Summer’s almost over but these supermarket wines are like a holiday in a bottle

Sip these for a final taste of summer (Picture: Getty Images/fStop)

I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to let summer go just yet.

Nope, I’m clinging to sunny season like I’m Jack in Titanic, grappling onto the floating door before meeting an untimely end in the freezing ocean. Sorry for the spoiler, if you haven’t seen the film yet.

While gloomy evenings might be starting to creep in at 5pm and people are pulling knitwear to the front of their wardrobes, autumn doesn’t officially start until September 22 – so there’s still time to enjoy the last dregs of summer.

My trick to holding onto it is to stubbornly fill my glass with all the good wine I was slurping over summer, to recreate my time on holiday.

It requires full commitment in the form of sitting in your garden and sipping wine, even in a howling gale.

Rest assured though, whether you went to Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, France or the USA, I’ve got the wines to keep summer alive and kicking in your glass.

You can keep the summer holiday spirit alive with these wines from Greece, France, Spain and more (Picture: Getty Images)

When it comes to Spain and Greece, coastal whites will send you straight back to that beach, to breathe in the salty sea spray, shake sand out of your swimmers and idly reach for Factor 30 again. Or why don’t you opt for bone dry bubbles in the form of Cava, Spain’s answer to Champagne, which will transport you back to Las Ramblas in Barcelona where you belong?

Alternatively, hop on over to Portugal or Italy via their super approachable, juicy reds. These work famously well alongside barbecued foodstuffs, if you can gather the courage to light up the coals one last time before packing it all away until next year.

And don’t forget rosé…never forget rosé.

We were all glugging bottles of it by the bucketload over summer, and I’m convinced that sipping pink into autumn, and beyond, will keep the sun shining for longer. Who’s with me?

Whether you are or not, here are my recommendations for drinks that feel like a holiday in a bottle, to keep our memories of sun-kissed terraces, sandy beaches and late-night skinny-dips alive, one sip at a time…

A taste of Spain

Sip this and pretend you’re sitting in Spain (Picture: Aldi)

Baron Amarillo Cava Brut, £5.75, Aldi

My spidey senses were triggered, big time, when I recently tasted this sparkling. How can something this good sell for a fiver? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way, as I almost don’t want to hear the answer. What I do know is that it’s made in the same way as Champagne, but with indigenous Spanish grapes. The effect is a bracingly dry fizz with white peach and star anise flavours, that pair beautifully with the delicate flavours of sushi or sashimi.

A taste of Italy

This will transport you to a sunbaked terrace by the sea (Picture: Majestic)

Romandiola Rimini DOC Bianco, £8.50, Majestic

With a glass of this in hand, you’ve effectively jetted over to a sun-soaked terrace by the Adriatic Sea somewhere. Beats the Tube strikes any day. This is a blend of Chardonnay, Bombino Blanco (which sounds made up) and Trebbiano, with the vineyards benefiting from the cooling coastal influence. It’s rich and opulent with unctuous layers of sun-ripened yellow plum flavours.  

Rosé is the perfect summer holiday drink (Picture: Aldi)

Pierre Jaurant Le Petite Poulet Rosé, £6.29, Aldi

This Aldi’s fairly obvious take on the popular chicken wine, complete with drawings of hens on the label, in case you didn’t get it from the name. Delicious wine inside the bottle, too, with bone dry flavours of wild strawberries and pillowy-textured, sour raspberries. One to chill down and glug like no one’s watching.  

A taste of Portugal

Pair this with one final summer BBQ (Picture: Co-op)

Alicante Bouschet, £8.95, Co-op

This is the perfect ‘bridge’ wine between seasons, and it also makes a knockout pairing with barbecued burgers. There’s certainly blueberry and dark chocolate power there, but also some hedgerow fruit delicacy too. In fact, Alicante Bouschet is one of only a handful of ‘teinturier grapes’, which have red flesh and red skin for added texture and pigment. Someone fire up the BBQ, pronto!

A taste of the USA

A remarkable Californian wine (Picture: Asda)

Exceptional Lodi Zinfandel, £6.98, Asda

To put this wine into perspective, wines from the Lodi region of California usually retail for around the £10 to £20 price range. That’s because the area boasts some of California’s most ancient vines, meaning they are packed to bursting with flavour. Case in point here, where you are getting punnet-loads of baked blueberries, prunes, cola bottles and sweet tobacco flavours, and all for under £7. Remarkable.

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