It’s something most of us struggle with. A supermarket aisle or shop shelf stacked high with wines featuring every kind of grape, vintage and country of origin imaginable. Unless you’ve spent some serious time (and money) tasting your way through different bottles and keeping track of those you did and didn’t like, you’re left at the mercy of whatever information is on the back of the bottle or the shelf. In supermarkets especially, it’s too easy to be drawn to whatever’s on offer, or sticking to the few particular varieties you’ve had in the past.
That’s where Pulp Wine comes in. Every month they send you four half bottles of wine, which you then rate online from 1 (you didn’t like it) to 4 (you loved it). As your ratings are collected, the team can then create a ‘wine taste profile’ which lets you know which styles of wine you should keep an eye out for. It’s a simple idea, but it’s how the monthly boxes are themed that really help you discover wine – one might find out whether you prefer light or full-bodied styles, or the sorts of fruit flavours you like to find in a bottle. They’re meant to be drunk side-by-side, so you can compare properly and really find out what’s best for you. You can either drink them casually or really get involved, reading about the wines on the Pulp website (which even includes little summaries on different aspects of wine, food matching and winemaking). In any case, when you're out shopping or in a restaurant you can access your 'Wine ID' at any time through your phone, which should make choosing the right bottle easy.
To put it to the test, CEO and founder of Great British Chefs Ollie Lloyd and editor Tom Shingler tried out Pulp with their partners – hardly the worst gig in the world. The first box was designed to find out whether they liked oaked or unoaked wines, both white and red. The box included a 2015 Australian Chardonnay from Shaw + Smith (white, oaked); a 2016 Spanish Rioja Blanco from El Coto (white, unoaked); a 2012 French Montagne Saint-Emilion from Chateau Gachon (red, oaked) and an organic 2015 Italian Montepulciano from Jasci (red, unoaked). Here’s how we rated them, and what that means for our wine profiles.
