This website is all about top value – not necessarily the lowest prices. So, here is a quartet of wines retailing around £10 that I consider are worth rather more. Any of them would do splendid service on an Easter lunch table.
Chablis to punch above its weight
Basic Chablis can sometimes be a bit ordinary but 2013 Taste the Difference Chablis (£10 at Sainsbury’s) has a richness and finesse more usually found in premier crus versions.
It combines fresh, lemon based acidity and Granny Smith apple crispness with a buttery backdrop and tangerine centred complexity.
Thoroughly modern Australian chardonnay
This part of the new Aldi mid-priced “Lot” series is a million miles from the heavily oaked chardonnay of old.
Enjoy, instead, the smooth and gentle citrus fruit of 2013 Lot 02 Tasmanian Chardonnay (£9.99 at Aldi) with its textured, slightly savoury depth and suggestion of butterscotch in the background.
Generous Languedoc red
The cooler night time temperatures of Pic Saint Loup give wines from this part of the region an extra edge.
Certainly, 2012 Taste the Difference Pic Saint Loup (£8 at Sainsbury’s) provides us with a mellow, plum and raspberry charged red embellished with cinnamon and herb influences and only modest tannins that never intrude.
Elsewhere in Languedoc …..
A little further west, gifted winemaker Jean Claude Mas provides an even more impressive red – 2013 Lot 03 Pezenas (£9.99 at Aldi).
Here you find soft, ripe, cherry, blackberry and dark plum fruit with suggestions of both chocolate and vanilla and just the right touch of acidity.
