Tarlant Brut Zero

A nice simple bottle of Champagne for a Wednesday evening to try and stave off the January blues. Tarlant Brut Zero NV: This non-dosage NV champagne is a blend of a third each of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir & Pinot Meunier, disgorged in Febuary 2007. This is a straight forward bone dry honest champagne, offering a fine mousse, some bready aromas and fresh salty apples on the palate (sounds strange but it's actually quite tasty) . Not the longest or most complex wine I have ever had but it's an excellent mid-week quaffer, that went well with a Dominos pizza but would probably suit some fresh shellfish even better.

This wine cost ~€15 ex domaine and at that price is an excellent QPR. Unfortunatly, I don't think the wine is available in Ireland and I feel that there is a gap in the market for this type of champagne (Decent, unoffensive, drinkable, well priced champagne). One wine that comes close to this, that I can think of off hand, is the Beaumont Des Crayeres NV Grand Reserve (€26) available in O'Briens (no connection) although it probably isn't quite as good. This used to be my favourite midweek champagne before heading over to Champagne last May and stocking up on multiple cases of other wines.