Vermentino shines a little sunshine into dark skies

Domaine Les Yeuses Vermentino, France 2024, IGP Pays d’Oc, France 2024 (£11.39, Cambridge Wine; Lea & Sandeman)

I’ve got a real soft spot for vermentino, a white grape variety that is perfectly adapted to the sun and sea breezes of sites along the Mediterranean across the south of France (where it’s often known by the decidedly less glamorous name of rolle) and round the corner in Liguria (pigato) into Tuscany and on the islands of Sardinia and Corsica. It’s a variety that winegrowers appreciate all the more these days for its ability to maintain enough acidity and freshness to make white wines of nip, zip and verve even in the increasingly blistering heat of a Mediterranean summer. Many of those wines are at their best in those very same conditions – refreshing, ctirussy and gently floral unoaked wines begging to be drunk with grilled fish on a summer terrace. At this time of the year, however, a cool glass of a wine such as Domaine les Yeuses’ vermentino has the effect of bringing a shaft of southern sun to darkening northern skies.

Château La Tour de l’Evêque Blanc, Côtes de Provence, France 2024 (£21.25, Corney & Barrow )

In Provence, rolle/vermentino plays a small but important role in bringing lift and life into many of the best examples of the region’s ubiquitous pink wines. The soft, watercolour-shaded rosés of Whispering Angel et al might have anything up to 20% of the white grape alongside the gently pressed red varieties such as grenache, cinsault and syrah, and even the 6% dose in M&S Classic Côtes de Provence Rosé 2024 (£10) contributes to the wine’s effortless drinkability. But Provençal rolle is certainly worthy of more than this supporting role. At Château La Tour de l’Evêque – which is described, alluringly, by London merchant Corney & Barrow as a “beautiful property deep in Provence, surrounded by forest and garrigue” – it’s used to make a dry white wine of immense charm and elegance. Aged in concrete eggs, the currently fashionable alternative to oak barrels, it’s a snapshot of perfectly ripe apricot, honeysuckle and soft, yet insistent acidity.

Domaine Terra di i Nostri, Île de Beauté, France 2022 (£10.75, Booths)

Any exploration of vermentino will inevitably lead you to Italy, and the Tuscan and Sardinian producers that are responsible for some of the variety’s very finest expressions, and some of the country’s very best white wines. From Bolgheri on the Tuscan coast, a region best known for making swanky Mediterranean takes on the Bordeaux red blend based on cabernet sauvignon, merlot and other French varieties, Grattamaco Organic Vermentino 2022 (£48, or £42 as part of a mixed case of six bottles, majestic.co.uk), is a flat-out gorgeous expression of Mediterranean hillside herbiness, perfectly ripe nectarine and lime and grapefruit-inflected fresh fluency, while Sardinia’s Is Argiolas Vermentino 2023 (£27, hedonism.co.uk) has a zesty, pithy, and subtly salty raciness to go with its fleshier stone fruit. Finally, a wine from Corsica, where the wine scene has both Italian and French influences, and bottles such as the graceful, gently fennel-scented, white peachy “vermentinu” from Domaine Terra i Nostri.