Vergelegen Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot 2018

Vergelegen sounds to me like the noises you would hear as a drowning man goes down for the last time. I tried to forget this and approach the bottle with an open mind. Not bad, but a bit too oaky, a bit too fruity – I couldn’t help thinking it was created by a committee looking for something to match their focus group’s idea of what a supermarket punter is looking for. Or perhaps by the monolith aliens as something to serve Dave Bowman in his hotel room simulation. I bought this at Tesco last Christmas during a 25% promo and it cost me £6. In UK terms, that’s probably about right. Trouble is, I’m an inveterate French supermarket scourer, and you can buy stuff way more satisfying than this at around half the price when the time is right. But this isn’t France of course, so there’s a buyer’s premium of £2.50. So the final verdict – drinkable enough, won’t frighten the horses (or the neighbours at your BBQ), but uninteresting and depressingly generic.