Elias Mora, DO Toro 2012 around €17.25 down from e44.30 from Wines Direct at winesdirect.ie for nationwide delivery or from their Arnotts Wine Shop, Henry Street, Dublin 2 or the warehouse, 49 Lough Sheever Corporate Park, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath

This is a very fine wine produced by one of Spain's leading female winemakers, Victoria Bendavides at a vineyard that she purchased with a second Victoria, Victoria Pariente. This is wine made from 100% Tinto do Toro, a clonal variant of Tempranillo. The landscape of Toro has a rough similarity to the southern end of the Rhone, the Duero River flows from the Pyrenees down through Rioja, and Ribera del Duero finally depositing loaf sized rocks on the wide open, lower altitudes of spacious Toro.

The wines here have always been regarded just as in the southern Rhone as being quite rustic. Victoria Bendavides has lavished time, expertise and the kind of money previously only seen in Rioja or Ribera. The result is a wine of depth and sumptuous ripe fruit. The silky sumptuous fruit profile, experienced as a super smoothness on the palate is an under rated sensation in a world looking for zing and zest.

Bombay Saphire – The Pure Heart of the Gin Revival. Widely available at around €29.99 a 70cl bottle

There is also a heavy interest in the angular, zesty, prickly sensations in the field of spirits and the uber hip side of this, the beard wearing, bicycle riding cousin of the Artisan Beer phenomenon, cocktails. Heavily scented and fragranced cocktails and indeed spirits are now the order of the day and it is excluding the original delights of spirits the reason why humans became interested in the first place their purity.

Gin in particular has tended towards very pungent forms these days and in some cases has lost sight of the idea of delicate botanicals in a pure setting that offered a chance to enliven sumptuousness with piercing power. Several Gin makers however have retained an interest in this older style, called London Dry Gin even in Ireland where the fine Vlackwater Gin uses the stylistic name, London Dry Gin on its label.

This however, Bombay Sapphire is the keeper of the flame, the original source of the rebirth in the interest in Gin as a fine and artisan product. Still hand crafted, with a restrained botanical profile it provides a launch pad for the silky mouthfeel that in cocktail form is the pitch perfect match for sumptuousness. The engine for this is unlikely it is orange and strawberry, and the secret star, egg white.

Egg white is something we love in pavlova and cake decoration, but works brilliantly here to allow silky notes to emerge and is of course a staple of much wine production too where raw beaten egg white is used as a clarifying agent in many fine red wines.

The unused yokes giving Spain its Paella and France crème anglais and omelettes as features of great wine regions.