Vinya Carles Priorat Crianza 2007

With the holiday season upon us LIDL tends to come up with the odd special, whether it's frozen moose meat, entire geese, 3-bird roasts or windshield-wiper fluid, it's usually good value. The wine is no exception.

Priorat has a reputation for upmarket, complex wines. I've never seen one less than £12, which in itself is arguably good value for a quality wine. To see one for £5.99 is intriguing to say the least.

The wine itself is not bad at all. Not a world-beater, but pretty good. Depth, complexity, and fruit were all there. The funny thing with these LIDL wines is you're expecting them to be terrible, and they're not. Some of them actually do reflect their price tag, but this certainly doesn't. My local LIDL has sold out of this already, but if yours hasn't I suggest you snap some up.

Vinya Carles

Priorat Crianza 2007

Catalonia, Spain

LIDL

£5.99

3/5

Les Celliers de Saint-Jean Beaujolais Primeur 2011

I've been meaning to try Beaujolais Nouveau for awhile now, but I've never made it a priority. Beaujolais isn't my favourite wine, as the concept of light, fresh, gluggy wine for me is satisfied by whites and rose wines. I'm also not a fan of young reds. However, since LIDL is my main supermarket these days and they had a big display of this wine it was time to give it a try.

Huge Ribena, raspberry nose, and no length whatsoever to speak of. Initially this was going to be resigned to the rubbish bin. However after a few sips it grew on me. Its essence of fruity freshness and drinkability was outstanding, and this is the whole point of this wine. I get it now.

By the end of the bottle we were wishing we had more, and I regretted not going for the 2 for £9 deal.

Les Celliers de Saint-Jean

Beaujolais Primeur 2011

Burgundy, France

LIDL

£4.99 (2 for £9)

3/5

LIDL Montepulciano D'Abruzzo 2008

Friends of ours brought this wine over last weekend for our Hallowe'en party.

Yesterday was one of our wine club evenings, and the theme was Riesling (blog post coming soon), so I was avoiding red wine. Miriam opened this wine for dinner, and I helped her finish it after the tasting.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It seemed really fresh and lively, with a good streak of acidity throughout it and really drinkable. Perhaps my mouth was a bit sensitive to acid after tasting 6 classy but young and acidic Rieslings, but this went down really well. I really should taste it again before rating it, but first impressions do count for a lot.

I'm not sure what the price is, but most likely under £5.

LIDL

Montepulciano D'Abruzzo

Abruzzo, Italy

3/5

Lidl Rheinhessen Eiswein

I walked into Lidl the other day to buy some groceries, not really intending to look at the wines. I'd pretty much given up on them as a source of cheap everyday wine - it's just not very good.

However they had this Eiswein (icewine) that day. This was the first German icewine I've tasted. I'm Canadian, and icewine is basically the signature wine of Canada. It has its origins in Germany, and it was first produced in Canada by German and Austrian immigrants. I'm not really an expert in it though - I got into wine after I moved to the UK, and my experiences with Canadian icewine have been limited to mostly what's available in the airport duty-free (it's a cliché Canadian gift, right up there with maple syrup). It's also very expensive.

So, imagine my excitement when I saw this available in my local Lidl for the remarkable price of £6.99. I think it was a one-off because of the 'while supplies last' sign. It was worth a try - Germany knows what it's doing when it comes to icewine. In fact, it was enjoyable. It was concentrated and almost botrytis-like. A couple of glasses in and you could notice a bit of a vegetal finish, and compared to a top-class sweet wine it falls short, but it's certainly not bad for £6.99. I'd buy it again - it would be a good wine to serve with a cheese board when you don't feel like you need to splash out.

Apologies for my incompleteness again (and the crap photo) - I left the bottle at a friend's house, and don't know the producer, vintage or grape variety. I did check the label, and the grape variety definitely wasn't on it. You can draw your own conclusions (i.e. it doesn't matter).

