I was interviewing Oz Clarke and Chris Murphy yesterday for a feature for M&S magazine, and one of the wines we looked at was this, a brilliant inexpensive Gamay from granitic soils in the northern Rhone. It’s just a beautiful, drinkable wine of real appeal, and it is absurdly underpriced.
Marks & Spencer Gamay Vin de Pays d’Ardeche 2012 France
12% alcohol. Fine, expressive, fruity, peppery nose. The palate is expressive and juicy with lovely mineral undertones to the cherry fruit. Fine and a bit spicy with supple green undertones. Fabulously drinkable and highly food friendly. 89/100 (£4.99 Marks & Spencer)
Sounds great – just the thing for “every day drinking”!
It’s interesting this, from the Ardeche, isn’t that far away from the Auvergne from where the Pinot Noir and Gamay hail from in your post late last year. Presumably another co-op bottling, here for M&S, it’s probably not “absurdly underpriced”, simply shows that there’s a glut of good quality fruit in these areas. Ex VAT and duty that’s just over £2 to play with; must be a lake of it in fact!
To be on the shelf at £4.99 the ex cellars price would be around 90 euro cents a bottle
there’s good range of these wines (including cabernet, sauvignon pinot noir,
and chardonnay) in my local Monoprix in Toulouse, for about 2.50 euros. Cheap a
frites
When is it due to go on sale? I can’t see any on their website.
I bought 6 bottles today from Rotherham M&S, and got 25% off too, they’ve got an offer on any 6 bottles.
I too had looked online and its not on there site, but its in store now, cant go wrong at that price, cant wait for he weekend to try it.