|
|
|
| Current Article | Previous Articles | Search Articles | Search Offers | Search Tasting Notes | Forum |
|
|
|
|
| Current Article | Previous Articles | Search Articles | Search Offers | Search Tasting Notes | Forum |
Following our tasting of cheap whites last week, we obviously had to have a crack at cheap reds. Again, most wines were £2.99, unless otherwise stated. It’s easier to make cheap reds taste reasonable than cheap whites. At this price, wine production is all about speed and hygiene. Complex flavours aren’t even on the radar. Grapes arrive and are measured for sugar, so that the grower can be paid the right amount. Bear in mind that these are the lowest price grapes, which nobody else wants. If the quality was high enough, they’d have been sold elsewhere, for a few euro cents more. They are then processed at speed, so that the next lorry can unload its sloppy cargo.
Being in a high-volume winery at harvest time is very exciting. Grape must – which is the crushed grapes and juice, before fermentation – is being pumped around in wide pipes all over the place. The floor is awash with water and grape juice and machinery is humming. Some stainless steel vats are being filled with this must and some are already fermenting away. There’s a smell of spirit and sweet fruit in the air. White wine’s job is to be pure in flavour, because it doesn’t have the extra dimension that tannin gives to reds. As a result, winemakers have to be very protective of whites which often results in neutral wines. The extra dimension of tannin gives reds some more interest. Aldi slipped in with the top three wines.
Our favourite was Budavar Cabernet which is Romanian and costs a mere £2.79. It smelt of redcurrants and raspberries, which is unusual for Cabernet, but the taste was dry, with the typical Cabernet tannin and pretty long flavour. We felt it was a £5 wine.
Their Montepulciano d’Abruzzo had a stalky, spicy smell and, while not fabulously complex was very, very good value. It had good balance, and we felt we’d be happy to drink it with a tasty pasta dish. The Budavar Merlot was third, again at £2.79. It had a lightly oaky smell, which was quite pleasant. It was dry in the mouth, with some structure, as you might expect from Merlot, when compared with all the varieties represented. Aldi is clearly the place to go.
Gran Tempranillo from Sainsbury’s smelt of vanilla and sweet fruit. It was easy drinking and had quite hot alcohol, but enough flavour to back it up. Really a very reasonable wine for this price.
Baron St Jean is £2.59 from Aldi and it had very little smell at all. It was unremarkable and pretty thin and sweet. My husband, who isn’t similarly obsessed with wine, drank some the next night, without comment or grimace.
Vieille Fontaine from Tesco achieved about the same marks. It had a plain chocolate smell, but that faded quickly. As Lorraine said, the smell promised something, but in the mouth it failed to deliver. It was fruity but the source of the chocolate on the nose wasn’t evident in the mouth.
Our least favourite was Sainsbury’s Cotes du Rhone. Apparently, it’s a Reserve Saint Jean. What a stupid, stupid title, unless they mean this is the worst wine and so they reserved it from going into the rest of their production. It was thin, sweet and watery.