I compared Whispering Angel wine to Lidl's £11 cheaper dupe (but which is best?)

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5 hours ago

Lidl is a supermarket known for its dupes of specific food and drink items, and that's been no different this year when they launched their Breath of Paradise rosé wine.
This 75cl light pink concoction costs £10.99 per bottle and was made as an alternative to Whispering Angel.
Produced by Château d'Esclans it is made from choice grapes in the Esclans Valley and the Cotes de Provence region.
It has proved to be quite a popular option for the summer season, but it's not exactly cheap.
Most sites I've found list it for around £22.50, which is what I picked it up for from Ocado.
While I am not a massive wine drinker, the fact that Lidl had prioritised quite a bit of their marketing for Breath of Paradise in highlighting it as an alternative to Whispering Angel begged for a comparison to be done.
Both wines are bottled in France, with Lidl's option being made from grenache, syrah and cinsault grapes, so it would be interesting to see if that made enough of a difference in the taste.
For Lidl, a £10.99 wine is expensive for them, so it still had a lot to live up to, but the emphasis was still on Whispering Angel to justify the extra cost.
As mentioned previously, I am not a big wine drinker, but I have slowly progressed from liking prosecco to white wine and rosé every now and again.
I'm still not quite there with red wine yet, but I hope in the next few years my palate expands a bit and becomes more sophisticated.
After purchasing the wines, it was interesting to see how much inspiration Lidl had taken in the design of the bottle.
The two bottles were very similar in design (Image: Newsquest)
The gold seal, white label, calligraphic writing and crest in the centre of the bottle all added up to a very similar overview.
While the design was very close, how would the taste compare?
I decided to try the Whispering Angel first, as it was the original, and there was a bit of trouble in getting the cork out.
In my first go of it, the corkscrew got in, but then partially disintegrated the cork in the attempt to pull it out.
The Whispering Angel was crisp and went down smoothly (Image: Newsquest)
A second attempt was more successful, but it did mean bits of cork were now floating about in the light pink drink.
After filtering the wine to make sure we got bits out, it was finally time to give it a taste.
It should be said that both wines had been placed in the fridge at the same time, so they were at the same temperature.
The wine was crisp, had floral notes in the taste and went down fairly easily.
There wasn't much to separate the two wines (Image: Newsquest)
I've not had a huge amount of rosé wine in my time, but it seemed decent, although with the price tag attached, it should be.
After cleansing my palate with a bit of water (I'm told that's what wine critics do), I then went onto Breath of Paradise.
What I found remarkable is outside of some subtle differences in flavour, there really wasn't much to separate them.
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Both are crisp and go down quite nicely on a warm evening, but there's not a lot to indicate that one is £11 more expensive than the other.
Obviously, it should be noted I am not a professional wine critic, and I imagine there are those in the industry who would take my observations with a grain of salt, saying there's plenty to differentiate them.
However, the average shopper isn't going to be at that level, and I imagine they might arrive at the same conclusion.