Lidl Eiswein

Rheinhessen, Germany

Lidl

£6.99

3/5

Lidl Tarragona Gran Reserva 2002

Buoyed by a couple of decent wines purchased at Lidl recently, I decided to try this Catalan red that was going for £3.29.

D.O Tarragon is a region that specializes in aromatic whites, much of which are used in Cava production. This red is made from Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and aged in oak for 2 years.

It has a ripe, raisiny alcoholic nose, and its flavours are similar, with the ever-present oak and a bit of a sour aftertaste. Not so great really. It is drinkable, but I'm not sure I'll purchase it again.

DO Tarragona
Lidl
£3.29 (£4.49)
2/5

Lidl Soave Classico 2007

I have this risotto recipe that calls for a glass of white wine as an ingredient. I usually buy a bottle of the cheapest dry Italian white I can find and use that. Depending on the wine's drinkability, I either save the rest of the bottle for the next time I make the risotto, or drink it.

I thought for sure this wine was going to be in the former category. I bought it from Lidl, and it satisfied my minimal requirements (I just saw "Soave" and "£3.62"). When I actually tasted it I was pleasantly surprised - not only was it not hideous, it was actually pretty good. When bought it I didn't actually realize it was a "Classico", which should, in theory, mean a step up from just plain Soave.

Let's not get too carried away, it's a fairly simple wine - the sort you'd get in a pub if you ask for a "dry white wine", and it has a bit of a grapey, confected aftertaste. But like all wines, it has its time and place and it would suit me just fine with an olive oil and garlic pasta dish.

I'm not sure who produces this wine, but I think it's the same producer that makes this. It's not clear from the label and I can't be bothered trying to work it out. It's probably a co-op or something.

UPDATE: This isn't so great, having tried it a couple of more times. I'm changing it from a 3 to a 2.

Lidl Soave Classico 2007 DOC
Verona, Italy
Lidl
£3.62
2/5

Barcelino Catalunya 2005

Well this is interesting. The folks at Lidl have done it. They've found a very good wine and managed to sell it for under £5 a bottle, with pretty much no fanfare.

This IS a good wine, not like that other one from Lidl that I blogged about a few days ago. Lots of fruit, complex-ish flavours, good depth and if you don't mind, a bit of oak. A lot of spiciness too, probably from the 3 months of aging in American oak. I'm not normally a huge fan of oaky flavours, but it suits this very well.

This normally sells for £4.99 which is already great value, but right now it's on sale for £3.49, which is almost a crime. I'm stocking up.

Barcelino
DO Catalunya 2005
Lidl
£3.49 (£4.99)
3/5

Lidl Montepulciano D'Abbruzo 2007

I was reading the paper the other day and came across an article by a wine writer trying to find acceptable sub £3 wines. Her quest inevitably led her to Lidl, where value for money is a religion.

My fiancee and her friend have been shopping at Lidl (I feel compelled to say "not exclusively") for some time now. At first I dismissed it as a crap German store that sold crap German versions of crap food, for, admittedly, good prices. It might have been the Prosseco they sold that put me off (it's grim). But after a while I started to appreciate Lidl. Some of the stuff is actually pretty good, and some of the prices are insanely cheap, and they have these weekly, themed specials that have become habit-forming for us.

Anyways, one of the wines this journalist mentioned was their Montepulciano D'Abbruzo. I think she said it was "at least swallowable" and "tasted Italian". Well, what more do you need? We tried it and, well, it was swallowable and did taste Italian. Don't get me wrong, by no means was it great, or even good. This is a £3 bottle of wine and it tasted like it, but that doesn't mean it was bad. I'd buy it again. The next time we're having pasta with tomato sauce and we've run out of Sassicaia (cough), what could be better that having Lidl's finest Italian red on hand?

Lidl
Montepulciano D'Abbruzo 2007
Abruzzo, Italy
£2.48 (£2.98)
2/5