NV Veuve Monsigny, Grand Reserve, Champagne, France
£16.99, Aldi
Bargain basement Champagne is a dire category of wine that I force myself to taste because it is my job (and someone has to do it). Imagine my surprise when I sipped “ordinary” Veuve Monsigny (£12.49) – a fish-tank-scented sparkler which, incredibly, wins occasional awards – and then traded up to its black-label sibling, expecting an even more dismal experience and yet finding a wine which made me gasp with joy.
This rather well-packaged Champagne, with its insultingly low price point, is a genuine revelation. I went one further and tasted the 2010 Vintage Veuve Monsigny (£19.99) and regretted it. The vintage wine is a monster with clumsy, yeasty, burpy fruit, but the Grand Reserve, which by now looked like it was wearing a tuxedo next to its stablemates, shone even brighter and so I went back for a second sip.
This wine is a vinous aberration in the sparkling Aldi cosmos – it is only the second wine from Aldi to have made my column in 682 issues – and I urge you to take the plunge and taste it. It is fabulously well-priced, beautifully appointed and genuinely delicious. It cannot last. Just as the first vintage of Toro Loco, which I wrote up in the Mail, and which sold by the container-load, didn’t last. But don’t worry, just load up. It might be another six and a half years before another one comes along.
• Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition’s Communicator of the Year (matthewjukes.com)