We e ke n d 9
Guess which supermarket’s
got great wine? Jane MacQuitty
JOHN ANGERSON FOR THE TIMES2019 Wildflower Pinot
Grigio, 13.5 per cent
Spar £
(down from £7)
Not the greatest £
bottle of pinot grigio
available, but if Spar is
your only option, this
tart, zesty Romanian
should do the job.2018 The Best Nerello
Mascalese, Terre
Siciliane, 13.5 per cent
Morrisons £7.
Made from Sicily’s top-
dog nerello mascalese
grape, this sweetly floral,
richly fruited, beefy red
has masses of dusky
rose oomph.2019 The Society’s
Greek White, 12 per cent
thewinesociety.com
£7.95 (down from
£8.95 until tomorrow)
Fly to Greece care of this
brilliant, aromatic, musky,
floral, basil-scented,
aperitif white, a mix of
moschofilero and roditis.convenience store status, its buyers have
persuaded some of the world’s finest
producers to supply them — including
Antinori, Schlumberger, the Brocards
from Chablis and the Perrin family from
the Rhône’s legendary Château de
Beaucastel. It has even managed to scale
the Bordeaux heights, with an impressive
run of châteaux and vintages, including
the celebrated ex-Ausone winemaker
Pascal Delbeck’s tasty, gamey, coffee
bean and truffle-stashed 2015 Château
Tour du Pas St Georges-St Émilion,
a snip at £15. Spend half that on the
barbecued banger-friendly, silky-soft,
damson plum-sweet 2018 Côtes du
Rhône, La Grange St Martin (£7.75).
What confuses shoppers is that there
are several Co-operative societies, and
not all carry an identical range. But you
can log on to coop.co.uk/wine and find
your nearest store with stocks. At
present it’s annoying that the Co-op’s
online shop carries such a limited range
and works only in a few postcodes
(quickshop.coop.co.uk), but some of its
wines are available at deliveroo.co.uk.
All of which means that next time you
are caught without a good bottle and
pass a Co-op, do what I do and pop in.Pol Roger Pure Extra
Brut Champagne,
France, 12.5 per cent
Waitrose £39.
(down from £49.99)
This latest Pol R creation
is a gorgeous, tart, zingy,
aniseed-edged, bone-dry
bubbly, made from all
three champagne grapes.I
f you like to take pot luck and pluck
the first bottle that takes your fancy
off the supermarket shelf, Co-op is
the shop for you. It’s the dark horse
in the summer wine stakes, having
accounted for 13 of my recent top
100, beaten only by Waitrose. Given
how many more bottles the latter has
in store, Co-op offers the best odds. No
wonder sales are up by a third and it
has its largest market share in 20 years.
Co-op’s buyers have slowly upped the
ante over the past decade or so. It was
the first supermarket to embrace
Fairtrade wines, in 2004, making it the
largest retailer of such wine. True, not
every Co-op Fairtrade wine is good, yet
vegan-approved and organic wines are
an increasing Co-op strength, as anyone
who has tasted its groundbreaking first
natural wine — the delicious, sunny,
citrusy 2019 Terra Madre Catarratto
from Sicily (£6.50) — will know.
Unusual, lesser-known grapes also
increasingly pop up on the Co-op’s
shelves: check out the 2019 Marsanne
du Languedoc (£8), a white rhône
taste-alike favourite of mine, with its
bold, nutty, dried apricot styled fruit.
Despite the Co-op’s humble2019 Cestino Pecorino,
Terre di Chieti, Italy,
12 per cent £6.
Terrific, dry, herby,
lemon-zest Italian made
from the pecorino grape,
grown halfway down the
Adriatic coast in Abruzzo.2016 Savigny-les-
Beaune, Jean-Jacques
Girard, France,
13 per cent £
Dazzling burgundy from
a top vintage and
producer, with smoky
truffle and damson fruit.2018 Chiroubles, Cru
du Beaujolais, France,
13 per cent £
Lighter, superior cru, or
village beaujolais, with
oodles of vibrant, squishy
red-plum fruit and a
velvety, gamey finish.My
Co-op
picks2016 Château Millegrand
Cuvée Aurore Minervois,
France, 14 per cent £
Meaty, black pepper-
spiced, syrah-grenache-
based, barbecue-friendly
Midi red, topped up with
carignan and mourvèdre.P
Co-op’s buyers
have persuaded
some of the
world’s finest
producers to
supply them
This week’s star buys
Pussycat Doll
Luckily, we won’t be learning a whole
routine today, which Wyatt insists is
because of time and not to spare my
blushes. “Even I find choreography
difficult to remember,” she says. I’m not
sure I believe her, but as someone who last
memorised a dance routine for the Year 5
play at school, it’s encouraging.
“When I teach choreography, my
method is to get people to master four
eight-counts. Each of the four we practise
over and over, so it really rams it into your
body. Only then do we move on to the next
one and eventually put it all together with
music — then you have a dance.”
After the lesson, back in the comfort
of my home, I log on to the website and
fire up Wyatt’s tutorial teaching the
choreography to the group’s hit I Hate This
Part, insistent that if nothing else I’d nail
some of the routine. I do get on a bit better
busting moves knowing that no one is
watching. This, Wyatt hopes, will be one of
the big draws and that the website will
prove popular with people who would
never previously have dreamt of taking a
dance class.
“For lots of people, taking a fitness class
at a gym is a challenge enough,” she says.
“Walking into a room of people you’ve
never met, and knowing full well some
of them are there basically to show off,
is daunting.” Dance classes, she says, are
the same. “But dancing is so much
fun. Having the possibility to do classes
at home, in your living room, reallywill allow people to dance like no one is
watching — because they’re not.”
Still, I don’t expect a casting call for Billy
Elliot any time soon. I question whether
people will still want to work out in front of
a screen. With lockdown all but over,
surely people want to get back out into the
real world and away from their devices.
Last weekend gyms in most of England
reopened and fitness studios are slowly
reopening, but Ricca and Wyatt believe
that their venture will thrive nonetheless.
“People realised over lockdown that
they could do fitness in their own home,”
Wyatt says. “In the past there was that
juggle struggle — balancing careers,
family time and going to the gym. I think
lots of people will just want to keep
working out at home.”
Since the website was launched at the
start of lockdown, more than 300 hours of
content has been uploaded and almost
4,000 people have signed up for accounts.
“For my part, I just want people to be
able to have a bit of fun,” Wyatt says.
“Dance is primitive; we moved before we
spoke, so be in tune with that. We know
dance is good for the head. So the more
you’re booty poppin’ the more you really
can let go of a lot of stress and anxiety.”
I’m sure she’s right, but I certainly won’t
be whacking out the old Matt Mattox arms
at a party any time soon.
Kimberly Wyatt’s dance classes can
be found at movehomestudio.com,
with sessions starting at £4.The
dancefloor
sashay
Ben Clatworthy and Kimberly Wyatt