Tuesday 27 December 2011

ALDI Passions

Dearieme left a comment recently to say that ALDI's Passions were better than Tyrrell's, which is not actually saying much, as Tyrrell's came a distant fourth in the Fun Online Poll, so honour bound, I drove to my nearest ALDI this morning (which unfortunately is half an hour's drive away) to buy some.

We had people round for lunch today and I road tested their entry level flavour ('sea salt with crushed black pepper'). The five adults and three children present agreed they were very tasty indeed. If you ask me they are a lot better than Kettle's as well, but I don't really go for these 'hand cooked' crisps so maybe I'm not the best person to judge.

In the next few hours and days we will also sample the other two flavours available, 'sea salt and cider vinegar' and 'mature cheddar and onion'. I note to my horror that they only charged me for two packets of hand cooked crisps but I'm not going back now. ALDI's Cava was excellent as well, a snip at £3.99 a bottle.

4 comments:

dearieme said...

They also do potato-flavoured crisps.

Steven_L said...

I'm not taking advice on what to drink from a man with a fridge full of Fosters!

Tim Almond said...

I may have said this before, but my father-in-law used to supply to Aldi (stuff like soaps and detergents). Reckoned they had standards as anyone else.

Cava is basically Champagne, but they can't call it that because of EU naming laws (or even use the term Methode Champenoise after lobbying by Champagne producers). But most non-vintage champagne is just a name on a label, often bought in from other producers in the region.

The AOC and DAO systems in France and Spain what might be termed wine-ownerism "we have land, give us money". For decades they relied on having names like Bordeaux, Gevrey-Chambertin and Champagne on their labels and protecting them, and overrating the importance of terroir, rather than skill. Many are now debt-ridden in France because they paid too much for the land (because it was within the AOC area) and aren't making any money from it, and so are furiously lobbying the French government for more handouts. Sound familiar?

Mark Wadsworth said...

JT, no, you haven't mentioned that before, all most interesting. Maybe Cava is an acquired taste, but I vastly prefer it to champagne proper. And thanks for explaining vineyard-owner-ism :-)