A great friend of mine doesn’t need to come to The Thinking Girls’ Wine Night. She already knows exactly what wine she likes. She started her love affair with wine earlier than most when she worked at one of Raymond Blanc’s restaurants up north. After some initial flirting with Viognier she found her true love was Sancerre, the crisp, zingy style of Sauvignon Blanc from north west France that makes your mouth salivate with pleasure.She has good but expensive taste and as a big fan of Sancerre myself she tasked me last summer with finding one for her where quality and price were not mutually exclusive. Tricky. Every time we saw each other I’d get a twinge of guilt for having yet to fulfil her mission. We’ve enjoyed some nice bottles together in restaurants over the months but failed to find them on the high street. To compensate I’d over enthusiastically guide her to price sensitive alternatives like Western Australian steals and
the ugly duckling of the Languedoc, Picpoul de Pinet, but they never truly satisfied her thirst.
Then last week I struck gold at the Asda press tasting – a genuine surprise – when I came across a wine coincidently named very almost after the quality in the bottle; Oscar Brill(i)ant Sancerre 2011. Grassy, green, lime juice and gooseberry goodness. £11.27 a bottle. It has brilliance (very almost) written all over it……
