It’s tried serving burgers (with its disastrous acquisition of the restaurant chain Giraffe) and coffee shops (ditto with Harris + Hoole) but now Tesco is branching out into wine bars.
Well, sort of.
The supermarket best known for groceries, television adverts featuring the actor Prunella Scales, and investigations by the Serious Fraud Office has opened a pop-up wine bar in London’s Soho district, which for the next two weeks will serve only Tesco’s finest* wine range.
A visit to the bar – housed in a Soho art gallery on Wardour Street which is closed for the summer – quickly introduces you to wine waiter, Ricardo.
He’s good looking, Italian, and extremely confident in his patter – until you ask for a glass of claret. The bar has none, Ricardo says, despite the looming presence of Tesco’s finest* Médoc or its finest* Chateau Montagne St Emilion on the menu.
Ricardo replaces himself with his boss, Shane, of the West London Wine School, a man with phrases in his locker such as “residual sugars” that challenge drinkers to concentrate for the entirety of his sentences.
At some point he utters something along the lines of “youth and a lack of complexity”, and while it’s not quite clear if he’s talking about the wine or his staff, he recommends Tesco’s finest* Rioja Reserva 2011.
Wine buffs might tell you that 2011 is not Rioja’s “finest” year, but this one is certainly agreeable enough, at least mid-afternoon after a good lunch.
Sensing a lull in proceedings, the ever attentive Shane returns with a complimentary snifter of the Médoc, but one feels his heart isn’t quite in it and his scepticism is quickly validated. With each bottle of the Médoc, Tesco might also want to throw in a free case of gout, as sips improve only after taking a mouthful of Stilton.
Then there’s another Rioja (this time the Gran Reserva 2010) and perfectly drinkable that is too.
Lisa, the server on this occasion and a survivor of the Hardy’s wine events at international cricket, says the staff had heroically tasted all 48 wines in the pop-up bar the night before.
She insists, of course, that not all of it was digested, with plenty of Tesco’s finest* propelled down the spittoon. The Médoc, it seems, has its uses.
