Lidl’s Winter Wine Tour starts this Thursday November 24th 2022 in-store with 21 Christmas-matching wines from England, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Chile and Canada. So slightly fewer wines to choose from than in previous Wine Tours but there’s still plenty to pop open with the turkey and mistletoe.
The eleven red wines are all big hitters on the flavour scale. So if you like a lighter style of red then look to Lidl’s regular unchanging red wine range where you’ll find their cherry-tasting Chilean Cimarosa Pinot Noir (£4.29) and the plummy French Pays D’Oc Merlot (£4.69).
The pick of the Winter Wine Tour reds has to be the cheapest – the Gran Selone Rosso D’Italia at just £5.99 with its rich, spicy flavours that will match well with more informal Christmas meals and snacks (turkey-topped pizza?), closely followed by the second most expensive of the reds a Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon (Medalla Real Cabernet Sauvignon Gran Reserva £11.99) with flavours of blackcurrant and cedar that’ll withstand keeping, unopened, for a couple of years if you have somewhere constantly cool to ‘cellar’ it.
The one and only rosé wine in this Wine Tour is at the other end of the taste spectrum to the reds – light and fruity with a slight sweetness, the Portuguese Cabriz Rosewein Dao (£6.99) will match the Boxing Day poached salmon or decorative prawn ring.
If you want a wine to refresh the parts other wines cannot reach then try the Hungarian Gedeon Birtok Zold Veltelini (£6.99) with its crisp flavours – one of four white wines in the Tour at £6.99 or £7.99.
There’s got to be a Prosecco in the sparkling hasn’t there – at £7.99 it’s not the cheapest supermarket Prosecco around (Asda’s Nice Drop Prosecco is just £6.25 but has little flavour or fizz) but Lidl’s choice does come in a pretty bottle.
And for dessert then pick up a bottle of Canadian Ice Wine (£13.99) with its sweet and luscious flavours. Named ‘ice wine’ after the frozen grapes picked during a cold and freezing night, this ice wine is one of a dying breed as global warming is making the right conditions and freezing temperatures more of a rarity even in Canada.
Wineuncorked.co.uk recommends
£5.99 Lidl
Rich, spicy flavours that will match well with more informal Christmas meals and snacks.
Medalla Real Cabernet Sauvignon Gran Reserva
£11.99 Lidl
Flavours of blackcurrant and cedar that’ll withstand keeping, unopened, for a couple of years if you have somewhere constantly cool to ‘cellar’ it.
£6.99 Lidl
Light and fruity with a slight sweetness. A great match to the Boxing Day poached salmon or decorative prawn ring.
£6.99 Lidl
Crisp and refreshing with pear aromas.
£7.99 Lidl
Fresh fizzy pear flavours with a sweet edge.
£13.99 Lidl
Sweet and luscious flavours made by picking frozen grapes on a cold and freezing night.
