A couple of weeks ago, instead of heading into Enowine, I nipped across the road into Marks & Spencer in Dublin’s IFSC and picked up three reds.

Domaine des Garennes Minervois La Livinière 2005 (€13.50)

Domaine des Garennes Minervois La Livinière 2005

  • Looks: Deep, dark, ruby
  • Smells: Dark cherries dominate the smell
  • Tastes: a rich cherry fruit with a little bit of pepper
  • Verdict: I really liked it, Marks & Sparks delivers on this one and I wouldn’t be afraid to buy here again based on the quality of this one.

Vacqueyras Domaine de la Curnière 2006 (€14)

Vacqueyras Domaine de la Curnière

Vacqueyras is incredibly easy to misspell. Apart from that what’s more interesting is that it’s just up the road from Châteauneuf du Pape in the southern Rhône, but a lot cheaper for the most part.

Google Map of Vacqueyras, Chateauneuf du Pape and Gigondas

See the interactive Google Map

So is it any good?

  • Looks: full-bodied, dark ruby colour
  • Smells: slightly spicy
  • Tastes: quite fruity with a definite spiciness going on two
  • Verdict: Pretty good, enjoyable

Tasmanian Pinot Noir 2006 (€9.50)

Tasmanian Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir has a reputation for being difficult to grow, whether that’s true or not is open to debate. Whatever the case, it often commands a relatively high price compared to other grape types.

So, when you see one for under a tenner it’s either a rare find or, more often, disappointing. So what of this one, a Tasmanian Angel or Tasmanian Devil?

  • Looks: Medium bodied, clear, much lighter than the Minervois
  • Smells: of damp towels
  • Tastes: Very fresh fruit raspberry or cranberry, and little earthy, but it’s all about the fresh red berries here which is all a little sour
  • Verdict:While not offensive, the sourness (or really fresh fruit depending on how you look at it) puts me off it, even at this price. You can get far better Pinot Noir for the same price elsewhere (read my recent post on Pinot for under 10 euro).

Overall thoughts on M&S wine

Marks & Sparks do a decent job with food, so why not wine too? In addition to the pretty decent quality of the above wines, overall, I also like their labelling.

It’s a fairly good bet that there aren’t many wine experts on the floor of a typical M&S store to help us choose from their wide variety of wines.

Consistent back bottle labels attempt to answer common questions that anyone would have when trying to pick out a wine.

Back label from M&S wine bottle

The back label is structured as follows:

  • Style: what’s the wine like?
  • Serving: what food does it go with?
  • Keeping: how long can you keep it?
  • About this wine: bumpf on where it’s from, bit of history etc.

Overall, my pick of the bunch was the Minervois (Domaine des Garennes Minervois La Livinière 2005)