9 best wines for a romantic date night that will impress your partner

All good wine-lovers will tell you English sparkling is some of the best bubbles money can buy. Show you really know your stuff with this outstanding example from one of England’s most respected wine producers. This was once the only wine made by Balfour, so is the winery’s flagship bottle – a single-vineyard wine from Balfour’s Oast House Meadow vineyard that is only produced in small quantities every year. Better still, it’s a 2018 vintage that benefits from the year’s warm long-lasting summer and near-perfect growing conditions.

It’s divine to drink too. Complex and unexpectedly intense, it’s made from a blend of pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot meunier, and packs a punch with its cranberry flavours and powerful dryness. If your loved one is not impressed by this, it’s not the wine that’s the problem.

Anyone who loves rosé will be familiar with the name whispering angel, which is perhaps the best known and most revered of pink wines. It’s made by Chateau d’Esclans, whose vineyards are close to the ancient Roman city of Fréjus on the Mediterranean coast of Provence. The castle there was thought to have once been a lookout point to spot intruders arriving by boat, and the entire surrounding area of La Vallee des Esclans was believed to have been owned by the chateau.

Now, its elegant bottles of whispering angel grace the chicest hotels and beach clubs around the world. Like all Provençal rosés, it’s the perfect pale pink in the glass and this new 2021 vintage has a perfumed, fruity nose that will have you dreaming of sunny days with every sip. Made with traditional Burgundian winemaking techniques, the wine is blissfully crisp, with balanced acidity and a suggestion of strawberries and cherries. Savour over a long seafood lunch as you start planning your next holiday together.

If you’re really looking for brownie points, champagne is the only way to go. Perfect if you’re celebrating something special or want to treat someone who usually opts for a cheaper fizz, this exquisite bubbly from Champagne Piaff goes one step further. It comes in a personalised, engraved bottle, so will arrive with a message designed just for the sender, whether you want to wish them happy birthday or ask them to marry you.

It won’t let you down in the glass either. Winemaker Maxime Mansard has made a modern, softly floral champagne with 100 per cent chardonnay grapes. It has a beautiful long palate, a crisp minerality and moreish hints of toasted almonds and pastries that should get the thumbs-up from anyone. A perfect safe bet.

Planning on cooking up a gourmet feast for your loved one? This is the bottle to go for. An exceptional, limited-edition white, it’s made by acclaimed producer Domaine Henri Bourgeois in one of the region’s leading estates that has been family-run for 10 generations. The chalky hills of the area have been producing wines since Roman times and they add an unexpected smokiness to the sauvignon blanc grapes, giving this white a little more muscle when paired with food. It’s packed with elegant fruity flavours too, with layers of melon, pear and citrus developing with every sip, and has an enticing, almost salty minerality. Try it with a seafood salad or any fish dish, if you’re really out to wow.

At just 24, Jesse Katz became America’s youngest head winemaker, and he was the first winemaker ever to be named on Forbes’s prestigious ‘30 under 30’ list. In 2009, he launched his own winery in Sonoma’s Alexander Valley, California, and his wines have since sold for up to $1m at auction. You won’t have to part with quite so much cash for this bottle – Naked Wines members can buy this for £36.99 – but you’ll still get all the kudos.

Expect a full-bodied, fruit-packed red that will make a serious impression. At 15.5 per cent ABV, it’s not for the faint-hearted but the flavours are unforgettable. Think silky blackberries, a trace of vanilla and a tantalising touch of smokiness that makes it a truly decadent wine you’ll want to savour.

Don’t trust your own judgement when buying a bottle to impress? Rely on the experts instead and choose this South African red that has won almost every award going, including a Decanter World Wine Awards Platinum medal and double gold at the Michelangelo International Wine Awards.

It’s made by Werner Schrenk at Peter Falke’s picturesque winery in South Africa’s Stellenbosch, and the signature collection wines are all named after one of Peter’s grandchildren. This is a wonderful, purple-hued cabernet sauvignon made from the best hand-picked bunches on the vineyard. It was matured for 18 months in French oak barrels and bursts with woody aromas and a palate of blackcurrant and raspberry with super-smooth tannins. Serve it with steak for a true match made in wine heaven.

If you’re looking to impress a red-wine-loving partner, don’t just buy them their usual pinot noir. This stand-out carménère from Chile will show them you’ve really gone out of your way to find something a bit more unusual that they’ll love. Just make sure you swot up on the back story first.

Carménère is one of the oldest grape varieties in Europe, and is believed to have been planted in Bordeaux by the Romans, where it proved difficult to grow and was eventually considered extinct by the mid-19th century. Fast forward to more than a century later, and growers in Chile realised the grape they had long assumed to be merlot was actually carménère, believed to have come from cuttings brought from France around 1850. The grape is now one of Chile’s most popular, thriving in the country’s warm weather.

This bottle is a wonderful example of this fascinating grape and celebrates the 25th anniversary of the first carménère labelled by the De Martino family. A vibrant dark red, it’s a bold, juicy wine you won’t forget in a hurry, with bags of black fruit and an undercurrent of black olive. We’d enjoy every drop over a long, lazy Sunday roast.

It doesn’t have to be difficult to get your hands on a truly impressive wine, if you know where to look. Pick this one up alongside your weekly shop and you won’t believe you found it in the supermarket.

An elegant rioja rested for two years in a mix of French and American oak barrels, it’s produced mainly from tempranillo grapes grown in Rioja Alavesa, where the riverside microclimate gives a unique character to the wine. The Contino winery only makes wine from hand-selected grapes grown in the alluvial and limestones soils, and created the very first single estate rioja in 1973. Full of rich tannins with a balanced juicy palate, it has punchy cherry flavours, a notable touch of oak and an enjoyable freshness that’s guaranteed to please.

It’s all too easy to reach for the champagne or a heavy-hitting bottle of red when you’re out to impress, but don’t neglect white either. This chenin blanc is a world away from a hastily grabbed pinot grigio. It’s made in the hillside vineyards of Stellenbosch, South Africa, overlooking both the Indian and Atlantic oceans. We particularly love the fact baroque music is played constantly to the grapes as they grow, as the winemaker believes this has a beneficial effect on the end quality of the wine.

It’s up to you if you add music while drinking too, but the wine’s vibrant acidity and lively palate won’t need any help to turn heads. Complex but fruity, it brims with aromas of peach, pear and spice with the faintest trace of citrus to add a touch of sunshine. The baroque melodies certainly seem to be working their magic.