Wines of the Rugby World Cup: Pool D
Find Pool A here.
Find Pool B here.
Find Pool C here.
So, tomorrow’s the big day – and, just in time, we’ve got our last part of our guide to the wines of the Rugby World Cup. More exciting than the impending beginning of the games, however – more exciting even than the prospect of getting caught up in the raucous thrill of the sport, or drinking your body weight in booze to show solidarity for your nation, or even cheering England on to victory, is the fact that we’ve finally gotten to the pool with France and Italy in it.
Pool D
France
France, at last. After suffering through a relentless search to find the very finest Fijian, Scottish or Tongan wines (spoiler alert: there aren’t any), this is our reward. For the unaware, France is a country in Western Europe. It has a president, a capital city named Paris and the national language is French. They also have a lot of wine. Like, literally too much wine. They’re also quite good at rugby, but after three of these blog pieces it should be pretty apparent by now that rugby is kind of taking a back seat to the wine here. Still, let’s try to marry the two: Gérard Bertrand, former national rugby union player, is a pretty renowned winemaker based out of Languedoc. And, even more helpfully, Majestic stock his wines. Oh, France, you make this so easy.
Ireland
Whilst perhaps not as easy to locate as French or Italian wines, the Irish version of the stuff does exist. Most of the vineyards in the country are located in County Cork. Lusca, a type of wine made by Llewellyn’s Vineyard, is, however, made in County Dublin. We love an underdog, so why not try to get something from their stock? All it will take is a trip flight over to one of their weekly farmers markets in Lusk – that may seem like a bit of a journey for just a bottle of wine, but if you’ve been keeping up with this series you’ll know that this is actually a pretty small ask considering some of the other suggestions we’ve made.
Italy
Another easy one: Italy make quite a lot of wine, and some of it is really rather good. Let’s go for, oh, say, Prosecco, shall we? Not for any particular reason – FIOL Prosecco is official events partner for Wales’ Ospreys team but let’s not pretend that’s not incredibly tenuous – though you really shouldn’t need an excuse to drink Prosecco. Try Majestic’s range.
Canada
Sin Bin Wines is a wine producer based out of Clermont-Ferrand, Canada, owned by rugby union player Jamie ‘Cuddles’ Cudmore and his wife. Their white wine is called “Yellow Card”, their red is called “Red Card” and their rosé is called “Rosé Card” – this is, apparently, a tongue-in-cheek comment on Cuddles’ disciplinary record in the sport, but it kind of falls flat considering we’re at least 80% certain that there is no such thing as a ‘rosé card’ in rugby.
Romania
Romania is a pretty big deal when it comes to wine – over 600,000 tons of it are produced every year and the country’s wines are generally regarded as a high-quality yet affordable alternative to those produced in Western Europe. ASDA do this Bradshaw Pinot Grigio that, if we’re being honest, we mainly picked because we like the label so much – and at only £4 (“a bit high for a new country’s wine”, according to the one review on their website, presumably made by someone as well-versed in Romanian history as they are in basic economics), it’s a steal.
