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I picked up this little bargain from
the local Sainsbury's, where it is to be found currently retailing
for the bargain price of just GBP £4.00 (and that's down from its
more usual £4.50 price label.) It's not as if you can even normally
pick up a wine anywhere for under four quid any more, unless it comes
in a plastic bottle and has the words 'basics' or 'value' inscribed
somewhere on the label. Or maybe has an alcohol content of around
four percent and is really fruit juice masquerading as an adult
beverage.
Of course, fruit juice is a 'healthy'
beverage. (Depending on who you talk to, and whether or not they're
dieting or sensitive to fruit sugar, or with blood sugar issues of
their own). Does red wine qualify as healthy, in any sense? Well,
we seem to be told so on a fairly regular basis – with quantity
being the crucial issue, and 'moderation' being the watch-word. It
has lots of pesky delightful polyphenols, that's what the
white-coated scientists seem to tell us on a rather frequent basis!
And apparently that's a very good thing! (?? Is it?)
On the other hand, from a little light
reading around, I'm also under the impression that wine contains an
awful lot of salicylates... which is fine. That's the stuff in
aspirin, too, right? Great. Unless you happen to be sensitive to
salicylates, in which case maybe not so great. (And tea also, it
seems, contains a ton of salicylates. Two of my favourite things,
then, wine and tea, jam-packed full to the gills of stuff that
doesn't agree with me. Darn it.)
But, personal vagaries aside, what
about the wine itself? Well, gotta say, for such a bargain-bin
rock-bottom wallet friendly experience, I'd rate this wine as pretty
darn good. It goes down nice and smooth, no sourness like red wine
can have that sits uneasy in the stomach, and I'd describe it as more
black-curranty than jammy. (If I was going to try to describe it at
all.) I had it with houmous and sausage sandwiches in ciabatta
bread, with plenty of nice crunchy green salad and some french fries.
I have literally no idea whether that's an officially 'good' combo
or not – but it certainly worked for me!
And as far as the actual purpose of
wine is concerned, the percentage proof of this very nice vino is
13.5 percent – so yeah, it certainly hit the spot in other ways
too! Altogether a nice inexpensive bottle, nothing wrong with it.
