Chateau Le Monteil d’Arsac Bordeaux

Producer: Chateau Le Monteil d’Arsac

Region: Haute-Medoc (Bordeaux)

Grape: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc

Vintage: 2004

Price: £4.79 / Lidl Wine

I’m being a rebel, and having a second bottle of wine this weekend, dispite my slightly dodgy blood test results hinting that I should perhaps start laying off the booze before my liver goes the way of George Best’s (all three of them).

I went to do the weekly shop in Lidl however, and a bottle of winecried out to me on the shelf. It was only one of three bottles hidden between boxes of cheapo S.E Ozzy reds. Lidl has just gone right up in my estimation with this delightful Bordeaux.

Chateau Le Monteil d’Arsac is a Cru Bourgeois which is a guidance of quality. Fine; it’s not the best wine from the region, but it doesn’t cost £500+ a bottle either!

This is a deep, ruby coloured wine (with the lightest of garnet tinge); a light nose (I expected a bit more to be honest) with a spicey base. On the palate, the acidity is well balanced with blackcurrent fruits, with the fairly high tannins not standing out of place with the rest of the wine.

This was a fine offering from Lidl, and a good start to my Lidl wine reviews. It really was cracking value for a quality wine, and I challenge TESCO, ADSA, Sainsburys and pals to match this…..I doubt they could. I’m going to give LIDL top marks for this and look forward to the next review!

 I did actually spy a Barolo whilst there, which methinks will be the next one I’ll be reviewing.

With food, this would go well with red meat, but I had mine watching Top Gear and eating Gorgonzola.

Bye for now.

Ile la Forge Cabernet Sauvignon

Producer: Ile La Forge

Region: Vin de Pays D’Oc

Grape: Cabernet Sauvignon

Vintage: 2005

Price: £4.99 / Aldi Wine

 I’ve fallen in love with Cabernet Sauvignon over the last few months. Admittedly; this was 90% due to a bottle of 2001 vintage from Coonawarra which was just utterly outstanding. It reminded me why Cabernet Sauvignon is such a world renowned grape.

With this fresh in mind, I took advantage of my local Aldi opening till 8pm and dropped in after work and picked up a bottle from Ile la Forge; who’s Chardonnay I quite enjoyed. The producers seemingly supply a range of Aldi wine.

This was a clear, deep ruby coloured wine, with a medium intensity nose which I found quite agreeable, with hints of black fruit and a bit of pepperiness. On first taste, I wasn’t too impressed however. There was a stack of tannins which weren’t really balanced out by as much fruit as the nose first gave the hint of.  Acidity levels weren’t overly high for a French Cabernet Sauvignon.

I decantered the bottle and then poured a glass half an hour later; and it was a different kettle of fish. The oxygen had softened the tannins somewhat, and/or had invigorated the fruit hidden within the wine. It was a decent improvement on the first impression.

Personally, I’ve enjoyed other inexpensive Cabernet Sauvignons more than this, but I suspect that the flavour and mouth-feel would be improved if eaten with some red meats.

In fairness, I’d probably get this again at this price, but I think this would have been better if it was blended with a bit of Merlot to make it a bit easier to drink. Not bad overall though: another Aldi wine reviewed! I promise to add a review few Lidl wines next week!

Ile La Forge Chardonnay

Producer: Ile La Forge

Region: Vin de Pays D’Oc

Grape: Chardonnay

Vintage: 2005

Price:  £3.99 / Aldi Wine

I didn’t get home from work till 7pm tonight, and I’m pretty knackered. I bought a pedometer a few days back and it showed that I walked over 10km in work today….considering I never left the building, it shows how busy I was.

Anyways; to unwind, I legged it to Aldi before it closed and grabbed a bottle of Chardonnay and some Duck & Port Pâté to enjoy whilst sitting on the couch watching crap telly.

I’m not the hugest fan of Chardonnay to be honest, and when I do drink it, I usually opt for the Australian ones as these tend to be a little less acidic and display more tropical fruits.

Aldi’s Ile La Forge is nice and clear and lemon in colour, with greens peeping through ever so slightly. On the nose it’s pretty light, not giving off too much except a glance of green fruit.

A bit of a swig confirms it’s a typical Chardonnay as it’s plenty dry with a hint of oak and a medium acidity level. I didn’t really taste much fruit but it was light and with a medium length.

This was a perfectly acceptable Chardonnay. Again, it’s a decent value wine from Aldi, you’ll have better Chardonnay’s but probably not at this price. Would probably go well with a nice bit of white fish, but nothing too oily. Buy a bottle when you’re next getting have a nice piece of cod.

 

Cellier du Rhone

Producer: Cellier du Rhone

Region: Cotes du Rhone

Grape: Syrah / Grenache

Vintage: 2006

Price:  £3.50 / Aldi Wine

 I’m kicking things off with a wine my wife bought as a Christmas present for someone from Aldi, but then didn’t see the person over the festive period, so sat in our wine cupboard winking at me, begging to be opened.

This is my first Aldi wine, and it’s produced by Cellier de Rhone in the Cotes du Rhone AOC, which for wine novices, means: Appellation d’origine contrôlée. In layman’s terms, it means that this wine has adhered to a number of standards and controls (which I’ll write about it more detail later) which guarantees a level of quality from grape to bottle, and is from a specific controlled area.

Cellier du Rhone is a blend of the Syrah and Grenache grape varieties, which is a classic blend. The deep ruby colour and medium tannins point at Grenache being the prominant variety.

