E is for Evian
Just joking. This alphabet is actually dedicated to everyday drinking wines. Not that I drink wine every day any more but if it is not any special occasion but the still pleasant ritual of opening a bottle is called for, these days the bottle of choice would be a Chilean red. So E is also for Errazuriz.
Cheap Chilean wines tend to be dominated by the large agro producers and if you live in London, you will always find something for less than a fiver at your local off licence or in the supermarkets. Concho y Toro, Luis Felipe and other Spanish sounding names which will be a notch above the £2.99 supermarket own brand Cab Sauv and Chardonnays. Avoid them and go for the slightly more expensive (usually a few pence more) supermarket own brand “premium” wines.
For the longest time, the Maglieri vineyard in McLaren Vale used to supply Tesco’s finest South Australian Shiraz. It’s not a big vineyard so it must be the same grapes as the ones which won the Melbourne gold medal three years in a row and at about £4 less. I know they have stopped this for about a year now but a quick glance at the Tesco website (incidentally Tesco now sells wills and conveyancing kits online) shows that BRL (which owns Hardy’s) now does all their Australian wines and Berberana continues to do their Spanish stuff.
In Singapore, the situation tends to be a little different and given that tax on alcohol is by volume rather than ad valorem, the whole cost benefit analysis takes on a slightly unfamiliar complexion. The entry level Errazuriz Cab Sauv or Merlot usually retails for about S$28 dollars and the cheapest I have ever paid for it is about S$23 (about £7). One rung up the Chilean ladder, the cheapest I have ever paid for a bottle of Montes Alpha in Singapore is S$29 (about £9). So at that level, the availability at cost becomes the prime factor in determining what I buy and what I end up drinking. Montes Alpha every time if I can find it at that price.
As a general rule, I tend not to spend the extra $15 to get the Max Reserva range of the Errazuriz wines as I’ve usually found the money rarely guarantees anything other than increased oak. It’s a bit like putting Winnie the Pooh in a tiger suit and pretending he is really Tigger. If you look beyond the stripes and bounce in the American oak, there’s still a fat, lazy and slightly mournful wine with traces of hunny around the edges. I would much rather appreciate a budget Chilean wine for what it is - fruity, New World and cheap.
Italian wine making follows slightly different lines. There is a well-established even entrenched pecking order run along regional and varietal considerations which is not entirely bad. So in the Piedmont, the noble Nebbiolo grape is reserved for the Barolos and for everyday drinking, the Barberas from Asti and Alba are thought to be good enough - although given a chance, I would still think a top notch Bricco dell’Ucellone would knock the socks off a cheap Barolo.
In the same way, the best Sangiovese grapes go into the Brunellos while the Chianti wines are made from the poorer cousins. The best value wines from Tuscany are the so-called “failed Super Tuscan experiments” like the Frescobaldi Cabernet clones which get bulked up by surplus Sangiovese and turned into a generic wine marketed as Col di Sasso (vintage not important) and rather good value at $25-$29 in Singapore.
Up in the Veneto region, the everyday wine is the Valpolicella and I must admit I am not a big fan. Dried in racks though, the raisins produce the powerful and sublime Amarones and Recioltos for those special occasions and I find these wines travel a lot better as well. Not cheap nor easy to find in Singapore.
Carrefour is not my favourite place by any means but they do sell cheap wines by Singapore standards. The cheapest Penfolds, a Rawsons Retreat Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz - vintage not really relevant again, could go for as little as $18. Up one notch, the cheaper “bin numbers” such as 2, 389 and 18 have been offered at about $28 in recent months and are arguably more interesting than the Chileans at about the same price.
Other than the rest of the Australians at about the same price, Carrefour also sells mass market reds and whites from New Zealand, America and South Africa for slightly more and slightly less money. I have yet to find anything of value or of interest in these categories as yet.
The real value in Carrefour lies with the lesser known French wines which they vacuum up in bulk and send all over the world. Especially the poorer vintages. I have previously written about the Les Gondats du Marquis de Terme 2001 at $33 at a recent sale. In the same vein, you can get the Chateau de Mallaret 1999 at $35 which is about the same as in Paris and slightly less than in London. There are countless more cru bourgeois at these prices.
