Award-winning Wines from Lidl

Lidl in Portugal enjoys a more mainstream supermarket reputation than it does in the UK. Shopping there provides some excellent bargains and access to a number of products that have won leading magazine taste-testing accolades over recent years.

Portuguese wine winners – the reds

Lidl’s wine selection provides several staple Portuguese brands, but also some that don’t tend to be found in the country’s other supermarkets. This week, we decided to put some of Lidl’s award-winning wines to the test, selecting three medal winners – two reds and one verde – all of which were purchased at typically low Portuguese prices.

Dona Ermelinda – 2013 Challenge International du Vin Gold Medal Winner

A lovely wine – rich and full of dark fruit flavours. This is definitely a wine for sipping and not glugging and, as it’s quite heavy, more of a winter wine than a summer one. We ate it with a light vegetarian meal, but it would be better suited to hearty dishes such as stew and dumplings.

Nobre Colheita Alvarinho 2012 – 2013 Challenge International du Vin Bronze Medal Winner

This was a lovely fresh and fruity wine. It didn’t have any fizz to speak of, and was a little darker in colour than we usually expect from a green wine, but neither of these facts was to its detriment. Packing a full, concentrated flavour, we found this wine to be very drinkable and it stood up well to the big pasta meal that we served it with.

Almocreve 2010 – 2012 Mundus Vini Gold Medal Winner

The Almocreve was by far the lighter of the two reds that we purchased. It tasted like a glass full of tipsy red berries and was much more of a summer wine than the other two. The Almocreve was our clear favourite of all three wines.