The frantic rush of trade wine tastings, many of them ‘satellite’ events held to coincide with the London Wine Trade Fair, continued right to the end of last month with Dunnes Stores holding a slickly organised affair on Tuesday 31st. The theme was Mediterranean and featured wines from the ‘big three’ of the wine world: France, Italy and Spain. There was some stunning value to be had – indeed the paradox was that as the prices increased the ‘better’ wines struggled to justify their (relatively) heftier price tags.

I started at the French table where the Laurent Miguel Cabernet Syrah at a promotional price of €6.99 displayed some well balanced fruit flavours with a clean finish, which was more than could be said for its plump Viognier sibling at the same price. Easily the most impressive French wine of the tasting, however, was the Château Millegrand, Minervois 2009, on promotion at €8.99. With a civilised 13% alcohol this was a lovely, dark, deeply flavoured wine, with its firm core nicely softened by an overlay of sweet fruit.

Italy too came up trumps with some great value at the lower end of the price scale. It is hard to go wrong with Salice Salentino and the Masseria del Fauno 2010 at a mouthwatering €5.99 was light, fresh, tasty and very quaffable. Meanwhile, right at the other end of the Italian price scale, the Riva Leona Barolo at €13.99 proved that it is simply not possible to make Barolo at such an attractive price.

The Spanish wines bucked the trend and just did not seem to be able to deliver the same sort of tasty mouthfuls as their French and Italian cousins. Thankfully, there are always exceptions to sweeping statements such as that and in this case it was the Torres Gran Vina Sol that was pleasant and composed and certainly worth the promotional price of €9.99.

Tags: Dunnes