A couple of dependable but well-priced selections for you today – both weighing in around the £8 mark.
One is from Europe and the other from South America.
It has taken a little while for wine drinkers here to latch on to how good Austria’s signature white wine – Gruner Veltliner – really is.
Basic versions are pleasantly fresh and peppery but in the hands of acclaimed producers like Markus Huber (involved with this example) it can really sing.
But see what you think.
Talking of being in good hands, the Co-op’s Irresistible range has plenty of reliable wines at competitive prices, and today’s red choice is one of them.
Fruitiness can be an issue with cabernet sauvignon because the grapes (being late croppers) may not ripen fully some years.
Even in good years, fruit-based flavours can be masked in young wines until the aging process softens the variety’s naturally robust tannins.
In this example, though, fruitiness is just right – and so is the adroit use of oak.
The result is another wine well worth seeking out.
Once again, pictures and hyperlinks are included where possible to make it easier to track down the wine in question.
First, though, to Austria
2023 Best Gruner Veltliner (£8 instead of £9.50 with a Morrisons Loyalty Card until 22 October and 12.5% abv):
Morrisons now restrict certain promotions to holders of their “More” loyalty cards.
However, some of the price reductions involved are particularly tempting, like the 15% off this excellent example of Austria’s flagship white wine.
Pale in colour with herbal aromas, it delivers delicate white currant, melon and cooked apple flavours.
Those components are supported by sweet edges – within a mainly acidity-centred energetic mouthfeel – and by hints of oregano and of pebble-style minerality.
Then, it’s off to Chile
2022 Irresistible Cabernet Sauvignon (£8.50 at the Co-op and 14%):
Sound cabernet under £10 is scarce, but this Chilean version is exactly how reliable, well-priced, entry-level, examples should be.
Furthermore, that country is especially adept at optimising freshness and cabernet’s fruitiness while controlling – what can sometimes be over-vigorous – tannin.
Dark and reassuringly full, this example is centred around red fruit aromas leading into smooth, cherry, damson and berry jam flavours.
Subsequently, though, the party is joined by good acidity and suggestions of menthol, vanilla and mocha with balanced tannin also in evidence.
NB:- Prices may vary slightly in different stores.
Join me again on Thursday when I take a look at a smart use of fortified wines to give life an edge of sophistication.
13 responses
Morrisons also have a “Buy 6 save 25%” offer on at present… I don’t know if it applies to this particular wine or not, but if it does that makes it £6/bottle!
Thanks for th heads upon that multi-buy promotion. Like you, I am not sure which wines it includes.
Agree with you that the Gruener is a lovely wine – been a fan for many years; my review here – https://medium.com/@tomsk71/a-nother-cwb-supermarket-crisp-white-and-big-red-off-36b06d421b08
Thanks Brian for highlighting two very good wines at useful discounts.
In a previous post ,Brian mentioned Lucido from M&S and how the name of the Sicilian grape had changed from Catarratto to Lucido.
Apparently the main reason was marketing- Catarratto was deemed too long, too difficult to say, too harsh and too much like machine gun fire, whereas Lucido was shorter, easier to say and sexier.
However it does not detract from the wine or indeed many of the other really good value Italian wines in M&S at the moment.
Which brings me on to a pet grumble of mine, which is the mispronunciation of Grüner Veltliner.I have heard so many mangled versions ,which sound like a coughing fit, bad enough to put off any first time trier of the wine.
May I ask fellow MMW members to gently and very tactfully act as models for the correct pronunciation?
It is Grew- ner velt-LEE- ner
Don’t get me started on Sauvignon BLONK!
Yes it is good to get it right but even valient coughing fits are a step up from the American “Groovy”. This You Tube item seems to echo your thoughts on the colour “white” in French … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86FNwQf7E7A
Happy to be doing catch up on your previous recommendations Brian, go there and try them and also offer a couple of bottles I turned up along the way.
