One to test the prejudices today.
As an explorer, keen to keep learning about what makes wine enjoyable for me and what might make it enjoyable for others, I sometimes have to remind myself not to get stuck in any ruts of my own making and only explore those bottles that fit some unspecified but constraining criteria.
One such criterion could be that a wine has to have something that makes it unusual to qualify it for selection. Whilst I have become something of a fan of Marks & Spencer, especially the Simply Food branch in Tring because they stock such a wide range for such a small shop, I don't feel the same way about Tesco. They have, I think, a smaller and certainly less diverse range and have to carry the baggage of being, well, Tesco.
However, a red wine with a strong enough connection to the letter 'O' to qualify for selection is proving hard to find and the day job is doing as good a job of competing for my attention as my two cats usually do when I am trying to read (or type this pointless stuff) that I needed to get on with it and overcome my probably irrational instincts.
Week O (2015) Ogio Primitivo 2014. Tesco £5.50.
First thing to notice is that there hardly any information on the bottle. This usually makes me suspicious but, when studying with WSET, I once undertook an assignment to assess what differentiates 'good' from'bad' wine labeling and I used a very acceptable red Burgundy as the example of 'bad', for exactly the reason that the producer appeared to expect wine drinkers to know everything they should need to know from the word 'Bourgogne'.
In this case there is a bit more on the back label (the Bourogne just had a bar code) and tells the buyer to expect spicy blackcurrant, raspberry and a smooth velvety finish and, to be fair, that's probably all you need to know if you are picking a bottle from the bottom of the wine wall. The name itself reveals the variety ss Primitivo, a red grape known in Califorinia as Zinfandel.
Does it live up to its own billing? Yes, it does. It is a good example of a well made but inexpensive wine. It tastes of what it claims to taste of, doesn't have rough or unripe tannins, isn't either mouth burning with alcohol or mouth stinging with acidity. On the down side, it isn't complex, is of a medium everything from body to finish and doesn't make me want to call or text any of my virtual friends (I don't mean 'on-line' friends, I mean most of them don't actually exist) to encourage them to try it.
A little research on the Tesco website revealed an honest marketing description that declares the wine by suggesting 'served with a big plate of pasta, this is hard to beat' and that it is 'utterly made for TV dinners'. Spot on, I think. My tasting panel and I had this with Liver & Bacon, mashed potato and onions. I liked it, but neither of my associates passed any comment. Always a clue.
Finally, I notice that it was credited to a winemaker named Alessandro Botter, whose business is mostly concerned with bottling, appropriately.
As an explorer, keen to keep learning about what makes wine enjoyable for me and what might make it enjoyable for others, I sometimes have to remind myself not to get stuck in any ruts of my own making and only explore those bottles that fit some unspecified but constraining criteria.
One such criterion could be that a wine has to have something that makes it unusual to qualify it for selection. Whilst I have become something of a fan of Marks & Spencer, especially the Simply Food branch in Tring because they stock such a wide range for such a small shop, I don't feel the same way about Tesco. They have, I think, a smaller and certainly less diverse range and have to carry the baggage of being, well, Tesco.
However, a red wine with a strong enough connection to the letter 'O' to qualify for selection is proving hard to find and the day job is doing as good a job of competing for my attention as my two cats usually do when I am trying to read (or type this pointless stuff) that I needed to get on with it and overcome my probably irrational instincts.
First thing to notice is that there hardly any information on the bottle. This usually makes me suspicious but, when studying with WSET, I once undertook an assignment to assess what differentiates 'good' from'bad' wine labeling and I used a very acceptable red Burgundy as the example of 'bad', for exactly the reason that the producer appeared to expect wine drinkers to know everything they should need to know from the word 'Bourgogne'.
In this case there is a bit more on the back label (the Bourogne just had a bar code) and tells the buyer to expect spicy blackcurrant, raspberry and a smooth velvety finish and, to be fair, that's probably all you need to know if you are picking a bottle from the bottom of the wine wall. The name itself reveals the variety ss Primitivo, a red grape known in Califorinia as Zinfandel.
Does it live up to its own billing? Yes, it does. It is a good example of a well made but inexpensive wine. It tastes of what it claims to taste of, doesn't have rough or unripe tannins, isn't either mouth burning with alcohol or mouth stinging with acidity. On the down side, it isn't complex, is of a medium everything from body to finish and doesn't make me want to call or text any of my virtual friends (I don't mean 'on-line' friends, I mean most of them don't actually exist) to encourage them to try it.
A little research on the Tesco website revealed an honest marketing description that declares the wine by suggesting 'served with a big plate of pasta, this is hard to beat' and that it is 'utterly made for TV dinners'. Spot on, I think. My tasting panel and I had this with Liver & Bacon, mashed potato and onions. I liked it, but neither of my associates passed any comment. Always a clue.
Finally, I notice that it was credited to a winemaker named Alessandro Botter, whose business is mostly concerned with bottling, appropriately.
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