Steven Spurrier’s fine wine world

Decanter's long-standing consultant editor picks fine wines for drinking now, and recommends others to lay down...

From the cellar

Scroll down to see the Spurrier selection

Rivesaltes Vdn from L’Archivist

The Rivesaltes Vin Doux Naturel wines were immensely popular until the 1950s, but they dropped out of fashion completely, leaving some historic producers with fine wines still in barrel but with no takers.

Since 1999, Philippe Gayral, L’Archiviste, has been scouring cellars across the Midi, creating an unrivalled, carbon-dated collection of vintage wines.

In June, his UK importer, Farr Vintners, held a tasting of 23 vintages from 1988 back to 1930 from the 65 different bottlings it has in stock.From this extraordinary range, I bought two bottles each of six wines:Riveyrac, Cuvée des Aigles 1975 (£30), red amber colour, red fruits and wild roses nose, beautiful expression, sweet yet dry (93pts)

Riveyrac, Cuvée des Aigles 1965 (£40), 40% white grapes, aged tawny, orange peel, terrific energy and grip, superb (95)

Marquis de Boaca 1955 (£40), amber brown, green rim, orange peel and molasses, vigorous Malmsey style (95)

Domaine La Sobilane 1952 (£45), 40-year-old tawny style, spirited and lifted, almost dry (94)

Prieuré du Monastir del Camp 1949 (£40), superb vigorous red, spicy, exceptional length (96)

Château Sisqueille 1941 (£55), burnt amber, wild roses, wonderful richness, smooth finish (95).

Prices are per bottle in bond.

For the cellar

Delas northern Rhônes

Founded in 1835, Delas is the most discreet of the northern Rhône’s ‘big four’ headed by Chapoutier, Guigal and Jaboulet, but this will change next year following the renovation of the original Jaboulet Aîné cellars.

In the meantime, under the direction of Jacques Grange and his brilliant assistant winemaker Claire Darnaud-McKerrow, the Delas wines have few rivals for purity and elegance. A recent cellar tasting of the 2014s, described by John Livingstone-Learmonth as a ‘well-fruited, attractive vintage’, showed all the benefits of new vinification cellars.

Chante Perdrix Cornas 2014 showed typical muscularity and marvellous middle fruit (92pts)

Ste-Epine St-Joseph 2014 was all black fruits with terrific texture and grip (93)

Seigneur de Maugiron Côte-Rôtie 2014 had superb fragrance, lots of depth with wonderful freshness, really lovely (95)

Domaine des Tourettes Hermitage 2014 was perfumed and polished, a seductive Hermitage (94)

Single vineyard Les Bessards Hermitage 2014 showed the pure essence of Syrah from the granite-based soil (97).

All have at least a decade in front of them, Les Bessards far more. The 2015s, ‘full, dense, extremely long and imposing’ (JL-L) are even better. Importers Berkmann.

The Spurrier selection:

Related content:

Credit: Justine Trickett

From the archive: Steven Spurrier – My top 10 Bordeaux wines of all time

Bordeaux wines that stayed in his memory more than any others over his long career...

Regional profile: Châteauneuf-du-Pape

Châteauneuf-du-Pape has new challenges to face in the 21st century. Matt Walls investigates...