‘Austerity’, or good value wines was this month’s wine club theme: not necessarily cheap wines, but ones that offer incredibly good value for the quality of wine.
We started with a sparkling Saumur (a chenin blanc from the Loire): Bouvet Ladubay from Majestic (£8.99 on offer, but RRP £13.49). It had a slightly yeasty and fruity smell, but the taste was quite floral and slightly lemony. This is a good and inexpensive alternative to champagne and great value.
The next wine split opinion. It was a Springfield ‘Wild Yeast’ Chardonnay, 2011, from Robertson in South Africa (grape: chardonnay). It’s an unoaked chardonnay which I usually like, but this was too fruity for me. The others loved it though. We tasted pineapple and tropical fruits (I thought I got a bit of marzipan flavour from it too). It’s made using wild yeast fermentation, which lets the natural yeasts on the grapes create the fermentation, which takes 60 days, and gives the wine a rich and complex flavour. This was also from Majestic, and cost £10.99 with a discount; £13.99 without.
The biggest surprise – to me at least – was a lovely (red) Rioja: Cepa Lebrel Reserva 2009, Bodegas Castillo de Fuenmayor. It was incredibly smooth, with a slight smell of leather, and we all tasted cherry and vanilla. The wine has been aged for 26 months, 18 in oak barrels. The real surprise, though was the price – £5.99 from Lidl in Brixton. Lea and Sarah had drunk it before, and hadn’t much liked it – the trick is to decant it before drinking, which makes a real difference. Buy while it’s in stock!
Next up was a Primitivo di Manduria, Surani Costarossa 2011 (grape: Zinfandel) from Maduria in Puglia, Italy. This was from Majestic , price £9.99 (£8.99 discounted price). We all loved it, and it had the quality of a much more expensive wine. It was very dark, almost black, with a brick red rim , and a very slightly sweet spicy taste. The tasting notes mentioned prunes, dates and figs.
We finished with one of my favourite sweet wines (technically a sherry), a Pedro Ximenez from Montilla/Moriles in Spain. It was a Don PX Gran Reserva 1985 from Bodegas Toro Abala, and cost £15.99 from Majestic. Not exactly an austerity price, but fantastic value for what it is. It tastes of raisins and molasses, with hints of tobacco and licorice; it was delicious with salted caramel ice cream.
