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Chateau Leoville Barton |
Are pricey wines worth extra lolly?
Our tasters took a tour of the supermarket shelves to find a bargain
THE row over discounted supermarket wine discussed in this column two weeks ago, raises an important question. How do you decide if a more expensive wine is worth the extra lolly?
Winemakers and retailers are free to charge whatever they like. A bottle of wine can cost less then £2, or as much as £1,000. It is up to the customer to judge if the wine is worth the price.
In 2000 top French chateau Leoville Barton, fearing that many regular customers could not afford the exceptionally high prices of that vintage, decided to set an example and to sell their wine at a lower price. The result was disappointing. The owner Anthony Barton was subjected to fierce criticism from his fellow winemakers and the wholesalers and retailers pocketed the discount.
The wine was sold to the customer at the market price. Barton has not bothered to discount the equally expensive 2005 vintage.
Chateau Leoville Barton is a fine wine; this is verified by many independent tasting reports.
If you can afford to buy a bottle Berry and Rudd are selling the1994 vintage at £40 a bottle.
Choosing a supermarket wine costing £7.99 or above is more problematic. Setting out with our shopping baskets we brought a range of wines and put them before our testing panel, in a series of blind tastings.
From Morrison’s we picked Vistasur, a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc (£3.99) and Arture, a French Sauvignon, price £7.99, discounted to £3.99.
The Arture is a mass produced regional wine from the Languedoc area in the south of France. Normally, such a wine from a region prone to massive overproduction, is sold relatively cheap. It is very unusual to see one priced at £7.99.
We asked our testers – all experienced wine drinkers – to ascertain the better made wine, in terms of structure, balance etc. They had three votes each.
Next a battle between North American giants, Echo Falls from the Constellation group £3.59 made in California but bottled in the UK and The Gallo Families Sierra Valley Merlot £4.99 discounted to £3.99. No contest, all six agreed that the Gallo wine was the better product. The Gallo family has fought hard to maintain its independence from the giant corporations. They claim the family nature of their business results in a superior wine. This testing would seem to prove them right.
Lastly a trio of wines, Jean St Honore, Syrah from the Languedoc in France. Bottled by Vinival a company owned by top Chablis producer Michel Laroche, a man with ambitions to be a global wine maker/marketeer. It is priced at £4.99 but often sold for less. Two wines from Australia complete the group, Yellow Tail, Shirah, discounted from £5.99 to £4.49 and Oomoo, Shirah a new wine from Hardys, £7.99. Again the group spilt, unable to decide between the Yellow Tail and the Oomoo wines.
The Oomoo is being marketed as a special wine made from above average quality grapes, using traditional methods, including basket pressing and prolonged aging in oak barrels. It will presumably be discounted once it has sat on the shelves for the statutory period. It will be interesting to see the size of the discount.
German wines: Our tasters go to work
LAST week’s plea for German wines to be taken more seriously has had mixed results.
Kendermann’s 2004 Dry Riesling (Waitrose, £3.59) proved difficult to classify. Our best attempt was that it seemed to combine a New World chenin and a more traditional gewürztraminer but without the spice.
This implies much in common with its Alsace neighbour (after all, German from 1870 to 1918) and is perhaps the direction some German Rieslings are taking.
Kendermann’s 2005 Dornfelder (Tesco Extra, £4.49), that rare animal a German red, more than made up for any deficit. The wine grips the tongue, in this case a compliment. It then fills the whole of the mouth with a full-bodied richness.
The after-taste is part of this process and lasts well. In short, a robust and sophisticated wine from an unusual source, which has much in common with a good Bordeaux. It is hard to understand why it is available only in Tesco Extra stores, which for most north London residents means Gallion’s Reach near London City Airport
At a separate blind tasting, two bottles of Ernst Loosen’s cheaper mosels failed to create any impression against a German regular from Morrisons.
It seems, therefore, that the issue of German wines remains open. |
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