Tesco 25% Off Deal

Tesco Winestore are offering 25% off all wine if you buy half a case this weekend, the offer is good in store too. They are including sparkling wine and sherry as well as anything that's already on special offer. If you have a favourite branded wine it's worth checking them out as they do stock a wide range.

Here's some Tesco wines I've tried in the past. Enjoy.

Freixenet Excelencia Brut Cava

So 'perennial underachievers' Spain have made it through to te semi-finals of the European Championships. It does seem like they've trademarked the phrase.

What better way to celebrate than with a bottle of Cava, a Freixenet Excelencia Brut Cava. It's made from the classic Cava grape blend in what I'm not going to call the Champagne method, it's the traditional method. It opened with a reassuring pop, and the bubbles were lively leaving a persistent mousse, which looks inviting.

It smells almost floral, alongside the more expected lemony-ness. The bubbles burst quite assertively, but no unpleasantly in the mouth, with plenty more lemon flavour and apple. The flavour is fresh and invigorating, and whilst it doesn't have the biscuity richness of some of its older relatives, it doesn't miss it.

Served cold on a summer evening it's good value for under a tenner, offering something a little different in the sparkling space.

Vina Sol - Sunny days for Valverde

This weekend Alejandro Valverde won the Dauphine Libere, in what could be a warm up for the Tour de France. What better way to celbrate than with a Torres Vina Sol 2007, Torres most successful wine in the UK.

It smelled fresh and fruity with green apple and a little spiciness. It was dry with a high yet balanced acidity. The alcohol level of 11.5% is afternoon-friendly. It tastes fruity with crisp green apple softened a little by ripe pears, melons and something just a little like cooked spicy pineapple.

It's a remarkably refreshing yet quaffable wine, reliably delivering year after year. It's generally priced between ��5.50 and ��7, and you can usually pick up a bottle (or more) at Thresher's, Tesco, Sainsbury, Majestic or any chain retailer.

Gallo Wine Handbag

Gallo have made a series of interesting wine innovations over the years, some have been positive, making wine far more accessible to beer drinking populations, others less so, bringing sweet, bright pink White Zinfandel to the people of the UK.

The latest move by Gallo Family Vineyards is just bizarre - the Wine Handbag. 1.5 litres of White Grenache in a candy pink handbag package you can carry around. Gallo call it "perfect for girlie gatherings, parties and family lunches", Tesco call it £9.49. They're stocking at at around 250 of their stores across the UK.

Whilst it does save drinkers the effort of wrapping a box of wine in wrapping paper before dispensing glasses from the gift on the table, it doesn't seem like a packaging option perfectly designed to encourage responsible drinking. It doesn't particularly encourage flavourful drinking either.

Nobilo Five Fathoms Sauvignon Blanc - Easy drinking

Nobilo was the first New Zealand wine I remember drinking. It wasn't a Sauvignon Blanc, it was 'White Cloud', a cheery combination of pedestrian grapes like Muller Thurgau and Chenin Blanc. It was really not bad at a time when Paul Masson, Blue Nun and Black Tower were still fresh memories.

It was therefore an enjoyable retro-moment to try Nobilo 2006 Five Fathoms Sauvignon Blanc which had made its way back on a ferry from France. Pastily pale yellow-green, it was fresh smelling with fresh cut grass and gooseberries. It was dry and crisp. It tasted lemony with under-ripe stone fruit, grapefruit and more grass.

This was a good midweek wine, expect to pay around £6. If the cost comes in above £7 then there's other Marlborough Sauvignons about that are worth trying.

Spy Mountain Riesling - Zippy

New Zealand is starting to produce some interesting non-Sauvignon Blanc choices, and as I was making some tuna with lime I picked up a Spy Mountain Marlborough 2007 Riesling.


Pale lemon green, it smelled lightly of petrol and citrus. It was off-dry with a medium body and a medium alcohol level. It had a zippy, limey acidity. The citrus flavour was soften by honey and a hint of peaches. It was a tasty choice to match the fish. At about £9 a bottle from Tesco it's a good weekend choice.

