Wine note
Tesco Finest Cote de Gascogne Rosé 75cl (£7.50)
“A Rosé by any other name would smell as sweet.” Shakespeare knew that you don’t have to buy a rosé with a Provence label to get a fresh fruity wine.
This one costs just £7.50; why pay £3 more for the Provence equivalent?
Of course, Tesco doesn’t have a simple wine pricing system. You could have got this bottle at 25% off if you had bought it before Monday 10 November. That’s just £5.63 for lots of bottled sunshine.
Côtes de Gascogne is a region in southwest France between the Dordogne and the Spanish border. It’s close to Bordeaux so the grapes are the classic claret varieties, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.
This wine is produced by one of France’s largest cooperatives, Plaimont, which was founded in 1979 when the region produced grapes predominantly for making Armagnac. It now has around one thousand growers growing grapes for reasonably priced table wines.
The colour of rosé is no guide to its quality. This wine is pale pink, a very fashionable shade which suggests to consumers that the contents of the bottle will be delicate and lightly fruity with refreshing acidity. And that’s what you get. There are hints of plum and blackcurrant on the nose and the palate and a long finish.
It’s wine that can remind us of summer at, as Shakespeare said:
“That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold”
John Freeland
Kibworth & Smeeton W I
