Le Village du Sud, Merlot (2007) ~ Co-Op £3.99 (discounted from £4.99)

I’m going to come straight out with it: I’m a label snob. I don’t care all that much how much a wine costs (if it ends up being good) but I am – glibly, naively – drawn to elegant wine labels. I can’t quite put my finger on what makes an attractive wine label but I know what ‘feels’ wrong. It was against my better label-prejudiced judgement therefore that I purchased a bottle of Mont Tauch’s 2007 Merlot from their Le Village du Sud range. Perhaps it was the caricature of the supposed winemaker on the label that put me off, but I have to confess to having my doubts (my naff-alert alarm was going haywire). Attempts at a kind of ‘earthy wine of the peasants’ always feels a little forced in my opinion and you start to have doubts about the contents of the bottle. Normally it's just an excuse to present rough wine and sell it as 'authentic'. It is a vin de pays d’Oc (a less prestigious local ‘country’ wine rather than a fancier AOC or VDQS designation), for those who care about such things. Added to this the wine was relatively cheap (discounted to £3.99) so the two things made me more than a little nervous (I’m not a snob on price but sometimes you have to wonder about such things).

But, as with most of my prejudices, I was utterly wrong. Exhibiting a lovely deep red colour with a faintly marzipan and vanilla nose, I really enjoyed this little gem. Although it’s hard to define any particular fruit aroma other than a generic black berry flavour (there is a hint of dark cherry in there) and the finish is short, it’s well-structured and unctuously smooth on the palate. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this the perfect quaffing and chatting wine. And perhaps more crucially to a man of my particularly unrefined tastes, it went really well with the Hot & Spicy Pringles I was munching on at the time (not to mention the Sensations Chilli & Lime Sensations). I should explain that I did ‘clean my palate’ before tasting the wine but after a glass or two got the munchies. In contrast to another wine I drank that evening, the Le Village du Sud seemed to cope well with the spiciness of the snack minefield I was traversing.

Don’t get me wrong, this wine isn’t likely to end up winning any awards but it won’t embarrass you either should you take a bottle to a dinner party (it’d be a waste to take it to just a party where it’d likely as not get lost amongst all those bottles of Le Piat d’Or and Lambrini). It’d be great value for money at £4.99, let alone the £3.99 the Co-Op have it on offer at.