Pilgrimage Bierzo Mencia

I'm a sucker for wines from places I've visited, doubly so if I've cycled through them, tripley (is that a word?) so if they have a cute name, so when I spotted The Pilgrimage Bierzo Mencia 2006 in Tesco I had to buy it. It had a little map of the pilgrimage routes to Santiago on the label, a desperate ploy to make me buy it.

I'd never heard of Mencia grapes, but I didn't feel bad about it, there's lots of grapes in the world I haven't tried. It does seem that I'm just in time though, it's gaining a reputation and plenty of plantings to go with it.

This one was a bright, medium depth purple-garnet. It smelled fruity with black cherries and ripe plums, with something curiously, but not unpleasantly fennel like. It served up a whack of acidity and tannin, it felt a little young, and I suspect the tannins would soften a little in a year or two without losing the plumminess, but allowing some of the spice lurking about to come forward.

It's drinkable now, but to make the most of my ��7 (less 25% if I'd opted for a half case) I think I'll pop a bottle under the stairs and drink it next Christmas.

I used the last of the bottle to poach some cherries, adding a little vanilla-sugar and cinnamon, topped off with a little grated 85% cocoa chocolate they were divine.

40% Off Thresher Voucher Christmas 2007

Last year Thresher caused quite a stir with their 40% off all wine voucher. Everybody had one and everyone used it. It's a good deal, but not a great one. The standard offer is buy two, get one free, roughly 33% off on still wines, but at least with the voucher you don't have to worry about buying in multiples of three.

The voucher is more use on sparkling wines which are normally excluded from the 3-4-2 deal. I've had a few good Thresher's wines, so I'll be happy to get my Thresher voucher this year. If you want one, pre-register here and they'll send you one.

I'll look out for other good deals in the run up to Christmas. right now you can buy Tesco wine in store and get 25% off any mixed case of six.

Have a Grüner Veltliner

England played Austria Friday, but no-one really cared. It was a friendly and it looked like it was one of two pointless games England would play this week. That was before Isreal did England an almighty favour and beat Russia to put England back in with a completely undeserved shot at qualifying for Euro 2008 on Wednesday.

We had a Tesco Finest Gr��ner Veltliner 2006 to celebrate. Pale and interesting it smelled fresh bright and fruity with a smidge of Gewurtztraminer style spiciness. Bordering on off dry with crisp acidity it had a medium body and alcohol. It tasted kind of like a friendly blend of German Riesling and an Alsacian pick and mix. Fruity, spicy and citric. It didn't taste quite like anything else, but a bit like a lot of really nice wines carefully blended.

Euro 2008 will be played in Austria, I'm looking forward to trying a few more Gr��ner Veltliners during the tournament.

If anyone knows where I could pick up a bottle of Croatian wine for Wednesday, let me know.

Comfort Blanket

Coventry have just lost 4-0 to West Brom. It's a depressing evening and could so easily have been different if former Sky Blue hero Mifsud hadn't got himself sent off for idiocy.

At times like this a person needs a hug. Some wines have hug-ability. Rioja is usually a good choice. I had a Castillo San Lorenzo Rioja Reserva 1999 left over from a bin end case from Tesco. Retailing at around the ��8-10 mark usually, this lot came in at about a fiver. I bought a lot a couple of years ago and this was the last bottle.

Despite being deemed 'past it's sell by date' when I bought it, it had got better. Forests of warm American oak made it feel toasty warm, and the rest of the forest had done it's bit with blackberries, blackcurrants, black cherries and plummy goodness adding fruit, topped off with cinnamon spice.

I wish I had more, I suspect it may be a long season.

Pasta Wine

With autumn well and truly here I made an industrial lasagne at the weekend with plenty of vegetables and wine stewed in. I chose a '1489' Toscana IGT 2006 from Baroncini to go with it. It's called 1489 because thats when they claim the family started making wine. It came from the area around San Gimignano, and area I'd cycled through along the Via Francigena.

