Seven years ago when faced with the task of finding a white wine made from a grape beginning with 'U', I chose a Cotes de Gascogne from Waitrose on the basis that it contained Ugni Blanc as the minor blending partner with Colombard. My memory, usually reliable, partially failed me when I faced the same challenge this week as I have made a similar selection. Similar in the sense that Ugni Blanc is again a minor blending partner but, in this case, its senior partner is Sauvignon Blanc.
Having spent a little more than my average last week this one is definitely from the bottom shelf.
Ugni Blanc has already appeared in these notes twice this year, once each in March and April and on both occasions it was again the minor partner in the blend. However, both of those wines (Weeks M & O) were Italian, so Ugni Blanc appeared under one of its many aliases, Trebbiano. I noted back in 2016 that the grape is used in the production of Cognac and that requires the distillation of an alcoholic liquid to produce a simple, bland spirit that will pick up flavour during its maturation in oak casks. As such the grape doesn't need to deliver a big flavoursome punch and, even if it did, as the minor partner to Sauvignon Blanc it would probably be overpowered anyway.
In this bottle we have an easy drinking, unremarkable yet pleasant white wine that as you may expect tastes very mush like a Sauvignon Blanc. It isn't as aggressively acidic as some, but I can't say whether or not that is the effect of the Ugni Blanc. It could simply be that it has been made from high-cropping Sauvignon Blanc which doesn't have the intensity of wines from more selective producers. It is very cheap so I think we have got exactly what we could have expected to get for the price.
It is the kind of wine that would be drunk happily on a sunny afternoon, up to and probably beyond the point where its consumers would have achieved the same status.
Incidentally, after the coldest and wettest May for many years we are told that by next weekend everything will have changed and then June will roar in like a lion. This is what March can do, according to folklore, before it goes out like a lamb. I hope that June isn't aware of this and gives us plenty of days when we will wish to reach for a chilled glass or two. For me it won't be a chilled glass of this wine for the same reason I am sure I have given on previous occasions, simply that there are too many other similar wines on offer and if I am going to get through them all....oh, hang on a minute, that's just stupid. I'll have whatever is on offer.
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