Lidl’s Italian Wine Tour starts this Thursday January 19th 2023 in-store with 26 Italian wines. So more wines to choose from than in the previous Winter Wine Tour and there’s plenty to pop open unless you’re taking part in the no-alcohol #DryJanuary challenge (see here for Review: 25 #DryJanuary No-alcohol wines).
Eight of the nine red wines are all big hitters on the flavour scale ranging in price from £6.99 - £9.99. 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 (£3.99). The Italian Wine Tour has a wine in a similar style – Passamano Frappato Syrah (£6.99) with flavours of sweet cherry and strawberry with a spicy edge. Made with the Frappato grape variety with a mix of Syrah (also known as Shiraz) added in, this is an unusual wine but you can find a similar in the Waitrose Loved and Found range where they have a Frappato for £8.99.
But the pick of the Italian Wine Tour reds has to be the Albaruta Montefalco Rosso (£8.49) with its rich and powerful flavours of smoky blackberry – which is half the price of the Waitrose Baiocchi Montefalco Sangrantino at £16.99. Both Lidl’s Italian Wine Tour Montefalco, and the Waitrose equivalent, will withstand keeping, unopened, for a couple of years if you have somewhere constantly cool to ‘cellar’ it.
The two rosé wines in this Wine Tour are at the other end of the taste spectrum to the reds – light and fruity. The Negroamaro Rosato (£6.49) has a jammy sweetness while the Mithus Basilicata Rosato (£9.99) is a lighter drier style in flavour and colour.
If you want a white wine to refresh the parts other wines cannot reach then try the Weissburgunder at £7.99. Although the name of this wine is in German, it is an Italian wine – one from the northern Italian region of Trentino Alto Adige which borders Austria and Switzerland. Here they speak a regional dialect of German and so the Pinot Blanc grape transforms into “White Burgundy” and refers directly to where this grape variety also grows well – in the French region of Burgundy. The wine tastes nutty and refreshing.
There’s got to be a sparkling hasn’t there – and this Italian Wine Tour has two. An organic red Lambrusco (£6.99) and a lightly sparkling white – Malvasia Colli Piacentini at £6.99 – with sweet and spicy flavours.
Wineuncorked.co.uk recommends
£6.99 Lidl
This Sicilian red wine has flavours of sweet cherry and strawberry with a spicy edge. Made with the Frappato grape variety with a mix of Syrah (also known as Shiraz) added in, this is an unusual wine so try it while it’s here.
£8.49 Lidl
A rich and powerful red with flavours of smoky blackberry. This wine will withstand keeping, unopened, for a couple of years if you have somewhere constantly cool to ‘cellar’ it.
£6.49 Lidl
A rosé wine that’s light and fruity with a jammy sweetness.
£7.99 Lidl
The German speaking region of Trentino Alto Adige transforms the Pinot Blanc grape variety in Weissburgunder. The wine tastes nutty and refreshing.
£6.99 Lidl
Lightly fizzy and aromatic, this sparkling has aromas of peach and apricot with a spicy taste.