It was a 100% Sangiovese, with a ruby colour and a rich cherry aroma, more like morello than cherryade. It had medium tannin and felt rounder than a young Chianti. 12% alcohol felt about right, and was pleasantly light. At just ��6 a bottle from Tesco it was good value and went really well with the lasagne. Unfortunately there weren't any wine leftovers. The freezer is full of lasagne portions, I'll just have to try other wines with it.

An End To Discovery

Discovery Channel have given up on sponsoring their cycling team, and as no other sponsors are bidding at a time when the focus is on cheating rather than cycling, the team is going to fold. Discovery won this year's team race in the Tour de France, along with the yellow jersey, the white jersey and third place in the GC. That's a lot to give up on.

So I'll say goodbye with an American wine which promised a lot, but didn't live up to my expectations. Tesco's Finest Californian Reserve Viognier 2003. It had a little bit of peachiness on the nose, it was dry with a slightly flabby character and all that was left of the peaches was a slightly itter kernel taste, it lacked body and flavour and zip. The residual alcohol was too high for the fruit to cope.

It was a shame really, I like a drop of Viognier now and then, and had hoped for something fuller and more concentrated from California. This one was certainly past it's best and it looks like Tesco aren't sourcing more recent vintages. I guess it does show that they learn from their buying mistakes.

Working at it

I had a Tesco Finest Ken Forrester Chenin Blanc 2006 from Stellenboch, South Africa this week. My host admitted he'd bought it because he'd had a coupon in a magazine, and the write up was good. What better reason to chose a wine!

For 'coupon wine' as it quickly became known, it was very good. South African Chenin is often bulk wine, grown at too high a yield in vineyards that are too hot for it, but this was a pleasant surprise. It had sparky fresh fruit and smooth honey. Bright citrus balances sweet pineapple to make it highly gluggable. 13.5% alcohol feels about right in this off dry yet crisp wine.

Ken Forrester seems like a nice guy. Thanks for the coupon.

Vanilla Slice

I found a Vina Mara 2001 Rioja Reserva lurking under the stairs, I guess it had been there around 18 months, pretty much ideal really.

It's a rich velvety dark garnet colour. It smells of vanilla, like melted ice cream, maybe with some plum pie. That's a good thing.

It's dry with plenty of soft ripe tannins that add to the overall velvety-ness. It feels full in body with plenty going on. The vanilla dominates, perhaps to a degree that may be too much if you're not in a plum pie with vanilla ice cream mood, particularly as the flavour goes on for ages.

This is a good value, "let's have a bottle of wine and watch a film", midweek kinda wine. Expect to pay around £6-8 for the 2002 vintage which is now available.

Finest Marketing

Tesco had their Tesco Finest Oak Aged 2005 Burgundy on sale recently. The saving was claimed to be half price - £3.99 instead of £7.99. A deal! Wine pricing in supermarkets is a very strange art. We've grown used to Australian half price offers, on wines we've never seen for sale at the 'recommended retail price'. It was interesting to see an own brand wine from a good vintage in a major French region on this kind of promotion.

It comes in a handy screw top bottle, it's a bright lemon-straw colour with reasonable legs. It smells of melons and a little green apple and just a hint of vanilla.

It's dry with a refreshing acidity and just a little tannin from skin contact. It feels medium bodied and has a sensible 12.5% alcohol. There's plenty of fruit on the palate - melons and apples, with a warming touch of vanilla that doesn't overwhelm it. There's creamy butteriness too. It went very well with the salmon carbonara I had for dinner.

It needs drinking this summer, and at £3.99 it's excellent value. At £6, it's well priced, but at £7.99 it's overpriced. This may be an actual bargain from a supermarket!

Midweek Vino

In a cheap and cheerful kind of mood we had a Tesco Orvieto Classico Abboccato 2005. My 2005 cycle trip to Rome took me briefly into Umbria, but unfortunately not past the fabulous Cathedral at Orvieto.

The wine isn’t as fancy as the Cathedral, but they did used to ship a lot to Rome to gain favours (the people of Orvieto that is, not Tesco). It’s very pale with rather weedy legs. It smells fresh and fruity with a little peach blossom. It’s medium dry, with a correspondingly medium acidity. It tastes of peaches too, but more like peach stones, with a slightly bitter aftertaste. That said it clears the palate well and so is good with salmon.

