Lot 18 Baden Pinot Blanc Reserva, limited edition from Aldi

Pear drops appear as a flavour on the WSET Level 3 Systematic Approach to Tasting Wine. Pear is also there, and I’ve previously wondered about the need to have both. Well, thanks to this limited edition Pinot Blanc from Aldi, now I know: pear drops are like pears on steroids; genetically enhanced, uber pears who have been caught doping at the Pearolympics.

This is my first encounter with Pinot Blanc, a mutation of Pinot Noir described by Jancis Robinson as “useful rather than exciting”. Bit harsh on the evidence of this one, made by Fritz Keller in Baden – where Germany, Switzerland and France converge. Maybe I’m becoming synesthetic (I hope so) but it also smells like the colour gold. Its honey-drenched bombardment reminds me, if anything, of a Muscadet sur lie. It’s been aged in oak for six months, but those oaky flavours are very much kept in the background, where they belong.

“This wine is unique,” says a label tied around the neck by a piece of string. And it’s true, the bottle is numbered out of 35,000. Mine’s 18,670. At a tenner it’s one of the budget supermarket’s most expensive offerings, but it’s definitely a pear worth dropping in for.

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4 SHURIKEN

Lot 18 Baden Pinot Blanc Reserva, limited edition from Aldi. 2015, 13%. £10.