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The Society’s Corbières 2007

Being a wine snob, I normally hate own brands.  Especially supermarket brands, even though they may well be the most reliable.  Isn’t it more rewarding to seek out a tiny independent producer in the Andes that can only be accessed by chamois wearing crampons?  A winemaker whose idea of export is chucking a couple of bottles to the next village idiot, 0.2 kilometres of un-navigable Amazon jungle away?

But I am not so sure if there is such a big difference between a carefully selected Sainsbury claret sourced from reputable Médoc vineyards, and a large scale “independent” brand such as Cono Sur, for example.

High Society, low country

One brand that I occasionally (but not always) trust is The Wine Society.  This Corbières is not rough and ready like the country wine I expected, but smooth and rich with strawberry flavours and spice.

Incredible value at £6.95.  Sometimes one has to ignore the label and just get drinking.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Rest of France. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “The Society’s Corbières 2007”

  1. Manners Says:
    January 22nd, 2010 at 9:11 am

    Dear Alastair

    I enjoy reading your blog and thank you for it. I am a recently joined society member and would be grateful for your other recommendations. Sadly the exhibition 2005 Paulliac is no more.
    In return I am happy to offer the latest decent thing in fine wine/dining in the metropolis.Keep up the good work. I hope City win the 2nd leg too.

    Regards

    Fellow Oenophile

  2. Alastair Bathgate Says:
    January 22nd, 2010 at 10:27 am

    Hi Manners

    If you look in the right hand column of the home page you will see a “tag cloud”. If you click on “wine soiety” there are currently 88 posts. Many wines will be out of date of course…. but I buy a fair amount of wine from the Society so will continue to review regularly.

  3. Peter May Says:
    January 26th, 2010 at 4:39 pm

    Being a wine snob, I normally hate own brands — but you’ve bought lots of wines from STWC/Laithwaites and virtually all their wines are own brands, i.e. wines you cannot by anywhere else.

  4. Alastair Bathgate Says:
    January 31st, 2010 at 9:07 pm

    Peter

    I take your point but not sure I totally agree. In the past maybe, but most of the stuff I buy from STWC these is en primeur or occasional purchases at the upper end, for example, the Cheval des Andes I recently swooped on as a result of a 20% off offer.

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