jamie goode's wine blog: Tesco press tasting at the Festival Hall

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Tesco press tasting at the Festival Hall



Just back from the Tesco press tasting, which was held on the top floor of the Royal Festival Hall on London's Southbank. It was a great venue, with some spectacular views.

I didn't taste all the wines (they showed 153), but I did a fair selection. Not all that many gems, but I did find a few. Bollinger Grande Annee 2000 is a mind-blowingly good fizz - yours for £59, but I think you could make a case for it being worth the money. Villa Maria Reserve Pinot Noir 2007 Marlborough is a little more affordable at £16.99, but also thrilling, with bright, elegant, focused cherry and raspberry fruit. I really liked Tim Adams Semillon 2008 Clare Valley (£9.99), a serious, ageworthy, food compatible white with an indecent amount of flavour. Going down in price, Paul Mas La Forge Malbec 2008 VdP d'Oc is fantastic (£8.99), and the one of the best values of the tasting was the Tesco Finest Malbec 2008 from Mendoza: made by Catena, this shows lovely pure fruit and is £6.99.

7 Comments:

At 7:51 AM, Blogger Jamie Irving said...

I tasted the Tesco Finest Malbec at the Tesco Wine Club Fair a couple of weeks ago and was also very impressed: http://bit.ly/ThShm

 
At 8:06 AM, Anonymous Ben said...

Good to see Tim Atkin doing his emails in your pic

 
At 9:23 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You wonder where they're selling them, as in both their big Oxford area branches they have sold off almost every wine at over £10.

Nice window dressing though :-)

 
At 11:19 PM, Blogger Jamie said...

I have to make a correction: Tesco say the price they gave for the finest Malbec at the tasting was wrong - it's actually £6.99

 
At 10:57 AM, Anonymous Simon said...

To anonymous, the notes in the Tesco booklet say things like 'available in 95 stores'. I asked one of the buying team how we're supposed to find out which wines are available in which stores - the response was along the lines of 'Er........'

Frustrating for writers, frustrating for readers.

 
At 4:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jamie
How about changing the price of the Tesco malbec in the blog as well?

 
At 9:55 AM, Blogger Mark said...

Yes, Simon. I've got so fed up with this business that I don't bother to visit the supermarkets anymore - unless someone on WP has discovered some bargain that I just cannot resist :-)

 

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