So be adventurous and drink lots of different wines at these prices. They're cheap. You'll only have a hangover to contend with - no hole in the pocket. Be brave but behave - and don't make any jokes about turning water into wine. I've done that in another blog already. So there.
Cheap Chilean wines tend to be dominated by the large agro producers and if you live in London, you will always find something for less than a fiver at your local off licence or in the supermarkets. Concho y Toro, Luis Felipe and other Spanish sounding names which will be a notch above the £2.99 supermarket own brand Cab Sauv and Chardonnays. Avoid them and go for the slightly more expensive (usually a few pence more) supermarket own brand “premium” wines.
For the longest time, the Maglieri vineyard in McLaren Vale used to supply Tesco’s finest South Australian Shiraz. It’s not a big vineyard so it must be the same grapes as the ones which won the Melbourne gold medal three years in a row and at about £4 less. I know they have stopped this for about a year now but a quick glance at the Tesco website (incidentally Tesco now sells wills and conveyancing kits online) shows that BRL (which owns Hardy’s) now does all their Australian wines and Berberana continues to do their Spanish stuff.
In Singapore, the situation tends to be a little different and given that tax on alcohol is by volume rather than ad valorem, the whole cost benefit analysis takes on a slightly unfamiliar complexion. The entry level Errazuriz Cab Sauv or Merlot usually retails for about S$28 dollars and the cheapest I have ever paid for it is about S$23 (about £7). One rung up the Chilean ladder, the cheapest I have ever paid for a bottle of Montes Alpha in Singapore is S$29 (about £9). So at that level, the availability at cost becomes the prime factor in determining what I buy and what I end up drinking. Montes Alpha every time if I can find it at that price.
As a general rule, I tend not to spend the extra $15 to get the Max Reserva range of the Errazuriz wines as I’ve usually found the money rarely guarantees anything other than increased oak. It’s a bit like putting Winnie the Pooh in a tiger suit and pretending he is really Tigger. If you look beyond the stripes and bounce in the American oak, there’s still a fat, lazy and slightly mournful wine with traces of hunny around the edges. I would much rather appreciate a budget Chilean wine for what it is - fruity, New World and cheap.
Italian wine making follows slightly different lines. There is a well-established even entrenched pecking order run along regional and varietal considerations which is not entirely bad. So in the Piedmont, the noble Nebbiolo grape is reserved for the Barolos and for everyday drinking, the Barberas from Asti and Alba are thought to be good enough - although given a chance, I would still think a top notch Bricco dell’Ucellone would knock the socks off a cheap Barolo.
In the same way, the best Sangiovese grapes go into the Brunellos while the Chianti wines are made from the poorer cousins. The best value wines from Tuscany are the so-called “failed Super Tuscan experiments” like the Frescobaldi Cabernet clones which get bulked up by surplus Sangiovese and turned into a generic wine marketed as Col di Sasso (vintage not important) and rather good value at $25-$29 in Singapore.
Up in the Veneto region, the everyday wine is the Valpolicella and I must admit I am not a big fan. Dried in racks though, the raisins produce the powerful and sublime Amarones and Recioltos for those special occasions and I find these wines travel a lot better as well. Not cheap nor easy to find in Singapore.
Carrefour is not my favourite place by any means but they do sell cheap wines by Singapore standards. The cheapest Penfolds, a Rawsons Retreat Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz - vintage not really relevant again, could go for as little as $18. Up one notch, the cheaper “bin numbers” such as 2, 389 and 18 have been offered at about $28 in recent months and are arguably more interesting than the Chileans at about the same price.
Other than the rest of the Australians at about the same price, Carrefour also sells mass market reds and whites from New Zealand, America and South Africa for slightly more and slightly less money. I have yet to find anything of value or of interest in these categories as yet.
The real value in Carrefour lies with the lesser known French wines which they vacuum up in bulk and send all over the world. Especially the poorer vintages. I have previously written about the Les Gondats du Marquis de Terme 2001 at $33 at a recent sale. In the same vein, you can get the Chateau de Mallaret 1999 at $35 which is about the same as in Paris and slightly less than in London. There are countless more cru bourgeois at these prices.
So be adventurous and drink lots of different wines at these prices. They're cheap. You'll only have a hangover to contend with - no hole in the pocket. Be brave but behave - and don't make any jokes about turning water into wine. I've done that in another blog already. So there.
posted by porcorosso at 1:55 AM
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