Tesco Floreal Wine

Floreal offered ‘verdant freshness balanced by ripe citrus notes and flavours of exotic fruit’

Tesco has launched a wine made using a new disease-resistant grape varietal developed to meet the challenges posed by climate change.

Tesco Finest Floreal (rsp: £8/75cl) is made using the Floreal hybrid grape variety.

Created from the crossbreeding of Villaris and a descendant of Muscadinia rotundifolia, it is currently grown in in the Languedoc and Loire Valley in France.

The grape variety is highly resistant to fungal diseases such as oidium and mildew, as well as being partially resistant to black rot.

This resulted in an “80%-90% reduction in the need for vine treatments” as well as “significantly lowering tractor usage, CO2 emissions, and soil compacting”, Tesco said.

The retailer has secured the full crop of Floreal, and the wine has rolled out exclusively in UK Tesco supermarkets.

Floreal boasted “verdant freshness balanced by ripe citrus notes and flavours of exotic fruit with a long round finish” Tesco said. Its lower acidity meant it had “a delightful balance with sugars akin to an unoaked chardonnay,” the retailer added.

We know how important sustainability is for many of our customers, so we’re incredibly proud to be launching Finest Floreal,” said Tesco product developer for French wines Charlotte Lemoine.

The retailer’s decision to launch “a trail-blazing new wine variety” demonstrated its “ongoing ambitions to provide… shoppers with the best wine range possible, with quality-led innovations at great value prices”, Lemoine added.