Marks & Spencer run a number of wine tastings for the Press each year. They use these to highlight a few old favourites and also to introduce new lines. They're always well run and worth getting along to. Love the nibbles afterwards- straight from their own shelves - juice, wraps, fruit and crisps!
This month I was impressed by a few wines in a €7.99 range. The majority of these will stay at that price for the rest of the year.
I took a quick photo of them:
Then I took quick notes. The brackets below contain my interpretation of my briefest of brief notes.
Welcome to my odd style.
I do my absolute best with inexpensive wines to use trigger words to capture objectivity. Wines that have been made for immediate and simple pleasure/enjoyment should not be subjected to weighty tasting notes. Also, as with all tasting notes, this is simply what I thought on the day and, you know what, all of these will perform well on the patio! You must also bear in mind that there is nothing actually wrong with any of these wines. Does anyone really think that press tastings contain dud wines? Usually the 'first to taste' finds them and removes them anyhow ....... I was first and removed only one of the 70 wines in the room ..... a second bottle was then opened.
ext. fruity (ie too much on the fruit side; bit obvious and not 'my' kind of wine)
2. xc (aka: excellent)
crisp and varietal (ie.This has fine acidity holding a rich and varietally accurate fruit together. Taken with my 'exc' comment and noting that this is a South African Sauvignon Blanc, it has a vibrant yet restrained asparagus, light pea and gooseberry fruit on both nose and palate; has good length; serve lightly chilled; enjoy.)
(I use these when I see laziness and marketing taking over from the fruit in the bottle. Flat fruit. not exciting the taste buds.)
4. Super immediate affect; fruity structured; shame about the dark glass!
(A Rose in a dark glass bottle looks wrong. Clearly this is a bit more than just a simple wine and it has lots of fruit and indeed fruitiness also - it should be screaming sunshine in the bottle - but it doesn't 'cos its in dark glass....)
5. Stony neutral. Well made.
(I use these when I see a wine aiming to do nothing wrong. Often though they seldom do anything particularly 'right' either. Won't dissappoint but no fireworks)
6. Sour lemon. No.
(Acid and bland fruit seldom work without skill and excellent fruit attached.)
7. xc simple style
(Fruit and structure are well balanced. No oaking, just honest, crisp Chardonnay fruit expressing itself in a broad and mouthfilling way. Like this one! Looking at the 2011 vintage date this has probably benefited from a bit of bottle age. On another day I might question why they still have this ....hope its not because its from Bulgaria..)
(Its a red and show fabulous wine making with a lot of interesting elements showing in the finished wine. Really good value for money. Have to admit I always like Tempranillo/Syrah blends - they tend to have a poised and gentle power at their heart.)
9. v soft and inviting.
(everything a summer Merlot should be. We need to see more of this grape folks.)
I'll blog more about this tasting next week. After all, the €7.99 range wasn't actually part of the 61 wine tasting book!
