made in a skin contact method in the North East of Italy and Slovenia. This was a more traditional white wine with nice yellow fruit aromas and a tang to the taste.

To South America. Pais is a thin skinned variety, probably descended from Spanish black grapes and it was the most common variety in Chile until the rise of Cabernet Sauvignon there. By coincidence I drank this the night before I attended a wine tasting in Newcastle where more Pais was to be found. To be honest those examples were superior to the one in the Found range which was darker than expected and had a cherry like flavour without much excitement. From Argentina came the example of Cabernet Franc, one of the more classic grapes in this range found in Bordeaux and the Loire for example. I must be frank (sorry) and confess to really struggling with Cabernet Franc, years of under ripe, green wines from the Loire put me off. Nor did I enjoy this wine, it was ripe certainly but it had no real distinguishing profile, just a red wine.

The best of the range which I tasted was the Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc) from Germany. This had a freshness on the nose and in the mouth. Yellow fruits, a touch of aromatics with a cleansing, fruity aftertaste which lingered. I would definitely buy this one again. Pinot Blanc used to be a neutral grape, I remember lots of very average examples from stays in Alsace thirty years ago. Nowadays, climate change and winemaking improvements have led to much fuller and enjoyable wines and this German example certainly falls into that category.

My brother in law, Iain, tried the Mazuelo (known as Carmenere elsewhere) from the Rioja region of Spain and he tells me that it was very good so I will seek that out and can pass on his recommendation with confidence in his judgement. There are also a South African Grenache Blanc, Gros Manseng from SW France, a Blanquette de Limoux and a rosé from Portugal. Most of these would be more familiar to me and on these pages.

Overall, I really like the range in promoting appreciation of a greater variety of grapes and wines. I hope that it succeeds in encouraging vignerons to continue to grow and to plant traditional and unusual varieties and consumers to experiment and deepen their appreciation of wines. I am running a wine tasting soon about this topic and will report back, again based on commercial wines from some different grapes.