Two ways to beat the Monday blues – Spanish Rioja or French Bordeaux

The usual Monday blues feeling is bad enough.  Feeling cheated of a public holiday because it fell on a Saturday makes it doubly worse right?  Fear not, here are two red suggestions to chase away the blues.   The  NTUC Finest wine section has quite an interesting mix of wines.  These two specimens caught our eye recently.  A 2006 Chateau Fourcas-Dupré ($31) and a 2009 Vina Del Cura Rioja Gran Reserva ($36).

Chateau Fourcas-Dupré is from the Listrac-Médoc, not the most prestigious of the Bordeaux regions, but it has some decent reviews. The Spanish Gran Reserva is actually a Tesco Finest wine which also has some good write-ups.  Don’t think of the words “supermarket wine” and it will taste better.  Here is an article on the Listrac Medoc in the Decanter magazine : Listrac-Médoc – spread the word.

Looking for good and cheap wines in Singapore is always a challenge because of our tax structure that is based on alcohol content. This is regardless of value.  It can be said that it is a good system as it encourages the consumption of ‘better’ wines, but this is a debate to be had another day.   Back to the bottles in front of us – at thirty-something bucks each, the price tags seem reasonable in the Singapore context (although they cost less elsewhere). These were being sold by NTUC Fairprice Finest at promotional prices.

The ten-year old Fourcas-Dupré had aged nicely and tasted much better than its $31 price tag would suggest. The younger Spanish wine was more fruity and brighter in taste. Both were great with food, especially some oily ‘local tapas’ dishes – dry char siew noodles and carrot cake.    We need to glam up our under appreciated local dishes. So stop by the neighbourhood hawker centre, bring home some local delicacies and pick up a bottle of these reds from the nearest NTUC Finest wine shop.

Mondays need not be blue.

Cheers!