Is a Eur5 bottle of sparkling wine from Carrefour any good? This is a bottle of Blanquette De Limoux at Eur5. The first thing that hits you is the intense aromas of apple cider and pear from mauzac grapes, there’s also Chardonnay and Chenin in there. The flavours are more pear. It’s dry and light but a little one dimensional. For Eur5 it’s on the mark cash wise but Carrefour do better for about the same money.
Blanquette De Limoux from Carrefour, France
We had our first Loire Valley wine tasting trip in 2015 and this was one of the last vineyards to visit yet one of the best. Great tour and explanation of the various parcels of land and the different soils in each, the difference in the range of wines was astonishing.
This is their crement, sparkling wine and is one of the nearest to champagne crements I’ve tried. A dry sparkling with aromas of toast and yeast with light citrus notes. The flavours are very much towards that typical toasted bread under tone and dry, high acidity after taste you get with champagne yet stops just short of being to overpowering. £12 a bottle makes this a wonderful sparkling.
Domaine Richou – Loire Valley crement
This is a favourite of mine. It’s a big producer, with 6 million bottles produced each year.
The evening started with a tour of the old caves which were used to store the wine, only a small amount is stored here now. The caves are limestone and the limestone was used for the local buildings over the last thousand years.
The wines are varied, sparkling wine is excellent with rounded aromas and flavours of the underlying grapes and good value at Eur10 or less for the majority of the range.
Bouvet Ladubay tasting in the Loire Valley, France
Bouvet Ladubay line up in the Loire Valley, France
The Guilleminot family are a relatively small producer, the benefit of this to us is that they have a wonderfully unique style. This is made with Pinot Noir and although you get the yeasty bready aromas the flavour is more fruit driven. Sure this will still go with seafood but it also goes very well with homemade pizza.
Champagne Guilleminot NV Brut