Noble Rot #38 2025

One of the few irksome things about fine wine culture – apart from its pretence, and its propensity for snobbery – is the sheer cost of getting through the front door. Whereas anyone wanting to explore the best in art, for example, has access to Kahlo and Caravaggio at their fingertips, few people will ever have the means to taste the world’s most fabled crus. Which is why ‘The Wines They Don’t Want You to Know’, Noble Rot 38’s tongue-in-cheek cover feature, is a coup for readers looking for world-class wines with a limited budget. Having persuaded a crew of leading sommeliers, chefs, restaurateurs and wine writers to reveal their single favourite most undervalued bottle, it’s an eminently usable centrepiece to this issue’s theme of ‘simple pleasures’, featuring characterful cuvées from places like Rueda, Muscadet, the Itata Valley and Gers (us neither – apparently it’s in south-west France).