WITH Geoff making sticky tarts, the best beverage I could recommend to match is a nice cup of tea.
So, with that in mind, I thought I'd talk about wine labels and packaging this week. As a nation, we're definitely more inclined towards bottles with nice labels, but should that be our main consideration? I once knew a senior buyer who would only buy a bottle if it had an animal on the label. That surely can't be right.
I'm sure we've all been swayed by fancy packaging in the past, but you'd think with 17 years in the wine trade I'd be beyond all of that by now. Sadly this is not the case.
This week, I was considering writing an article on wine boxes, so I bought a few interesting ones to review. The most expensive of was a Sauvignon Blanc from Chile that came in a very posh looking blue tube and it cost nearly twice as much as the other two - but I figured that because it looked nice, it would taste nice too. I can't remember ever being so disappointed in a wine. It wasn't off, or oxidised, it was just badly made, and displayed none of the characteristics of the grape that you'd expect. Very disappointing.
Clever marketing results in bottles with interesting names, and (of course) animals on the label … but don't be drawn in. Buy your bottles (or boxes) from reputable merchants and you'll get a decent product irrespective of packaging.
Incidentally, the best wine box tasted this week was the Toque Virtuoso Sauvignon Blanc (M&S, £11.99) from Valencia in Spain. It was smooth, soft and approachable, as well as being extremely gluggable. Bring on the summer!
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