I vowed after that last bottle of pinot noir in central England from the up-scale

wine store that I would give up on French wines forever! I really felt that way

too, and did not want to break my resolution. I had been reading my little pocket

guide “The Best Wines in the Super Markets 2010” by Ned Halley and he is really

listing a few French ones that I felt now obligated to try. Hmmmm! What to do???

I went back to Tesco (still my local handy super market) and spotted the French

red from St Emilion. It was rated a “10” and the Tesco corp. bottled it under their

name “Finest St Emilion 2007”. The write up stated that, “Cunningly contrived new

era claret of epic weight and concentration with toffee hints of new-oak ageing is

also elegant and poised, alive with vivid fruit. Fabulous! £8.99

I was always taught that if it looked and sounded too good to be true, it probably

was! I was wrong! This wine was absolutely wonderful! An entire new taste to me

and both my wife and I really liked it. I bought more and we like it enough to keep

it stocked at home.

Now that I had some trust in the fact that France may have some good wines, I

looked at a “10” from the list of white wines at Tesco. I found one called “Tesco

White Burgundy 2007”. “Lots of lemon-gold color in this convincing apple-pie

Maconnais; pure uncorked Chardonnay of great character. Cheap! £5.89

Again, it went home with me to try, with a bit of skepticism with the country, the

price and the screw-cap, and once again, I was wonderfully surprised! It was really

good. I’ve since stocked and served this to many guests with the same review.

The toffee apple taste and the not too acid, not too sweet – just right taste is a

winner with everyone who tries it.

I am recanting what I declared about the French wines earlier in my journey to the

UK, but still am skeptical about the expensive reds I thought I had to purchase to

be a good tasting wine. The fact is that there are tons of good wine out there at a

very reasonable price. Taking advice from others on personal wine tastes is risky

and usually never agrees with what we like ourselves, but this little guide is for the

common person with a “mildly discerning pallet” that goes along with the last book

I read, “Life’s Too Short to Drink Bad Wine!” I agree – therefore I press on.

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