Wine: Simply the best?

Morrisons or Safeway? That was once a real choice for shoppers with Morrisons' stores concentrated in the north and Safeway's in the south of the country. Then, three years ago, Morrisons swallowed Safeway and there followed an unpleasant and prolonged bout of indigestion. But this seems to be coming to an end. As you'll know if you once had a Safeway near you, Morrisons has now absorbed most of the old Safeways to become Britain's fourth-largest grocer with 370 stores. It's even indulged in one of those re-branding exercises required to keep the marketing bods in the style to which they're accustomed. In a £450m move that's taking it from downmarket operator to "aspirational fresh food specialist", it's removing the spider-like black M on yellow and replacing it with a softer, greener M on a yellow oval background. Bless!

And the wines? Oh yes, the wines. When Morrisons took over the Safeway range, it was taking over a range that had garnered a well-deserved reputation for excellence and innovation. Safeway championed the Organic Wine Challenge, pioneered Eastern European and English wines in the high street, introduced gluggy "young vatted" wines, and took on the small and quirky because it liked the flavours, even if it meant having to go the extra mile to get customers to try unusual wines like Austrian grüner veltliner (now everyone has one) or Oregon pinot noir. While a decade ago Safeway and other supermarkets had a wine-buying team, Morrisons had just a single wine buyer. With more resources to draw on since the merger with Safeway, there's no reason why Morrisons shouldn't be up there with a wine range as solid as Waitrose or Sainsbury's.

As has become the fashion, Morrisons has aped the likes of Tesco's Finest and Sainsbury's Taste the Difference with its The Best brand, in fact a rip-off from Safeway. For The Best, read "our view of the best value at the price". The 2005 The Best Chablis, £7.99, is crisp, full-flavoured with classic, refreshingly bone-dry mineral flavours. The 2006 The Best French Merlot, £5.99, is a vivid, berry and plum fruity merlot from the excellent Domaines Paul Mas, and beats The Best Claret into a cocked hat. I also liked the 2003 The Best Chianti, £6.99, which showed herby, sour cherry sangiovese flavours and the juicy, sweet peppery 2004 The Best Chilean Carmenère. Less exciting were the neutral The Best Pinot Grigio (no surprises there), the rather ancient 2000 The Best Reserva Rioja and a rustic 2002 The Best Montepulciano. It doesn't call its Marie Henry champagnes The Best which is just as well because they're a long way off it, nor thankfully its rosés, too many of which are mawkishly sweet.

Beyond this premium range, it's hard not to get a sense of déjà vu with dull brands like J P Chenet or unnecessarily large rafts of wines bought off the peg from a single producer as if on some buy-one-get-one-free deal. That can work where the producer is top drawer, as in the case of Sacred Hill from New Zealand, whose wines are well-crafted and polished, in particular the brilliant 2005 Riflemans Chardonnay, £13.95. It also works when a great wine falls into your lap from a surprising source, such as the characterful, toffee apple, honey and lime toasty 2001 McWilliams Elizabeth Semillon, £9.99, distributed, by good fortune, by Gallo. It's less convincing however in the case of wineries knocking out neutral, high-yielding wines from Italy, Bordeaux, California, South Africa and Australia. And there are simply too many at best sound, at worst neutral, wines in this category. At a time of such excitement and individuality in wine, and with the competition greater than ever, the Morrisons team should get around more and start delivering wines with more flavour and character.

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