At 12% it’s light enough for weeknight drinking. At under £4 it’s better than you might expect at that price point, offering more character than a generic white wine from a region no more specific than ‘California’ or ‘France’.

The plan is working

England’s Ashes campaign is going incredibly well. Not only have we managed to lull the Aussies into a false sense of security by fooling them into thinking they are superior in every aspect of the game, but we’ve even managed to goad them into showing off. HeHeHe, just wait ‘til we unleash Monty.

Strangely though I’ve been feeling an overwhelming urge to drink Wolf Blass. Advertising works. We had a bottle of Wolf Blass Yellow Label 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s a deep black cherry colour, with good legs. It smells of blackcurrants and mint with some gentle oak.

It tastes of blackcurrants too, with oak, plums, and menthol flavours. There’s good, soft tannins, and a warming hit of 13.5% alcohol. It lasts well in the mouth, and I suspect a bottle would last well for three or four years in a cellar (or in the cupboard under the stairs, if you don’t happen to have a cellar).

At around £7-8 this offer really good Cabernet Sauvignon character, with lots of concentrated ripe fruit. Better still, watch out for offers at Tesco and Sainsbury’s where you can often get a good deal.

Southern Sun

I had a Laurent Miquel Nord Sud 2005 Viognier last night. Now and again nothing quite hits the spot like Viognier, and I’ve usually opted for New World varietals, but this French one made its way into my fridge.

Its clear, bright and an attractive pale straw colour, beneath an annoying foam plastic cork. It smells fresh and floral with spicy fruitiness. It’s very slightly off dry, with a well balanced acidity. It tastes slightly floral, but with peach stones and cinnamon and just a touch of gentle toasted oak, certainly not an overwhelming amount.

At 13.5% it has quite a warming alcoholic hit, but not so much as you might expect on an Australian or Californian example. It adds to the long spicy finish. It’s at peak now and I don’t think it will benefit from further age.

It’s from the Languedoc and you can pick it up for around £7 at Majestic or Tesco, it’s even available in the new world.

Spanish Smiles

We had a bottle of Berberana Carta de Oro Rioja Reserva 2001 this weekend. The weather’s perfect for drinking Rioja right now, if not for making it. The wine is a deep velvety purple with thick legs. It smells of rich oak, lots of vanilla with spicy fruit and some leatheriness.

It’s dry with a well integrated acidity and soft, ripe tannins. It feels full in the mouth with a warming 13% alcohol. It tastes of cooked black fruits, black cherries, leather and spicy vanilla. It’s fabulous on its own, with a DVD, with a friend, and with food.

It won a Decanter under £10 International award for being scrummy, and I awarded myself a second glass. It reminds me of warmer times cycling through Rioja vineyards, and makes me happy, what more could a person ask for from a £7-8 bottle of wine?

Let's all sing together

As I type Coventry are winning so it’s time to crack open the bubbly. They’re playing Colchester so it’s Blason Cremant de Bourgogne from Tesco. It looks like a bottle of Champagne, in much the same way as Coventry look like a Premiership side if you’re hopeful and catch them at just the right angle.

It opens with a reassuring pssshhh, and pours with plenty of creamy bubbles. Its very pale with just the tiniest hint of pink, if it was paint it would be rose-white. The bubbles are very small and reasonably persistent.

It smells clean in a traditional method sparkling kind of way with a yeastiness that teeters between fresh bread and festering socks, but not in a bad way. It’s off dry with a medium acidity. The bubbles dissipate quite quickly in the mouth. It has some crisp lemony fruit with a reasonable hit of bready, Marmitey yeast.

12% alcohol means I could celebrate a big Coventry win without having to stay in bed all day tomorrow. At £7 a bottle this is reasonable value for French fizz. It’s certainly not Champagne, but it doesn’t pretend to be. I think there’s much better sparkling wine to be had from Spain in this price bracket, with some fabulous Cava at embarrassingly low prices, so I’d generally opt for that instead when in need of affordable weekday fizz.