More banging on from me about how we should look to the independent merchant for the more interesting wines – small producers, interesting flavours, unknown grapes etc etc but such purchases do not have to be the idiosyncratic, often you just need something decent and mainstream but still retaining that small producer mentality…

Wine Tasting Note: Château Les Tonnelles, 2004, Fronsac, France.
Available from Bordeaux-Undiscovered [more] for £7.99 (normally £11.99) More on: Adegga / Snooth .

Very French (for which read Bordeaux) in style and structure – the aroma has a lovely fruity edge that needs a little teasing (swirl/decant) to really reveal itself – don’t forget that aroma offers so much to the overall enjoyment of wine – is that blackcurrant, blackberry, leaves, undergrowth?

The Bordeaux Undiscovered website states that this ‘drinks well on it’s own’ but I disagree – it’s a classic French food wine – unless you enjoy hearty tannins – and in that regard is highly recommended with a simple roasted game bird. In this case it is stuffed with herby sausage and served with a potato-parsley-garlic mash and a broad bean puree (the latter left over from the Pappardelle with Broad Beans and Rocket dish).
The wine is 100% Merlot. Alcohol 13.5%.
Scribblings Rating – 90/100 [3.75 out of 5]

Château Tonnells lies in Saint Aignan, Fronsac, which has 2,100 acres of vines on the Right Bank of the Dordogne River a few miles away from Libourne. Château les Tonnelles forms part of the estate of Saint Emilion Grand Cru, Château Badette, which was left to the town after no heirs to the estate were left to inherit. The vineyards are only 19 acres in size with the name, Tonnelles, taken from the ‘wooded arbours that dapple the hillsides’.