Aisles of plenty

“Every few years, we review the whole range and decide to take some wines out and put new wines in,” he says. “This time we have taken out a few more than we have put in, but that still leaves us with over 1,300 wines in the range.”

Tesco are the UK’s largest wine retailer, selling one in four bottles, but they are rather coy about exactly how much wine that amounts to. Certainly their turnover on wine is reckoned in billions of pounds.

It is customary to be disparaging about big business. Often when a company wields enormous buying power the quality of the product suffers, but judging by last week’s Tesco tasting, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Of the 160 wines on show, a great many hit the mark on style and quality, and there was enough innovation across the board to show that this was a real range review, not just a rearrangement of the labels.

Walking down the wine aisle at Tesco can be baffling, with hundreds of labels all competing for attention, so it is easy to see why many customers head for the special offers. But they are not what they were. The “three for £10” deals have finished at Tesco, and while there are still plenty of good discounts on a monthly basis, they have started to give Clubcard points rather than money off on certain wines – to encourage customers to try something different.

The average price paid for wine in Tesco is just under a fiver which these days is quite challenging, but the fastest growth area is in Fine Wine, between £7 and £10, where it is possible to put some interesting liquid into the bottles. I tasted through all the wines on show and these are the wines that made my tastebuds sit up and take notice.

Tesco Finest is a range that has frequently managed to balance quality and price and this continues with new vintages of Finest Gavi 2010 (£8.29) from Italy which has long, elegant herbal notes, while Finest Albariño 2010 from Galicia (£7.79) brings together apricot and floral notes with nutty complexity on the finish. Both are terrific wines to team up with salads, fish and chicken for summertime drinking.

I also enjoyed the Finest Côtes de Provence Rosé 2010 (£7.99) which is stuffed with ripe strawberry fruit and has a soft, rounded texture that makes it good to pour alongside grilled tuna or lightly spiced vegetarian dishes.

Finest Nero d’Avola 2010 in rosé and red form, both scored well. They come from the modern Settesoli winery, in Sicily, and while pure raspberry notes jump out of the rosé version, the red is more subdued with juicy black cherry fruit and a sprinkling of herbs. Both are priced at £6.99.

From Chile, Finest Carmenère 2010 (£8.99) has all the right dark blackberry flavours, with silky tannins adding weight and balance. Less impressive was a new Teroldego 2009, from Trentino-Alto-Adige, Italy (£5.99) which lacked the lively acidity which normally comes from this area, and the Finest Vinho Verde 2010 (£7.29) which had a bitter streak and lacked fruit.

Overall, when tasting through these Finest wines I found myself writing “expensive” against many of them, which makes me suspect that some will feature on future offers lists.

There was very little on show under £5 which is not surprising if they are trying to move their customers over the £5 mark, but Tesco Mâcon Villages 2010, with its zesty, citrus and melon flavours, is well worth snapping up at £4.89.

Heading over the £5 mark, the Zalze pair of wines, from South Africa, showed well. Priced at £6.99, both are worth the money, with ripe, forest fruit flavours in the Shiraz Mourvèdre Viognier 2010, and lively apple and lemon fruit in the Chenin Blanc 2010.

But it was the new wines in the upper reaches of the household budget that Tesco had really put on show. Tahbilk Cellar Selection Marsanne 2008 (£9.99) from Victoria, Australia, is a delightful wine, with a complex blend of honeysuckle, melon and cinnamon spice.

Bellingham, The Bernard Series Grenache Blanc Viognier 2010 (£10.99) blend from South Africa is another stunner with peachy, lychee flavours and an undertow of white pepper. Both have enough complexity to warrant their price.

Among the reds, head for Pago de los Capellanes 2010 from Ribera del Duero (£12.99) for its dark plummy fruit backed by structuring tannins, while Terre di Priori Brunello di Montalcino 2006 (£19.99) shows real Italian class with leathery, truffly notes among the savoury red fruit.

Also on show were some wines that you would do well to avoid. The new range of quarter-size bottles, containing a bare mouthful, at just 187ml, were consistently disappointing in quality and, at £2.29 each, are poor value.

If you only want to drink a glassful, buy a proper bottle and invest in a vacu-vin which pulls the air out the bottle and keeps the rest fresh.

Also not worth trying are the new low-alcohol wines under the Banrock and Beachcomber labels. At just 5.5 per cent alcohol, they are overloaded with sweetness.

One aspect that Tesco have been pioneering in recent years is to reduce the carbon footprint of some wines by moving bottling to the UK. It makes much more sense to ship wine across the globe in a special sealed container and bottle it in the UK, so saving the cost and the carbon impact of shipping heavy glass bottles.

They have extended this environmental theme by taking the containers off the ships when they arrive in Liverpool and putting them on a barge which then chugs the 40 miles down the Manchester ship canal to the bottling plant.

Overall, this was a good Tesco tasting, where they are definitely moving the quality bar up, and focusing the range. But I still have the feeling that prices are set at a level that make it possible to run significant offers throughout the year. Watch this space.