#383 Can Tesco do better with more money?

So the last time that I did a blind review of a supermarket, it was Tesco and their cheap wines were horrific.  They scored so badly that Lidl even beat them, so I thought that I might as well give the biggest supermarket chain in the UK a shot at recovering from my damning review.  So with an increase in budget, I tried six randomly selected wines (by someone else) from Tesco.  I tried them blind and with some other wines so i didn't know which wines were from the supermarket.  Here is what I found out.

2010 Tesco Finest Ken Forrester Chenin Blanc £7.59 (South Africa)
A little bit of pineapple, some sweeter citrus notes, but with some alcohol coming off.  The palate is disgusting.  It is full of confected fruit, too much alcohol, some lees coming from somewhere and then tons of acid.  Fake pineapple on the back end... 60pts

2010 Montana Brancott Estate Sauvignon Blanc £8.82 (New Zealand)
Grassy, lots of pepper and lime with some gooseberries covered in cream on the nose.  The palate is green, some elderflower comes through, but it is cordial like rather than fresh.  It is quite aggressive on the finish, and leaves you with a pithy flavour that isn't great.  Having said that, it is passable as a cheap Sauvignon Blanc.  79pts

2009 Jacob's Creek Chardonnay £7.11 (Australia)
Mango, papaya and lots of oak.  There is cigar box with some butter coming off.  A bit fat at first, with the oak dominating, and then you get some very bitter, yet sweet oak coming off.  White pepper too comes off and there is a return on the palate of awful underripe pineapple and cream.  72pts

2008 Tesco Finest Chateau Haut Langlade £9.30 (Bordeaux)
Big, gutsy dried fruit, a bit of sweet wood and pipe tobacco.  The palate has pipe tobacco and then some intense, rich, dark berries.  Cherry, a little bit of prune too with some big oakier characters.  Dried plums on the finish with some dark toffee, lots of herbal flavours, dried raisins too.  Not bad.  87pts

2008 Jacobs Creek Shiraz £7.11 (Australia)
Some slightly chemically fruit aromas, that clear up to give cherries and some plum jam aromas.  The palate is soft, some bramble comes through with just the slightest hint of rosemary wood.  There is a strange imbalance half way through the palate that seems to go between sophistication and tarty.  The finish has a dried fruit flavour, but then tart raspberry comes in and spoils it all.  80pts

2010 Errazuriz Merlot £8.35 (Chile)
Quite closed with plasticine.  Actually pretty unpleasant.  The palate is just dull as hell. Cherry comes through, and then some woody liquorice.  Then there is cream, too much tannin and too much acid.  This is a poor wine that tastes of pretty much nothing.  71pts

The Bordeaux was good, no disputing that, and it is a wine that I would suggest you look for when you are buying your Tesco Finest Roast Beef dinner.  The Jacob's Creek Shiraz tasted like what it was, a cheaper Aussie Shiraz and that is fine, but the rest of the wines were pretty shocking.  But what really amazed me was the prices Tesco was charging.  £8.35 for a bottle of Errazuriz Merlot!  Their website actually quotes Jane MacQuitty who says that this "creosote-stashed merlot is a cut above the rest of its £5 Chilean ilk." - so where does Tesco think they can charge over eight quid for it?  Oh thats right, they 'discount' wines to their real price!

It seems that Tesco can select good wines, as I was really impressed with the Bordeaux, but the majority are overpriced rubbish.