As you know last week I visited Portugal and it may surprise you to know that Portuguese wine is not all about Port. Perversely for a country that is renowned for deep, full-bodied fortified wines its other speciality is quite the opposite, light, fresh, lower alcohol wines with a light spritz; what do you mean you have never heard of Mateus Rosé?! Rosé wine sales throughout the UK have grown at 30%+ for the last 3 years and I would be very surprised if it didn’t make a comeback.

Within Aldi rosé sales are booming. Only two years ago we had just one rosé in the range, our Zinfandel Blush, but we now have four at different price points and levels of sweetness.

1) Vina Decana Rosé at £2.99. This is a wine from the Utiel Requena region of Spain and is made entirely from the native Bobal grape. It is almost bone dry and has received acclaim from several wine writers and drew praise at the 2006 Quality Drink Awards.
2) Badgers Creek Australian Rosé at £3.29. We launched this product as a Summer Seasonal line in 2006 and it proved so popular that we moved it into the core range from January this year. This is still officially a dry wine but has a touch of sugar to bring out the fruit flavours. This summer, this wine will also be available in a fridge-friendly 3 litre bag-in-box priced at £11.99.
3) Eagle Ridge Zinfandel Blush at £3.29. Like many Zinfandel rosé wines this has been sweetened and has 26g of residual sugar per litre. It is fruity and easy to drink and is many peoples first step into drinking wine. This has grown by over 90% a year for the last two years emphasising the trend for rosé wine.
4) Vina Italiana Pinot Grigio Ramato at £3.99. It is very unusual to make a rosé from a grape variety associated with white wine. How is this done? The Pinot Grigio grape is a beautiful bronze colour rather than the green you see on your typical Thompson Seedless. The colour is extracted by leaving the juice in contact with the skin for a short time. Not too long as you will extract tannin which makes the wine taste bitter, not too short or you won’t get enough colour. Be careful though as some Pinot Grigio rosés are made by adding a touch of red wine from another grape variety into white Pinot Grigio. Pinot Grigio Ramato, like ours, is made from 100% Pinot Grigio. Launched this week it will make a great addition to our range of rosés.

Finally from April to August this year we will have a sparkling rosé in the range and priced at £3.99 I am sure it will prove popular.

Back to Portugal. Another wine that most people will know is Vinho Verde. This can be found in a range of styles but I have chosen a product that is low in alcohol (at 11%) and is fresh and fruity with a slight spritz. We will be featuring this as a special during the summer and it really is the perfect drink for a hot summer’s day.

The wine specials programme is a great way for me to try wines that I would not be able to fit into my limited range. It allows me to find wines that are just right for a certain time of the year e.g vintage port at Christmas or to meet a special occasion such as when we listed Greek wines during the Athens Olympics. Sometimes though I simply use the programme to give customers the chance to try something different. On Thursday 29th March you are in for a treat. We are taking three wines from Taylor’s - a highly regarded Australian winery. Taylor’s are the producers of St Andrews Cabernet Sauvignon and two years ago this wine was voted ‘The Best Australian Red Wine’ and ‘The Best Cabernet Sauvignon in the World’ at the prestigious International Wines and Spirits Competition. I haven’t obtained this wine from them but the three wines on sale are made by the same winemaker and this shines through in the quality of the wine. Wakefield Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon, Wakefield Unwooded Chardonnay and Wakefield White Cabernet are a red, white and rosé and I will be staggered if you have tasted better Australian wines for under £5. I haven’t!

Every supplier has a room set aside for the crucial process of sipping, slurping and spitting and whilst the text books tell you that they should be pristine areas of bright light, white walls and stainless steel sinks, more than any other room they reflect the personality of that supplier. I have sampled in rooms that are like a science fiction parody of cleanliness - imagine the TV room in the film “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and you are not far off. Others resemble a traditional dining room with strategically placed spittoons whilst some combine tradition with futuristic elegance featuring designer furniture and sinks crafted from old wine barrels.

I thought that I had seen everything that a tasting room could offer. I was wrong.

Last Tuesday, I was the guest of a port supplier who stores their ageing wines in the traditional location, cellars built into the hillside on the banks of the river Douro. We wound our way upwards through the cellars passing barrel after barrel and emerged into the offices. From there we entered the tasting room.

I was faced with an enormous picture window which displayed the old town of Oporto in all its glory, shimmering in the spring afternoon sunlight. Truly stunning it was like standing next to a huge freshly painted Canaletto. Concentrating on the wine was a real challenge.

Port is not a single wine but a category in its own right. The most basic style is Ruby Port and we sampled a range of these. ALDI’s brand is Fletcher’s Ruby Port and we sell significant quantities, mainly I believe because for the price, £4.39, the quality is excellent. This, however, doesn’t stop my paranoia and I am continually on the look out for better options. If I don’t do it my competitors surely will.