As I’ve said previously very much enjoyed reconnecting with the Orvieto from the Co op . I tend to appreciate whites and rosés especially as aperitifs more than selecting them for food. Maybe the complexity of white wine at gateway level is higher than with entry level reds and drinking none reds as stand- alones presents greater satisfaction … it certainly does for me. I have the Asda Wine Atlas Roditis-SB on the go just now in the fridge, with another lovely TWS Greek G&L Rosé Kintonis 2023. Super stuff that one at £8.95
In the Co op I got another bottle of the 30’ Chilean Pinot Noir that I found attractive and good value. And always in that particular branch pick up a bottle of the yet again ”Irresistible” Salice Salento
at £8.
I thought to have the Lidl Wine Tour Bonot Pére & Fils Pinot Noir Vin de France
even though you cautioned us with your “Marmite” reference . But test it out I must if still investing energy in finding proper Burgundian PN at affordable money. I understand your direction here though.
Let’s say heading south from the Côte d’Or, prices of Burgundy will drop and this Lidl offering at £6.99 being a tenner short of the stuff described as “sweet spot” will always be a temptation .
Some typical translucence though not as light as the real deal stuff and can add NOT what I’d describe as elegant or perfumed … of course not at that restrained money… I suppose I got off most on an evocation and imagining I’d bought it in a E Leclerc in Chalon-Sur-Saône and let myself be transported there, seduced by such a notion instead of it being a purchase with the weekly shop at Lidl in Stockton on Tees !!! Such is the joy of wine drinking we can allow ourselves and of times past.
Given there is so much around to be checked- out I don’t think I’ll have it again and have decided to go even further south to the Côtes du Rhône and Tesco’s latest cheap as chips, talked-about-red, lurking on the bottom shelf, as once that ”Bergerac” was, Their CduR Palais St Vigny at the astonishing price of £5.45. Again wine makers in France, to the south, are using the ripeness facility of grapes to come up with big, 14% abv, fleshy, fruity, touch sweet reds and almost giving them away. Buy now is all I can suggest.
That price is so low it does not qualify it for inclusion in their latest 25% off, buy 6 running until 31st October. In short it is a cracker.
Your Tesco Finest Floreal white on a Clubcard double dip is £5.25 . We really are occupying the true ground and ethos here of Mid Week Wines with Tesco centre stage. Their Mucho Mas Vino Tinto btw will be £6.38. It’s becoming hard to spend money and power to it! Cheers Brian ….
Really good run around “what is available where”, Eddie; thank you. As you say, the Rhone offers some great value options at present – and reports suggest that it is likely to be an area least affected by the weather-related problems that have caused difficulties in much of France.
Thanks Brian, Grüner Veltliner is a favourite of mine and it’s good to learn that Morrisons offers a sound example at a very reasonable price. For some reason I always find it reassuring to see the reassuring red & white striped bottle top of Austrian wines as a mark of the quality controls employed in their production. I’d like to see Austria’s tasty red wines more widely available too, including the bright Zweigelt.
Good to hear from you Rebecca and I agree that Zweigelt is red wine to watch. Back in 2021 I described it here as “an early ripening, high yielding variety that produces fresh summer wines not unlike very young barbera or the lighter red wines from the Loire.” So that nails my colours to the mast.
And if you’re near a Waitrose before 22 Oct their relatively new Lentsch Zweigelt is a decent example at £8.99, reduced from £9.99.
As for mangled grape names I too cringe at Sauvignon BLONK but Savvy B irks me even more. Viognier in my experience is one that gets mangled too. And I love the way some people call out to the bar “Get me a Pinot”. I try desperately to subdue the urge to question “Blamc, Noir, Gris, Grigio ….. etc”. I’m honestly not a wine snob!
I understand the ”Blamc” is becoming quite popular!!! 😁😁😁
It’s the latest PIWI variety Eddie
Hello Keith,
Thanks for reminding me about Viognier.
Vee oh nyay is pretty close to getting it right.
On wine snobbery, I do think that “ all wines are equal, but some wines are more equal than others”.With apologies to George Orwell.