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Friday, 20 February 2009

The Other End of the Spectrum

Having tried an expensive-but-not-*that*-impressive champagne on Valentine's Day, a couple of nights ago we popped open the £5 bottle of sparkling wine, a chardonnay, riesling, chenin blanc blend from Vina Maipo in Chile, that we bought at the supermarket. Not for any special reason - two sodas would have cost us almost the same amount, so we just opened it as my husband ate a homemade calzone and I finished off some leftover venison stew.

Drinking this wine after having recently had a champagne from a wonder year was an interesting experience, though. The Vina Maipo had a very nice flavour - a strong grapiness at the start, mellowing to tropical fruits with a hint of pineapple at the finish. But it also had a totally different and very thin mouth-feel - almost like drinking skim milk after being accustomed to drinking full-fat.

In a blind tasting, would you know this wasn't an expensive wine? Yes. Would you care that it wasn't the priciest or the best if you were drinking it in the middle of the week with leftovers for dinner like we did? Absolutely not. You'd enjoy it, and it would give your meal that little bit of something extra that mid-week meals need. That's the beauty of well-made, inexpensive sparkling wines.

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