Last Thursday was beaujolais nouveau day. The third Thursday of November when the infant wine of that year's harvest was shipped to the wine shops of Paris. A one time annual institution, which was marketed with some fanfare from France on to the wider world, it has now largely fallen off from the general consciousness. And fair enough, the wine was never that good; but offered a pleasant afternoon's distraction of levity with an equally light red wine during the increasingly dark days of late November when nothing much is going on.
During my time in Rome I came across the Italian imitation Novello. Being available from the supermarket usually for about two or three euro it actually was good value for money to enjoy in the remaining brisk, sunny afternoons.
Novello can conceivably come from any local light red grape in Italy, but much of the export produce is from Merlot dominated blends in the Veneto. This leads me to mention my favourable tasting of Sainsbury's House Red Wine, which very much reminded me of a nice Novello.
This isn't of great help to those outside the UK, but I was rather surprised when perusing the Decanter magazine awards list, they had given a bronze medal to that supermarket's ostensibly most budget regular wine.
Retailing at £4.25 it's classified as a non-vintage vin de France. This is the most open end of the appellation control bracket, replacing vin de table I suppose in a bit of a marketing gesture, as 'French wine' does sound a bit better than plain old 'table wine'. Though I have read some hopes for the re-branding of this customarily low end grading is to allow creative dabbling on grapes or blends hitherto eschewed under the strict village and regional classification system.
As a for instance, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's winery in Provence, which by all accounts is a serious endeavor and not simply a dilettantish amusement, are growing red grapes allowed the next valley over, but not under the specific Coteaux de Provence label. Thus, are choosing to go ahead and label their bottlings as 'vin de France'.
All that being said, the Sainsbury's House vin de France is comprised of Merlot, Grenache and Carignan (a southern French grape I quite like when done well). It has a lovely fruitiness to it, and if it intrinsically lacks length, you can't really do much better at that price point for a fresh, easy drinking red wine. Entirely reminiscent of Italian Merlot Novello's on sunny, cold November days in Rome!
The whole idea of supermarkets having their own label wine was a bit of a surprise to me when I settled in Britain; multiplied by the fact that much of it is quite decent, and some even very good, affordable expressions of certain wines.
An obvious example is some of Sainsbury's 'Taste the Difference' wines. (Disclaimer: Sainsbury's just happens to me my local shop in Brixton. M&S would be second. Interestingly for a case study in retail giants re-enforcing class and racial stereotypes: the Tesco in Brixton (a largely black neighbourhood) has a terrible wine section. Whereas the same supermarket in nearby yuppie-ish Clapham has an alright one.
Anyway, my first night in London a couple years ago I wandered into the local Sainsbury's and immediately marvelled that they had a Barbaresco on discount offer for £6. It was only after I had gotten home to the flat I was crashing at that I noticed it was somewhat oddly titled 'Taste the Difference', taking me several weeks to realize that was a supermarket's own premium brand range.
Fast forward to to this month, and I have again found Sainsbury's Barbaresco on offer (now at £8, but still a fantastic buy). The 2011 vintage now on sale is especially nice, and if you'd found on the shelf of some independent wine shop it wouldn't look out of place at three times the price.
Barbaresco is made in the Piedmont from the Nebbiolo grape. Most famous for producing Barolo, one of Italy's heavyweight reds, this Barbaresco actually looks light in the glass, but has incredible length and structure. It's made in the Langhe Hills from 20 to 40 year old vines, and is quite simply unlike anything else you're going to find at a supermarket for £8.
Another lovely, earthy sort of autumnal wine from Sainsbury's Taste the Difference range in the very same Italian region is their Barbera d'Asti. Regularly priced also at £8, it's occasionally on offer down to £6. Barbera is a grape, and by extension, wine I'm often picky about since you can come across some expensive duds.
The Barbera d'Asti (denoting the town it's vineyards surround) is actually a richer wine than the Barbaresco, and would be perfect with hearty winter dishes. The Barbaresco I might pair with cheeses or, naturally enough for the locale and time of year, truffle associated pasta.
For those situated elsewhere than the UK, I'd suggest keeping an eye out for well reviewed Barbera's or Nebbiolo varietals labled as coming from the Langhe region in general, as they are usually better value for money than DOCG rated Barbaresco.
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