Last week a friend of ours brought around a bottle of Lidl non-vintage brut Champagne - Comte de Senneval and it was good stuff. The wine is made by a producer who adds his brand name to the blend of wines in the bottle this it is termed as a Marque auxiliaire or Marque d'acheteur. The bottle will therefore have "MA" next to the producer name on the label.
This wine has been blended from wines throughout the Champagne region and probably there is wine from the Aube in the mix. Most Champagne is produced from blends including wine from the most famous houses.
Wine snobs will probably turn up their noses at the thought of drinking Champagne with a supermarket brand name. However, would they be able to identify a brand named wine if they were tasting blind. or friend paid £11.99 for the bottle.
The Champagne was of perfectly good quality, and it is much more preferable for my wife and I to share a bottle of this wine with friends than to drink Prosecco.
Comte de Senneval is made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes. It is a darker colour of yellow that consumers in the UK are used to and it is stronger tasting with plenty of fruit and tangy and yeasty flavours. The wine is well balanced with a well integrated acidity.It is just the sort of taste that French people prefer: My wife is from the Champagne region and was brought up drinking its famous wine. She was impressed and so was I.
The producers of this Champagne have obviously got taste buds that are just as good as the tasters in the famous houses. The buyers of Lidl also have a "good eye" for a bargain. This is good wine at a reasonable price; so well done Lidl.
I recommend that you try a bottle or two for Christmas.
I could not agree more with Helen McGinn's comments below here. Her comment about the biscuits is probably tongue in cheek. I am not able to distinguish the difference between brands of digestive biscuit blind but perhaps she has got better trained taste buds than me!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2736246/We-Lidl-class-Store-s-11-99-bubbly-woos-new-shoppers.html