The rubies I tasted were good but I never make any decisions at the supplier’s location, it is too easy to get carried away on a wave of enthusiasm. I have asked for samples to be sent to my office where I will reassess them in an objective atmosphere.

Next up were Tawny Ports. These are aged in smaller barrels and leads to a lighter (tawny) colour and a flavour more influenced by the oak of the barrels. In particular I was looking for older tawnies - 10 years plus which develop toffee aromas blended with dried fruit flavours. I found a delicious option which again I will asses at my office. I hope to be able to present this as a Christmas special.

Finally we sampled some late bottled vintage (LBV) Ports which we also put on sale towards Christmas. These are similar in style to Ruby Ports but are aged in barrels for slightly longer before bottling. Again I found some excellent options for further consideration.

The lasting impression of my visit is that I should drink Port more often. One shouldn’t feel that Port is an old man’s drink for sipping whilst smoking a cigar after dinner. A glass of Ruby Port, with its deep fruit flavours and natural sweetness, is a lovely drink to have on its own after a hard day’s work. If you haven’t thought about Port before, give it a try. A whole new world of pleasure awaits!

Last week I told you why I liked screwcaps so much. So does this mean there is no future role for cork in the ALDI wine range? Of course not!

There is something deeply satisfying and slightly mysterious about uncorking a bottle of wine and I would hate to be responsible for removing that pleasure from our customers. Further, wine laws in certain countries forbid the use of screwcap so it wouldn’t be possible to change all of our wines.

I believe that cork has an important role to play in more serious, complex wine that is drunk with food. When eating with friends opening a bottle with a corkscrew is less a chore, more a ceremony and adds to the pleasure of the occasion. By their nature more complex wines are more expensive and this means I have more money available to specify a higher quality cork, from better cork suppliers. This in turn reduces the risk of the wine being tainted by the cork.

Good examples of ALDI wines that will stay with a cork closure are the Ile La Forge range which consists of a Cabernet Sauvignon, a Chardonnay and a Viognier all at £4.99. Whilst they are Vin de Pays wines and I could technically use a screwcap closure, the style of the wines are better suited by cork.

Generally speaking then, fresh young styles to be drunk everyday and that are great on their own I will put in a screwcap. More complex wines which are aged slightly longer and better drunk with food will have natural cork. As ever, my aim is to give ALDI customers the widest possible choice within a tight range.

Talking about complex and aged wines I am travelling to Porto on Monday to improve my knowledge of the arcane world of Port and to select the right products for our Christmas range. I have only become responsible for fortified wines relatively recently and I am looking forward to the opportunity to create or discover new products.

As anyone who has ever had a Port-induced hangover will testify, it is not a drink to be approached without caution so I will need to be careful not to swallow during the sampling sessions. Wish me luck!

Not so long ago everything was clear when you opened a bottle of wine. You grabbed the bottle, reached for the corkscrew and pulled out a cork. Simple.

Now when choosing your favourite bottle of wine you may be faced with one of several types of rubber/plastic corks, a natural cork or even a screwcap. What has driven this change is one of the most discussed points in the modern wine industry. The simple truth is that the traditional cork is not really that good a seal for modern fresh wine styles, made in large volume. Firstly, cork is a natural product and therefore each cork is subtly different from the next – not ideal in any manufacturing process. Secondly, it is susceptible to contamination from an invisible fungus which can taint the wine. Estimates vary between 2 and 10 on what percentage of wine is contaminated - depending on who is telling the tale, but one thing is clear, using cork causes problems. Thirdly, good quality cork is expensive.

For these reasons winemakers have been experimenting with alternatives and we have seen huge increases in the number of wines using high quality screwcap technology.

I must pin my colours to the mast and disclose myself as a card-carrying member of the screwcap approval society. Why? Three main reasons.

1. It simply is a cleaner, better seal than any other widely available system and seems to retain the youthful freshness of wine better than cork or plastic.
2. It is easy to open. No messing around looking for a corkscrew or having corks snap in the middle when halfway out of the bottle. Surely I can’t be the only person on the planet who has covered his shirt in red wine after punching a broken cork back into the bottle!
3. It is easy to close. You don’t have to drink a whole bottle at one sitting or struggle to put the cork back in at the end of the evening, making it far more consumer-friendly.

Screwcaps are not the cheapest solution but they do offer good value for money and help ensure that the customers get to taste the product the winemaker wanted to achieve.

Within the ALDI range we have been steadily moving more and more wines into screwcap and almost without exception sales have increased when we have done so. It seems that ALDI customers are as aware of the benefits of screwcaps as I am.

The latest two products to get the screwcap treatment are our two Spanish wines, Vina Decana Tempranillo and Vina Decana Rosado. Both of these wines are young, fresh and fruity and are perfectly suited to using this approach. Deliveries start next week so by the end of April I should know if customers like the change.

So is the end nigh for cork in ALDI? I will discuss that next week!