I am always interested in widening my experience of all things vinous so when asked if I would like to do a barrel tasting whilst in Bordeaux, I jumped at the chance. Barrel tasting involves sampling the one year old wine taken directly from the barrels they are aging in and gives a fantastic insight into the impact of the choice of barrel on the finished wine.

High quality claret is aged in oak barriques which hold 225 litres, 300 bottles, of wine. Due to the relatively low volume in each barrel and the relative high surface area of wine in contact with the barrel it can have a significant effect on both the taste and the structure of the wine. However in winemaking nothing is simple; the type of barrel can significantly impact the final outcome. Such variables as:

Where did the oak come from for the barrel? Various regions in France, California, Slovenia and nowadays Russia are the most common. Which cooper have you used? Each cooper seems to impart their own style.
What level of toasting has been undertaken? The barrel is charred on the inside to different degrees importing different flavours.

To the tasting. We sampled 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot which had been kept in barrels made by renowned barrel makers from the Bordeaux area, Burgundy, Russia and Slovenia. We also had samples from the Russian cooperage of oak from the Vosges in France. Each style of barrel gave something different to the wine. My least favourite was the Russian oak which seemed to dominate the wine importing harsh tannins and spice flavours. The Burgundian oak had a very delicate impact accentuating the fruit in the wine and delivering a creamy undertone. My favourite however was the French oak from the Russian cooperage which seemed to add gentle tannins and spice whilst elevating the fruit. This also pleased the winemaker as it is a significantly cheaper source of barrels than from the French counterparts.

Of course the true skill of the winemaker will be to blend the wines from all of the barrels to create a single distinctive wine which can age well, is complex but tastes great now. And I thought I had a great job!

Bordeaux is one of my favourite places to visit, especially in the autumn during harvest. You generally leave a cold and damp England and arrive in sunny and warm France. This week Bordeaux provided its usual welcome with a pleasant 23˚C and lightly dappled blue sky.

Due to the poor summer the harvest is two weeks later than usual and growers were still picking Merlot in the Medoc with the Cabernets, Franc and Sauvignon, still on the vine. One of the perks of this job is that I can get very close to the winemakers and I took the opportunity to taste the fresh Merlot juice. Modern wineries will usually pick red grapes, gently crush them and then keep the grapes and juice in contact in stainless steel tanks kept below 5˚C to prevent fermentation starting. This allows the colour to be gently extracted from the grape skins without removing the harsh tannin flavour, essentially the difference between making tea gently in a teapot and squeezing the teabag in your cup.

How to describe the taste of a fresh grape juice from the tank? Well you may keep a carton of grape juice in your fridge as a breakfast drink but even the best product bares no resemblance to the enormous depth of flavour and natural freshness you experience. I could have happily sipped, or rather gulped, all day at this wonderful brew, had the winemakers eyebrows not started to raise at my drinking away her future profits!

So my tip for a perfect autumn break in 2009, slip away to Bordeaux, enjoy the weather, view the beautiful city, taste the magnificent wines and beg your way into a winery to gorge on the juice!

A large part of my working life is devoted to PR and advertising, and in a world that is increasingly media hungry this is an area that devours more and more of my time.

As the percentage of time dedicated to it increases I need to find ways to make the task more enjoyable. I hate the prospect of being trapped by aspects of my job that aren’t fun ( as well as rewarding for the Aldi business), so last week I organised two seminars by Markus Del Monego at two of the UK’s major magazine houses. Markus is an exceptional figure in the wine world as he is the only person to be a World Champion Sommelier, in 1998, and a Master of Wine. Markus’s company CaveCo perform a quality control function on behalf of Aldi and I wanted to expand his role with us so that he can help me take the wine range in new and exciting directions. Part of his brief is to present wine in new ways to professional wine journalists and lifestyle commentators alike and his seminars did just that. By taking a few carefully considered store cupboard items and 3 selected wines he was able to skilfully show how our sensation of taste works and how this influences food and wine matching.

Over two days I joined in all 8 presentations and was as enthralled at the last as I was at the first. I know those attending felt the same and I am hoping to find a way of delivering this on the website in the future. Watch this space.

It is sometimes hard to convince my colleagues that trips to vineyards are not just an excuse for a couple of fun days out of the office, especially when their nearest equivalent is a visit to a fish processing factory in Grimsby! So you can imagine the looks I received yesterday after returning from my visit to Chablis and Sancerre, two of the worlds most prestigious wine growing regions.

Rather than waste breath telling them that I had to get up at 4.00am to catch a plane to Europe’s most despised Airport, Charles de Gaulle, I simply decided to exaggerate how wonderful the experience had been, adding several degree’s ˚C to the temperature and extra courses to the lavish meals experienced.

