Shopping in the St. Alban’s Waitrose this past week, I was shocked and awed by the selection of still and fortified wines, sparklings and spirits available at what is essentially the British equivalent to a Whole Foods.

And with this, we have proof – a Rutherglen Muscat. This half bottle of Australian dessert wine that is the basic level of the classification, followed by Classic, Grand and Rare Muscat, is made with the Muscat petits grains rouge and aged for between 2-5 years. It’s clear and bright, deep amber and has viscous legs noted.

On the nose, it’s clean and developed with pronounced aromas of raisins, dried apricots, cloves, toffee and Demerara sugar.

The palate is fully sweet (RS 180-240g/l) and the acidity is high. It has medium plus body and the fortification is high at 17.5% abv. This wine has intense flavour characteristics of burnt sugar, raisins, dried apricots, caramel, dates and orange rind. The finish is medium plus.

A WSET ‘very good’ wine, I think this is a real steal at only 12 British pounds. There is WAAAaaay more variety here for the average cork dork and of course, it’s at a better average price than what we are charged in Canada (shocker, not). Canucks would not be surprised to know almost every wineshop keeper I’ve spoken to in the past week has somehow managed to work into the conversation how archaic our wine laws are.