Unearthed Gemischter Satz, Niederösterreich, Austria 2024 (£8.99, Aldi) With changes in duty adding an extra uncomfortable squeeze to the inflationary pressures that have affected all grocery products, wine retailers are finding it ever more difficult to source good wine at affordable prices. Rare is the wine of character and taste at less than £8, or even £10, these days, and I can count the number of genuinely appealing £5 bottles I’ve tasted in the past year on one hand. Retailers are trying to get around this issue by trawling away from classic, established areas and presenting whatever random assortment of cheaper offbeat wines they have found on the bulk market as “hidden gems”: hence the proliferation of own-labels with names on a theme of Loved & Found (Waitrose), Found (M&S) and Discovery Collection (Sainsbury’s). Despite the “virtue of necessity” feel, the wines are frequently among the more interesting supermarket bottles, none more so than Aldi’s latest find in its “Unearthed” line: a racy, tangy, springtime-floral aromatic Austrian white that punches some way above its £8.99 price tag.
Buenas Vides Argentinian Organic Malbec, Uco Valley, Argentina 2024 (£7.99, Aldi) Austria was also the source for one of my favourite new Aldi red wines, a satisfyingly spicy, blackberry-juicy, refreshing and chillable red Specially Selected Austrian Zweigelt, Niederösterreich 2024 (£8.99). It was all the more appealing for being properly dry – as is so often the case when I taste supermarket wine ranges these days, far too many reds at Aldi’s recent tasting came with an unwelcome dose of sugar. Red wines that avoided the sweetness trap and that offer the same kind of bargain hunter’s buzz I feel when I buy a jar of Aldi’s palm oil-free peanut butter included what I think is Aldi’s best-value wine: the authentically savoury, supple Chassaux et Fils Côtes du Rhône 2023 (£5.29); and a pair of malbecs from Argentina’s Uco Valley: both the Buenas Vides Uco Valley Malbec 2024 (£6.29) and Buenes Vides Organic are worth the price of admission, although the extra violet-aromatic lift and succulent plum and cherry of the Organic really stand out when you taste them back to back.
Castellore Organico Prosecco, Veneto, Italy NV (£6.99, Aldi) On the white side of the Aldi wine aisle, I thought Baron Amarillo Rueda Verdejo 2024 (£5.99) was a nicely tropical-tangy, bright and limey example of the verdejo variety from the Rueda region in Castilla y León, which is typically, punchily aromatic in a way that will appeal to drinkers of the passion-fruit-and-guava end of the New Zealand sauvignon blanc spectrum. I also liked Specially Selected Costières de Nîmes Blanc 2024 (£8.99), a languid fleshy peachy take on the classic white Rhône Valley blend. Perhaps Aldi’s strongest suit, however, is fizz: the retailer has a knack of finding good-value sparklig bottles in a variety of styles, with highlights right now ranging from the reliably biscuity flavours of bestseller Veuve Monsigny Champagne Brut NV (£14.99) to the invigorating apple crisp Specially Selected Crémant de Loire NV (£8.99) and the pristine, gently pear-scented Organico Prosecco.
