Marks & Spencer.

Goosegogs

Mr Dunc,

I had the 09 Pinot Burgundy £10 jobby at Marks at the weekend. It was so light it could have been a French bag in the box country wine for £10 a box.

Nonsense wine. Shocked at M&S.

I could only just tell it was red wine it was so light.

Me

G, which wine ? The web site does not list a generic Bourgogne. Goose, as a warning - folks who bother to read this stuff need to know which ones to avoid.

**Just about any PN from the region for the vintage in 2009, that attained the right colour, could be made into something ! Burgundy is a big area, 600 or so named domaines

** BEWARE


Goose, you're not the only one - you seem to have good pinot noir authority. What precisely does a Decanter bronze mean - No Obvious faults for a tenner, from a prestige, yet huge region ? Hmmnnn.

A load of that burgundy price will be Import tax, VAT and logistics and the cost of wages in France.

The word “Bourgogne” appears thrice on the almost-impressively dull label of this Marks & Spencer red.

What school of logic requires three instances of a word the target audience (even at their most wine-savvy) simply don’t use, I couldn’t say. We have a word for wines like this in English: Burgundy. Marketing a French wine at an English audience with the French word for an English word that’s been in common use for centuries seems daft to me.
See the rest of the article.

http://www.redwine.co.uk/france/marks-s ... inot-noir/

The name of the wine is designed to catch-out unsuspecting customers with this: CONFRÉRIE DES CHEVALIERS DU TASTEVIN.

There will be a load of watery tat coming out of the lower and flat muddy parts of Cote d'Or, probably from the extremities well east of the N74

Goose

Maison Du Tastelune - Duh !

Buy burgundy from Tom Innes or Mentzendorff if you're looking for Cote d'Or complexity, or take the ferry & car to France. Expect to pay though.

Bacchus

Seems that the Maison du Tastelune whites have several good comments [Mersault and St-Romain] whilst this PN has nowt but negative remarks. Including...

A Marks and Spencer effort (which I’m, perhaps unfairly, always rather nervous of). Glowing ruby in the glass- looks good. Quite a bit of sweet fruit on the nose: some raspberry and blueberry but slightly pedestrian. Rather flat in the mouth.'

Goosegogs

Good link..........If I thought Marks woud allow me to post that in their reviews section I would. Majestic do allow negative comment as do Virgin ( which is the only good thing about Virgin Wines ). Marks marketing people would faint at the sight of the words thin and watery.

Comments, and the original complaint made by Goosegogs. later comments provided by Bacchus and me

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Duncan

Very cleverly done indeed. A fine and noble travail.

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Four wheels move the body - 2 wheels move the soul.

Cheers B, it'was a bit of a fiddle, On this thread, t'was me who promoted useful avoidance advice for readers who come here, so I was obliged to follow through.

BTW thanks for the 60's link Me and me dad used to sail past those pirate radio station forts. Sealand and the other one at the eastern end of the Solent. I don't think anyone was that annoyed by them, other than the Exchequer !

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Duncan

Excellent, MrD,

However, I shall still see what mischief I can cause on the M&S website.

But then again G, you may leave it there, no point in making a lot of noise. Cheap bourgogne is always pale - excepting perhaps '05 and '03 and '90 of course.

This is a precis of what Tom Innes has said of the mysterious Pinot Noir. I completely concur.

Pinot Noir - what does it taste like? It is one of the charms of this grape variety that it is very difficult to pin down – if you're a control freak, Pinot Noir is not for you, it is too unpredictable. Stick to claret and avoid red burgundy. The grapes for claret will produce wines where you can be reliably sure of what you're getting. This is the fashion these days – part of "value for money" is reckoned to be the avoidance of disappointment. With Pinot Noir you will probably meet some disappointments, but the high points make any number of disappointments worth it.

Many of the bottles of a generic cuvee will taste different, even though they will have the same label stuck on the side ! You can spend a lot of money on a 1er cru, and still find the wine misbehaving on that particular occasion

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Duncan

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Four wheels move the body - 2 wheels move the soul.

G - Bacchus is waiting for the fireworks ! Don't let me spoil it for him

I saw this wine in M&S this morning. It is very pale when you hold the bottle up to the brightest light you can find in the store ! If you can find one !! Non dom Bourgogne PN is very very pale, however if the body of the wine does not build in the glass after decanting and stiring if necessary, then you know.......

The rest is history.

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Duncan