Marks & Spencer Organic Botteghino Chianti Full Review
Posted: 23 April 2008 by Rikke Bruntse-Dahl
At our organic wine tasting with wine expert Chris Stroud, we went through the proper protocol with this Marks & Spencer Chianti. We looked at it, swirled it around in its glass, sniffed, sipped, and tasted it, as is done at any real wine tasting.
Stroud had the following to say about it: "It's got a light, watery colour, which is typical of Chianti wines and it doesn't look like a young wine. It's got a developed nose and tastes of cherries and there's also a tiny bit of spice coming through. I like the faint earthy flavour it's got, but the wine as a whole is too dry for my liking."
It was rather dry, we agree. But we found it very drinkable and thought it was very good with food. We got the cherry and earthy flavours Stroud talked about, but thought it smelled and tasted more of raisins than spices.
At around £8, it's good value for money, but it's not easy to find out about its organic creds for an ordinary UK consumer. It was produced in Italy and certified by Controllato da Instituto per la Certificazione Etica ed Ambientale (ICEA). It looks like a good organic certifier to us and we appreciate we're told that the wine maker, Riccardo Rossi, "has chosen to treat this wine with minimal intervention to retain quality". But as always, we would have loved to get some more specific and substantial information about the green and ethical aspects of the wine, either on the label or online.
The bottle is made from 45 per cent recycled glass and can obviously be recycled, too. There's no indication on the label or online that the natural cork comes from a sustainable source, but according to The Five Pillars in the retailer's famous Plan A, "[M&S'] goal is to make sure its key raw materials come from the most sustainable sources available". M&S might not count cork as a "key raw material", but at least it shows sustainable sourcing is on the company's radar.
As we've said before, we really do applaud M&S' legendary 100-point sustainability plan, and we like how the retailer makes blanket decisions such as only using free-range eggs and Fairtrade sugar in its products and charging for plastic carrier bags. But it really would have been fantastic to be able to access specific information about a particular product, rather than having to rely on general corporate social responsibility info when deciding whether we should buy this wine.
If we knew more details about the vineyard, the green credentials of the cork and the mode of transport from the vineyard to the UK, we'd have an easier time rating M&S' organic wine, and choosing it at the check-out.
Quality
Value
Ethics
Green
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