Lidl Wine has a Master of Wine

I was invited to a Lidl wine tasting recently. I Tweeted the fact that I was on my way in to it only to be met with responses such as, 'Why?' 

Well, the 'why' was an easy one to answer. I was curious and it was being hosted by an old pal of mine Richard Bampfield, Master of Wine and Chairman of the Association of Wine Educators (AWE). I'm a proud member of AWE and while I have bought a few 'Lidl wines' over the years I had never really looked at them critically. In addition, I was genuinely interested in asking Richard about his touted (by Lidl) use of a 'Robert Parker Scoring System' for the wines on sale at Lidl. I had always thought this as being a bit odd for wines that seem to have been designed to sell at as low a price as possible. Most 100 point scoring systems, such as Parker's, are designed to score for quality with price being a secondary issue. 

The tasting turned out to be a very low key affair.There were only five wines opened and these were being served in a huge dark room in Newman House on St Stephen's Green with religious, god fearing, portraits looking down on the proceedings. I felt I had been summoned before the Archbishop himself. Monty Python would have had The Inquisition jump out from behind wood panels .... In addition it was a drop in affair and I was the only drop in at that particular time!

Ok, now that I have that off my chest I need to say a few things. 

I am very glad that I went to this tasting

I learnt a lot

The wines on show were good/well chosen

Lidl PR was very gracious and, as it turns out, generous to a fault

As a result of tasting the wines I have no problem whatsoever recommending the following as true to their origin and varietal. In addition they offer both fine value and quality.

Corte del Drago Chardonnay Collio, Italy DOC  €11.99 : has a lifted herbal edge with bright night scents to a rich and deep seated  fruit. Lasts well on the palate and delivers a broad, satisfying mouth feel. Great for a turkey meal.

Chilean Sauvignon Blanc - Lidl proprietary  Cimarosa brand - €5.29 : Bursting with lively fresh fruit. This is delightful. Don't confuse a Chilean style with one from New Zealand and you can draw comparisons between this and its French counterparts. Also, take note that the Cimarosa Cabernet Sauvignon at £4.99 won a Gold Medal at this years Decanter World Wine Awards!

Rioja Soligamar Reserva €12.99 : This is just great. Loads of soft fruit set into a delicate matrix of spice and sensual minerality. Great feel of soft textural elements blend well with an excellent aged oaking. 

Armilar 10 Year old Tawny Port €12.99 : I cannot believe that a wine this good should be sold at this price! (I really must talk about pricing out of the Douro at a later time...) This is a pale and very smooth offering where alcohol and fruit have been well married together. Far too good for a brandy and port, but if you're offering I won't say no!

Other wines that are worth dipping into include the Morellino di Scansanso, Italy €8.99 or the Cava at €11.99. The point is that Lidl is not simply selling on price, it is also offering value. To that end Richard Bampfield's scores are useful indicators as to what to buy.

Personally I'm not a fan of scores for the very simple reason that Scores Do Matter but that they can Confuse things very easily also. If I say Wine A achieved 95/100 while Wine C achieved 83/100 the obvious assumption is that Wine A is the better wine. This just isn't the case at all! Wine A may be a €5.99 Vin de Pays d'OC performing well above its siblings while Wine C may be a really well made grower's own label Champagne. Scores only mean something within context. I was accosted at a wine fair once by an importer who was comparing the score his Hungarian wine had received with a score that Ch. Lafite Rothschild had received from the same source. As the Hungarian had the higher number/score he was selling his wine with the catch phrase, 'Better than Lafite at a fraction of the Price'! I was accosted because I had the temerity to suggest that that was patent nonsense.

Richard Bampfield told me that he doesn't score wines for himself but does use 100 point scoring systems as part of his work judging at international wine fairs. As such he is confident that his scores for Lidl are accurate. Why, and how, Lidl uses these scores is, he says, something that Lidl must answer for themselves.

Fair point.

Folks, if there is no score on a Lidl wine it most likely means that the wine in question did not receive a very high score! It does not mean there is anything wrong with the wine but, within context, it could do better. Simple as that, and to be fair, no different to the many, many wines around all of our wine shelves that enter competitions and don't manage to win anything.

I hope to have some time this week to write some more about Lidl as I recently tried a few of their more exotic food offerings against their wines. Now that's a lot more interesting than simply tasting a wine to work up a Score! For now I can safely say that if you gently pan fry a Lidl Aegean Sea Bass fillet and match it to the Cimarosa Sauvignon Blanc you can be assured of a genuinely satisfying food and wine experience. In addition I was dead impressed by their packaging of four Quails whose light gaminess was a brilliant foil to the Scansano from Tuscany mentioned above. Posh or what?