Saumur Champigny 2019, Château de Villeneuve, France

Loire Cabernet Franc at its finest - crunchy, pure juice, nice served lightly chilled

Ah, the Loire Valley with its fairytale Medieval castles made out of local tuffeau limestone. We can only dream of these at the moment - but we can all open this lovely bottle of red from the region, close our eyes and pretend we are in a lovely little bistro in Saumur.

The wine is made from Cabernet Franc - whose calling card is a distinctive smokiness and herbal note (brilliant for blind tasting FYI), but wines from the Saumur Champigny region seem to balance this with lots of silky red fruit. Perhaps the plush fruit flavours are due to the vine roots working hard to penetrate that famous limestone in the vineyards.

This is lovely slightly chilled and is great with lots of summery food - poached salmon, cold cuts, roasted veg salads. It’s also great with game birds and roast duck.