Review rated by 53 Ciao members on average: very helpful
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Oh Wow!! As many of you who know me and my opinions by now you will have realised that I like my alcohol, and wine in particular. Part of my extensive research for the likes of Ciao and its readers involves the arduous testing of many different wines.
It’s not often I am truly disgusted and find something bad to say as many of my choices, though I say it myself, have been very good and pleasurable. Having said that this time I seem to have picked a real minger of a wine!
I picked up a bottle of Tesco Australian White wine the other day whilst shopping for a few bits and pieces. A standard 75cl bottle was £2.99 with a further 20% off at the till on this occasion making it cost a total of about £2.40 – maybe that should have been a warning?! There is cheap wine and then there is CHEAP wine! I have been able to buy many wines at what I consider a good/cheap price and the taste and quality has been very good – not so in this case I am sorry to say.
This comes in a plain green bottle with a colourful yet strangely old-fashioned label and the name is pretty basic – just “Tesco Australian White Wine”. Produced in the South Eastern region of Australia this boasts being a “fresh crispwhite wine with citrus fruits and herbaceous flavours”. Well, what can I say??! It is a honey yellow/brown colour with a strong aroma of apple and lemon. I poured a glass and took a large sip and – YEUGH! – it’s horrible!! An overpowering taste of I’m not sure what hit me – maybe this was the “herbaceous” bit – bit it struck me as strong, plastic-tasting and sickly all at the same time. I struggled through the glass full and still have half a bottle of this left – very unusual for me as you will know I can normally polish of a standard bottle of wine in one evening.
Like most white wines this is best serve chilled (if you can face it at all) and is supposedly good for accompanying dishes such as chicken, fish and salad. On the dryness scale (1-9 = driest to sweetest) this is labelled at a number 2 which tastes about right albeit with a hideous sickly back-of –the-throat aftertaste. The alcohol content is 12% volume which is around average for this type and grade of wine so you could become tipsy on it if you can bear to drink enough of this particular one!
For me, personally, to finish off this bottle (can’t bring myself to yet, have gone back on to the Sainsburys Anjou!) you would need a generous addition of maybe soda water or lemonade to dilute it and take the edge of it.
Maybe I had a duff bottle? I don’t know, but I would not recommend this one to anybody!
It does say just wine on the label? No reference to a grape variety like sauvignon blanc, chardonnay or such? Well then, the price speaks for itself, it´s really impossible to produce decent wine for less then 3 pounds. Whenever you find a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand give it a try, its crispy flavor is worth every penny spent..
05.05.2002 00:53
Cheap is horrible ( sometimes) and this IS minging! Chunka!
01.05.2002 21:08
It does say just wine on the label? No reference to a grape variety like sauvignon blanc, chardonnay or such? Well then, the price speaks for itself, it´s really impossible to produce decent wine for less then 3 pounds. Whenever you find a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand give it a try, its crispy flavor is worth every penny spent..
28.04.2002 21:57
I always trust your opinion on wines. Australian wines are usually quite fruity and cheap. Thanks...Paul