Spar wines and back pain

I'm in pain today. Bad back. Came from nowhere, starting as stiffness in my hamstring a few days ago. Now I can hardly walk. I'm lying down on my bed, and I'm going to watch Silent Witness and drink wine.

Still, I braved it into town this afternoon to taste through a range of wines from Spar with Laura Jewell MW who runs the operation. Spar have some 2600 branches, and so they're a very important wine retailer.

We tasted through 40 wines, and I was really impressed. Almost all of them really delivered at their price points. I even liked the White Zinfandel. Laura's sourcing is spot on, and that's good news for consumers who can pretty much buy any of the own label Spar wines and come away with something nice to drink.

My favourites were two special purchases Spar have made for a mini wine fair this spring. Alexander Fontein Shiraz 2008 and Darling Sauvignon Blanc 2009 are two South African beauties, that will be listed from the end of March at £9.99 and then reduced to £5.99 for six weeks from April 22. They're really good, I'm going to hunt down my local Spar and buy some.

It was agony coming home from town. Pure agony. Let's hope I'm feeling better tomorrow.