Grocery store wines: where is the fruit?

The wines sold in grocery stores are of the same caliber as the frozen pizzas offered there: a “food” base that must be “pimped” to ensure a minimum of dignity. We have already talked about it. We have already drunk it. Is it allowed to reoffend?

The receipt of two samples of wines bottled in Quebec provides us with the opportunity to update the file. “Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed”, says Lavoisier in his Elementary chemistry treatise from 1789. Is it necessary for all that to guillotine in 2021 the idea that we have of wines imported by pinardier to be bottled at home? The duty got his head on the block with a blind comparative tasting by country, grape varieties and price ranges of wines bottled in their country of origin and those bottled here.

The cleaver is sharp. Tasted between 12 and 14 º C, the wines sold in grocery stores and SAQs have proven to be interchangeable in terms of quality and at comparable prices. In this specific tasting, the SAQ wines did not rise to where we might have expected them. On the grocery side, the disaster. Wines with makeup, on the whole intact, but devoid of fruit – you have to do it! – and above all endowed with bitterness sometimes so pronounced that they could only be erased by a good frozen pizza.

Some impressions – sometimes severe – delivered without prejudice. Note: some wines are rated without stars (0).

Chardonnay

Life is Beautiful ! Louis Lurton, France (bottled in Quebec – $ 14.79 + tax). Pleasant surprise. It’s dry, simple, fresh with a hint of aromatic apple-banana yeast. Short. © ★★

Baron Philippe de Rothschild 2020, Pays d’Oc, France ($ 13.20 – 407528). The Baron Philippe range disappointed. Wines bottled at the estate? Green apple nose and neutral palate, a little drying. Sad. © ★

Pinot Noir

Le Reservoir, France (bottled in Quebec – $ 14.49 + tax). Getting to grips with pinot noir is already a challenge. Here it is, dull, dusty, grassy, ​​pasty, bitter and elusive. © ★ ½

Baron Philippe de Rothschild 2020, Pays d’Oc, France ($ 12.70 – 10915247). Grape variety identified here, but blurred on the background. Taste of chips, light body, fruity ghostly, bitter and short. © ★

Tempranillo

Toro Loco, Spain (bottled in Quebec – $ 13.29 + tax per liter). Sweetened to hide astringency, which nevertheless comes back at a gallop. Impression of artificial flavors of blackcurrant jelly on atramentary finish. (0)

Organic Bù 2019, Spain (bottled in Quebec – $ 15.49 + tax). There is good in the range of sommelier Jessica Harnois. Not here, alas. Lack of frankness (lactic, sour), without fruit or substance. How is it possible ? Too expensive ! © (0)

Moraza Organic 2019, Rioja, Spain ($ 18.80 – 12473825). Recognized blindly. Clean, light tannins, little relief, but balance. Expensive, but correct. © ★★

Merlot

Francus 2020, Julia Wine, France (bottled in Quebec – $ 12.79 + tax). It’s clean, discreet, vegetal (shavings), supple, industrious on the technical level. © ★ 1/2

Baron Philippe de Rothschild 2020, Pays d’Oc, France ($ 13.45 – 407544). The descent continues. Vegetal impression, with that taste of aspirin that stiffens the palate. Better on the nose. Where is the spherical charm of merlot? © ★

Cabernet Sauvignon

Les Trois Pignons, France (bottled in Quebec – $ 13.19 + tax per liter). The fruitiness here has a hint of reduction, without dispelling the vagueness, moreover. A liter of drinkable “wine”, closer to drinkable wine than anything else. © ★

Bù 2019, France (bottled in Quebec – $ 15.99 + tax). I placed this wine in Cabernet and in Europe. That’s already taken. For the rest, a little peppery, vegetal, very fresh, with a good mouthfeel. A hint of charm wouldn’t have hurt her. Flank steak and fries? © ★★

Little 2019 Ken Forrester, South Africa ($ 15.05 – 11155171). This Little one has had better days. A touch of rhubarb, happily rounded off by a hint of Merlot (15%), but all the same a whole lacking in charm and conviction. © ★★

Legend

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