Appearance:  Clear, deep intensity, ruby red in colour

Nose: Clean, light to medium intensity with some hints of red fruits

Palate: Clean, short to medium length (how long the flavour lasts in your mouth) with a hint of black fruits and spice, including a bit of pepper.

Conclusion: A perfectly acceptable Cotes du Rhone, and certainly good value at £3.50. You’d expect to add another £2 on to this at the bigger supermarkets, and around £12 in a restaurant. Incidentally, this wine drinks well on its own, or with a nice bit of roast lamb. Would also go well with cheese as long as it’s not rediculously salty.

I’m enjoying this….bring on the next bottle!

The disclaimer….

Just incase someone tries to sue me, I’d like you all to know that I am merely a customer of Aldi and Lidl. Aldi Wine and Lidl Wine is merely something I am tasting and giving my humble (not necessarily correct) opinion on them. I have no association with Lidl or Aldi, I don’t know anyone who works there and I don’t work for any of their rivals.

A bit about me….

Just to get things moving, I’m going to give you a brief biog of my life, without giving away too much personal details incase someone tries to rob me (i.e some dodgy Nigerian scammer or even HMRC).

I was born and raised on the rough streets of Prenton in Wirral. Life could be hard in our cul-de-sac…..hmmm perhaps I wont go that far back.

Basically I am from a working class background and went to a good local grammar school (coz I wusnt fick) but alas, I didn’t really get much out of it. I followed the advice of Mark Twain, who ‘never led school get in the way of his education.’ Though perhaps he was a bit brighter than I am, so I could have concentrated at least a bit more.

I mooched around Europe for a few months (my Dad now lives in Belgium) and then travelled for a year or so around the Far East and India, staying in Taiwan for a while to teach fat, spoilt chinese children who had wealthy parents.

Upon my return I set up my own business. I wont go into too much detail, but basically it went incredibly well at the start (I won a Trinity Mirror Business Award amongst other things) but then came crashing down due to a few personal reasons.

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after living with it for god knows how many years and ended up on the business scrap heap with no clue what to do with my life. It was at this time that I sat down and worked out exactly what I wanted to do with my life. The best way for me to do this was to write down what I love…..the list ran like this:

1) Everton

2)Beer

3)Wine

4)Food

As it was fairly obvious that I was never going to play for Everton (for reasons being mainly that I played football like Roy Cropper) I would therefore persue a career in either food or drink…..simple……or so I thought.

Yes, my knowledge was very good for an amateur, but I had as much chance being hired on my hobby as Nick Griffin had of getting a job in equality and diversity simply because he talks about blacks and muslims all day.

 So, I immersed myself (with frightening bipolar obession) into everything drink. I took every course, read every book, visited countless vintners, breweries, pubs, bars, etc, and gained WSET and BII qualifications.

To cut a long story short, I now consider my knowledge to be enough to at least give a rounded opinion on beers, wines and spirits. I’m now working in the industry, but profess that I’m working towards becoming  buyer at some point rather than what I’m doing now.

So, that’s a bit of a short summary of my life, and perhaps gives you an indication of why I’m writing this daft blog.

Welcome to my Blog

Hello!

 Welcome to my new blog, hope you enjoy it!

I say new because; thing is, I’ve started about 10 different blogs, and either lost interest or forgot the passwords for them, so I’m going to make an effort with this one.

 Well, what’s this blog all about I wonder? Well, it’s simple really.

 It’s Jan 2008, and a brand new year with loads of hope, promise and resolutions for new starts. Not that I personally thought I needed one, but I’ve sort of been forced into making a resolution of spending a hell of a lot less on wine, beer and spirits for the next year. It sounds like I’m an alki but I’m actually not.

I am in love with alcohol, the alcohol industry, the history of alcohol and all bits in between. Importantly, I (mostly) drink in moderation, and am even known to abstain from swallowing at a wine tasting evening if I’m being good. No Sir, no Frosty Jack drinking tramps on this blog. I’m ust a bloke with an appreciation of alcohol, not an addiction to it!

 This is not just any drinks blog however, and to discover the reason for this, we need to go back to the waffle I mentioned before about new year and new starts. As mentioned, I’ve been forced to cut back on spending, as  ‘I have wasted enough money this year to put my baby girl through uni’ according to my wife. I argued that I was surely doing her a favour, as so many graduates fail to gain jobs and waste three years of their lives getting pissed and eating beans on toast and kebabs (mmmm…….kebabs).

 But no, I wasn’t going to win an arguement with a woman who makes a banshee seem like buddah, so I’ve had to cut back. However, I’m not going to be totally denied the pleasure of the gifts of Dionysis (that’s the Greek god of wine for all you oiks). I’ve been allowed to enjoy wine in ‘moderation’ and at ‘reasonable’ prices apparently.

So, I’ve decided to spend a year drinking nothing unless in comes from Aldi or Lidl. Both are local to our house, and the food there is cheap and not unreasonable quality. I’ve had the odd bottle of drinkable plonk there and a few of the beers (being German) have been good value….but I’m not 100% sure how I’m going to get on for 12 months.

 I reckon I’ll be allowed the odd treat from my local vintners, but the majority will now come from these two German giants of retail efficiency. So, do feel free to join me in this tour de force and I’ll let you leave comments if a)They’re not abusive and b) They don’t disagree with my own (only joking).

Anyways, here’s to 12 months of getting to the bottom of whether the ‘value’ supermarkets can match the big boys. Time can only tell, but as a wise man once said …… In Vino Veritas!  (In wine there is truth…..now go back to your tractor.)