We bought this wine from a supermarket on the Ile d'Oléron on the Atlantic Coast of France just south of La Rochelle. This island is a wonderful place for seafood but more of that in a later blog.
The wine was nothing special but it survived a two week trip around France. We opened it with some friends when we got back.
The Ile d'Oléron is just north of the Bordeaux region and surprise surprise the red and white wines of the island are made from the same grapes as their more illustrious cousins. The wines also taste similar but not as rich; they are a little bit rustic in comparison.
Our friends had brought along a bottle of Saint-Emilion Grand Cru and I was a little bit hesitant to open such a humble wine but my friends are not wine snobs and they always give me an honest opinion. The non-vintage Insula red was nowhere near the same class as the 2003 Saint-Emilion but no-one expected it to be. Our French friends had never tasted the wine before and our English friends wanted to know what we drank on our holidays. At least no-one complained.
The Insula red just about held its own and it went down well with some English cheese: however, of course, it was a little bit rustic and light but it had the distinctive taste of the island and it didn't feel like it had been made in a factory. This is not bad for four Euros a bottle. You will never find this wine in Britain and I have not seen it in any French supermarket on the mainland.
I never knew that the Ile d'Oléron even produced wine; it is not something that you learn on a course. There is nothing like paying a visit to a wine region to get the feel of the wine and how it is produced. A visit is much better than reading about a region in a book or a wine blog - so Good Health.
http://www.vivino.com/wineries/insula/wines/ile-d-oleron-merlot-cabernet-9999