My search for suitable Chablis has been a long one but in Louis Moreau I have found the perfect partner for Aldi. The family has made wine in the region for generations and Louis builds on this tradition with his wine education in California and attention to detail in the winery and vineyard. The first bottling of our new Chablis, “Domaine de la Vigne Blanche”, took place last week and I visited to confirm that the bottling had reached the standards of the approved samples. It exceeded my expectations and will be even better once the wine has settled after bottling which usually takes 2 to 3 weeks. The Moreau family have an impressive range of Chablis from Petit Chablis to Chablis and the two premium levels Premier Cru and Grand Cru. Whilst it will be the Chablis that finds a place in the core range, the other wines are impressive and I hope to find a place for some of them in the 2009 specials programme.

From Chablis I drove the two hours to Sancerre where Sauvignon Blanc, rather than Chardonnay, is the exclusive white grape variety. My mission here was to secure supplies for 2009 as volumes have been tight in 2008 and not likely to improve next year. I also took the opportunity to taste 25 other blends of Sancerre and remain very pleased with the style we have. Unlike Chablis, Sancerre also has a red variant, rarely seen in the UK. Made from pinot noir it is light and fresh in style and makes an elegant rosé. The wines I tasted were impressive and have given me even more ideas foe 2009.

Now all I need to do is to convince the business to give me space for some of these terrific wines. I can feel another trip coming on!

I don’t know who first coined the phrase, ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’, but they were probably a cynic – someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. The thought came to me as I was looking at our own rosé wines. Five years ago we had just one, a Blush Zinfandel from California that was very sweet and smelt and tasted of a rich summer pudding drenched in cream.

We still have one, Burlwood White Zinfandel (£3.99), that has a steady market, but our range now includes pink wines from Australia, France, Italy and Spain. What is different about these wines is that they can be enjoyed on their own, or with food, right through the year.

Many of the latest generation of rosés are made in a more robust style that makes them ideal with food. Take, for example, the Viña Decana Rosada (£3.29) from the little known Spanish wine area of Utiel Requena, a rocky plateau some 35 miles inland from Valencia. This is one of the few places in the world where they grow a grape called the Bobal that is used mainly for blending with Garnacha. Leaner and more acidic than most Spanish reds, it produces a deliciously fruity pink wine that can be enjoyed with typical spicy Spanish sausages, cold Continental meats, lightly curried cold coronation chicken and even chilli stir-fried giant prawns.

The latest addition can be described as ‘An Aussie pink with muscle’. This is Bushland Merlot rosé (£4.99) that is made from 100% Merlot grown on the tough red basalt soils of the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. When I was out there recently I took part in the final blending and feel that we have a wine that will appeal to our customers all over the British Isles. Like most Australian wines it is very definitely fruit-driven, a just off-dry soft pink wine with fine tannins that can be poured with pleasure on almost any occasion; with friends, with fish, with a whole range of cold meats and pizzas. I hope you like it.

As regular readers will know I am not one to witter on about all the awards that Aldi’s wines have won. Suffice it to say check out the website for our haul in 2008 to date. I must say however, that any work I have done has been blown out of the water by my colleague, Caroline Carey, with “The Fishmonger “ frozen fish range that recently won the “Grocer Gold “ award for the Own Label Range of the Year category at this year’s Grocer Magazine Awards. This is probably the most prestigious grocery award in the UK, so short of scooping golds in every category at next year’s wine shows I am afraid I will have to remain in her shadow for the foreseeable future.

It seems that you can’t turn on the TV at the moment without some expert blathering on about the decline of the economy. This has certainly had an impact on consumer behaviour and at Aldi we are seeing the benefit. Sales are flying and hopefully our new customers can really see that the words we constantly use about quality and value are genuine. We have recently launched a whole raft of new wines from Sancerre at £8.99 and a premium Pinot Grigio de Trentino at £4.99 to entry level Italian Red and White wines at £2.79. So however much cash you have to spend on wine there should be something there to experiment with. As I’ve said hundreds of times before; whatever price you pay you won’t get better value for your cash than at Aldi.

What’s more the same principle that is applied to the wine range goes for the rest of the products in the store and now you don’t have to take my word for it. Just ask the good people at The Grocer Magazine!

After the Hunter Valley I flew to Melbourne and from there drove North East for over 250km until I arrived at Gapsted Winery in the Victorian Alps. The region is as beautiful as the name suggests and the winery itself is bordered by Mount Buffalo National Park. By then I was becoming accustomed to the sight of eight foot tall kangaroos appearing from the tree line and the description of them by locals as overgrown rabbits gives some indication of the numbers that live in this area.

Victoria is renowned for ”cool climate” wines and it seems that the weather is regarded as appalling in Australian terms; I think they need a dose of British Summer to give them a more realistic yardstick. However the relatively cooler weather delivers a fresher style of wine than is normally associated with Australia and is particularly suited to unoaked white wines. Together with Gapsted we have developed two new white wines for the Bushland Grape Selection ranges. The Semillion/Chardonnay is round with green apple aromas and the Colombard/Chardonnay is slightly fresher and zippier with citrus flavours predominating. Both are great examples of wine styles from this region and are an interesting contrast to the weighty oaked style I get from the Hunter Valley.

