A REAL find for you this week guys from Majestic Wines, in Kendal.

While looking through their fantastic range of wines and, with a little help from their very helpful staff, I came across the Mocha Java Merlot from Bellingham Estate 2012.

This wine is from the coastal region of South Africa and is among the cult of the ‘coffee style’ of wine, meaning it has the style and flavour of a rich mocha coffee, in its nose and flavour.

This started with Pinotage, in South Africa, and has proved popular due to its smooth style of drinking.

The Bellingham Estate favours minimal intervention with its wines, typically letting the flavour express itself, with a little oak to enhance the taste.

This creates a fantastic Merlot, which delivers exactly what it says on the label, a nose of inviting aromas of roast, coffee beans and bitter, dark chocolate, and then carried by juicy black and red cherry fragrances across the palate in a smooth and delicious mouthful; then ripe, fleshy plum and mulberry fruit well integrated with fresh coffee and cacao and vanilla.

Soft and lingering on the finish, this wine is just ideal on its own, or pair with a mid-week meal of steaks, burgers or a pizza.

Available at £8.49 a bottle from Majestic Wines when bought in a six-case minimum box, that you can mix and match.

  • Graeme Hedley is sommelier and expert on food and wine at Kendal College’s Lakes Hotel School