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Over at www.spittoon.biz Andrew has unearthed a couple of lesser-seen French wines from Oddbins, but he clearly does not pay enough attention to FrenchDuck otherwise he would have known beforehand about the wines of the Coteaux Giennois - and would not have missed the local Bonny-sur-Loire wine fair by a few days! His tasting note for Etienne de Loury's Terre de Fumée Sauvignon Blanc, 2004, Coteaux du Gennois was: "Rich and quite creamy, spiked through with piercingly clean lemon acidity......could pass for a good quality Sancerre." Mind you at £8.99 so it should!
His other discovery comes from Bordeaux - but not white Bordeaux as we know it - here the traditional Sauvignon Blanc is blended with Gros Manseng, the Jurancon grape. Here is a classic example of the nonsense of French wine laws - this imaginative wine can only be classed as a very humble Vin de Table because a) the grapes are grown in 2 different regions and b)the only classification available in Bordeaux is Bordeaux AC, which does not allow Gros Manseng in the blend. Maybe next year the new Vin de Pays de l'Atlantique classification may encourage more experimentation like this - although this wine would still fall outside the new rules.
Château Plain-Point Blanc, 2004: "It seems the perfect summer wine - crisp acidity with appley, wet stone flavours and an intriguing unripened-strawberry finish... an edge of citrus... a splash of herbs combining into a medium bodied whole" Also from Oddbins at £8.99