The distances and ludicrously low speed limits in Australia meant it was the next day before I travelled back towards Melbourne through the Yarra Valley. It is here that some serious work is done on high end cool climate Australian wines by Steve Webber Head Winemaker of the De Bortoli Wines. Steve has received plaudits throughout Australia for this work and he took me through the process of how he is trying to capture the essence of each parcel of land in his wines by adopting a “hands off” approach in the winery. The results are stunning, delicate Pinot Noirs and Shiraz’s which are in a complete contrast to “typical“Australian wine. It is great to see somebody being successfully different and any wine enthusiast should be glad to embrace the extra variety that people like Steve are delivering.

In complete contrast the last leg of my journey takes me to Adelaide where I will be in the heart of “Big Shiraz” country, the Barossa Valley. More of that later.

As I write this I am on a plane flying from Newcastle in New South Wales to Melbourne. I have just finished my first visit to a vineyard in Australia and have been blown away by what I have seen.

Our Bushland Reserve Shiraz and Reserve Chardonnay are made by the Hope Estate who is based in the Hunter Valley. This famous region, which lies two hours drive to the north of Sydney, was once home to many famous brands but as demand grew for their wines they moved to more “productive” wine growing areas, where quality has been sacrificed for volume. Michael Hope, the owner of Hope Estate, is determined to keep the Hunter Valley story alive and has recently purchased the Rothbury Winery once home to Len Evans- a legendary figure in the Australian wine industry. The winery sits at the entrance to the Lower Hunter and by using the famous cask room as a function area Michael has turned the winery into a major visitor attraction. Some of the huge wooden casks which encircle the room have been signed by famous visitors, such as Malcolm Fraser the Australian Prime Minister, Adam Gilchrist and Denis Lilee, and Britain’s own John Cleese.

The grapes for our wines are grown further up the valley at the Broke Estate, also owned by Michael. The vineyard is on a gentle slope nestling against The Great Dividing Range. Where the vineyard ends the bush begins and as twilight fell I was intrigued to see a group of kangaroos make their way to the edge of the vineyard. You don’t see that in Bordeaux!! As I walked amongst the vines examining the soil structure Michael mentioned that I should keep an eye out for brown snakes as he hadn’t any antidote in the car. I casually enquired as to how deadly the venom of the brown snake was and his response that it wouldn’t be worth calling the ambulance had me back in the 4×4 faster than a possum up a tree.

Together we have been working on new blends for a single Estate Chardonnay and Single Estate Rosé to partner our Shiraz and we believe that the wines from the Broke vineyard have hit the nail on the head. They are so good that we believe that If it ain’t Broke don’t drink it!

Have you ever heard anybody complain that there isn’t enough paperwork to do? When did you last hear someone say, “Oh great, I’ve got a huge pile of memos to prepare”. Well I am no different to most and have developed my delegation skills to minimise the pain. What would you rather do - taste a flight of wines with a winemaker discussing how to move a blend forwards - or tap away on a computer screen for hours - no competition!

However, there is one date in the diary that nobody in the wine trade can avoid and that is Budget Day. The duty increases announced on Wednesday are effective from 12.00pm Sunday night so all costs must be changed. Then there are the implications on the selling prices of wines to consider and how should we offset the costs. This week the Chancellor raised duty (and the corresponding VAT) by 14p on a bottle of still wine and 18p on sparkling wine, and this is not a cost that can be absorbed by any retailer or supplier. The impact then will be felt by the wine drinking public on their favourite tipples.

We made decisions on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning on which wines need to go up in price and which will remain the same, and these will be in place on Monday morning. After that we have to hold our breath and see what the impact on sales will be. But you can be rest assured we will not be reducing the quality of any wines in order to hit/maintain lower price points. Once you start on that slippery slope it is very difficult to stop and my aim over the last four years has been to constantly improve quality. I am not about to change that policy now!

On the 10th of March we are launching our new Macon Villages so in February I was forced to travel to Burgundy to visit the producer and confirm the blending before bottling. I can almost hear your sigh of sympathy at my desperate plight!

The Macon Villages is the next wine in our drive to broaden the number of wines that we have at £4.99, allowing customers to trade up. This is especially important as recent statistics show that the average price paid for a bottle of wine in the UK has gone above £4 for the first time and the fastest growing sector is the already large £4 to £5 category. Macon lies in the most southerly part of Burgundy, any further south and you are in the Cotes du Rhone. It produces some red wines from gamay or pinot noir grapes, and sparkling Cremant du Bourgogne, which is very popular in France. However its reputation comes from the white wine which is 100% chardonnay. In fact the village of Chardonnay, from where the grape gets its name, lies in the heart of Macon.

Although some wines from the region are oak aged, the vast majority are fruit driven with a mineral quality and this is the approach we have taken with our blend. It is bright with green apple and citrus flavours, a broad mouth feel and a long mineral finish. I love it and I hope this style is appreciated by customers. Interestingly enough a colleague of mine said boldly that he didn’t like chardonnay but on trying this I converted him. He had an aversion to oaky styles and had assumed that all chardonnays were made that way. So if you have grown up on Aussie chardonnay and want to try something different, give this a go!