This week: 25 best wines under £20

WHITES

2006 Petite Arvine, Vigne Champorette, Les Crêtes, Vallée d’Aoste, Italy, Les Caves de Pyrene (01483 554750), £16.30; Selfridges, £19.99. Hard to find a more quirky summer wine than this Alpine white from Italy’s Aosta valley. A host of European grapes are grown in hillside vineyards that follow the river; petite arvine is a Swiss variety and blessed with oodles of seductive, fat, spicy, apricot, lemon and faintly pineapple-stashed fruit.

2006 Trimbach Riesling Réserve, Ribeauvillé, Alsace, France, Waitrose, £13.49. Trimbach’s elegant, zesty, floral reserve from hand-harvested, mature vines has popped up in the Top 100 more times than I can remember. No matter, its unadorned, crisp, green apple-spiked palate makes it a wonderful summer white to serve with creamy fish and chicken dishes. A refreshing, top-drawer Alsace white like this also makes the ideal solo glass.

2006 Chablis 1er Cru, Côte de Léchet, Isabelle et Denis Pommier, Chablis, France, Private Cellar (01353 721608), £16.94; Lea & Sandeman (020-7244 0522), £19.95 or £17.95 for Times readers until July 12. Drinkers divide into two camps: those who adore the bone-dry minerality of a good premier cru chablis, and those who don’t. If you belong to the former, you’ll love this really elegant expression of the chardonnay grape, coupled with the rich, nutty flavours of oak.

2006 Santenay 1er Cru Clos de Tavannes, Domaine Vincent Girardin, Meursault, Côte d’Or, France, Montrachet (020-7928 1990), £17.50. Girardin is one of Burgundy’s great winemakers, and his finest wines come, like this, from his own domaine. In the right hands, the best santenay whites display some of the finesse of their posher neighbours, meursault and puligny montrachet. Certainly, this elegant, citrus and glacé fruit white hits the top white burgundy notes.

2006 The White, John Forrest Collection, New Zealand, Adnams (01502 727222), £16.99. I am a big fan of multivarietal blends in summer. John Forrest selects the finest grapes from each of his vineyards for this blend, made only in the best vintages and different each year according to its strengths. Forrest maintains that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts; tasting this joyous, aromatic, citrus and flowering currant-stashed summer glugger, it’s hard to disagree.

2006 The Lane Pinot Grigio, Adelaide Hills, Australia, Corney & Barrow (020-7265 2430), £14.99. Amazing to find the pinot grigio grape in such esteemed company. The truth is, it doesn’t have to be a dull-as-ditchwater variety. Plant it in the right spot, give it a little tender loving care from a good winemaker and, hey presto, you have a fine, zippy, lemony white with oomph and attitude, perfect to serve with antipasti and other assertive first courses.

2007 KT and the Falcon, Watervale Riesling, Clare Valley, Australia, Berry Bros & Rudd (01256 340182), £14.95. KT – winemaker Kerri Thompson – and grape grower Steve Farrugia, aka the Falcon, are the duo behind this dynamic label. Their property occupies one of the premier Watervale sites complete with the revered red-loam-over-limestone soil, which explains why this amazing, floral and kerosene-charged classic riesling, produced in tiny quantities, is so good.

2006 Ried Pfaffenberg Steiner Riesling, Wachau, Weingut Knoll, Austria, Tanners (01743 234455), £15.60. Quite possibly the worst wine label I have ever seen, but the wine within is as good as Austrian riesling gets. The Knoll family has been making wine in the Wachau for more than two centuries, and this ripe, floral, peppery riesling with fine, spritzy, lemony flavours on the finish is hard to beat. Hats off to Emmerich Knoll II and Emmerich Knoll III, the duo in charge.

2007 Leitz Estate Rüdesheimer Berg Roseneck Old Vines Riesling, Rheingau, Germany, Marks & Spencer, £18. Riesling is the archetypal summer white, low on alcohol, high on flavour, so I make no apologies for the four that won through here. With just 8.5 per cent alcohol, Leitz’s superior, spätlese-level Berg Roseneck is the perfect bottle to sip solo, and I loved its sweet, spicy, floral, grapey fruit with that classic steely, petrolly riesling finish.

STAR BUY 2005 Bourgogne Chardonnay, Pierre Morey, Meursault, Côte d’Or, France, Justerini & Brooks (020-7484 6400), £13.46; Majestic, £13.99. One way of getting value from Burgundy is to snap up a humble bourgogne blanc or rouge from a good grower in a great Côte d’Or village. Morey is Domaine Leflaive’s winemaker, but he also has his own vines; and this gorgeous, glacé fruit and sweet hazelnut oak-licked white burgundy tastes like a £20-plus bottle.

Times Recommends

• Britain's Top 20 seaside fish and chip shops
• Ice cream makers: the scoop of the century
• British berries make super sorbets