Hirondelle Wine

[Ablitt]

Does this product still exist? if so where can I source a bottle?

[Carol Anne]

Last time I can remember seeing it was in the '70s, it was the only 'table wine' our off-licence stocked,it was quite inexpensive and was reasonably palatable. Don't know if you can still get it today.

[Buenchico]

It still exists but you might have to go to Cyprus to get it! Hirondelle has (rightly) fallen out of favour with UK wine drinkers and it's unlikely that anyone still imports it.

The sweet taste of Hirondelle is now generally only enjoyed by most people when it accompanies a sweet dessert (and there are many better quality wines which can fulfil this role).

The producers of Hirondelle have never named the grape variety on the label but it's likely that it will be Muscat (or a blend containing Muscat). So if you're looking for something similar, that's the grape you should be looking for. I suggest that, the next time you're in Tesco, you pick up a bottle of Tesco Moscatel de Valencia (dirt cheap) or, for rather better quality, Brown Brothers Moscato.

Hoping this helps,

Chris

[Carol Anne]

There were as far as I recall three types of this wine, as Buenchico says there was the sweet desert wine which came in a clear bottle with a gold label, but far more popular, especially in the west end of Glasgow where I was a student nurse in the mid seventies, were the red and the white which were medium dry and drunk in copious amount by me and my flatmates. It really wasn't that bad!

[Pinotage]

Hirondelle was a brand name wine. As I recall they imported the wine from wherever it was cheap that year, blended it to a stylle and bottled it in UK. That brand became unfashionable and vanished.

There were definitely red and white versions

[davidsherwoo]

Wasn't there a problem with this wine which resulted in it disappearing?

[potblak]

As I recall, they used to claim that the wines were sourced from Austria.
But at the height of its popularity, some journo pointed out that sales of Hirondelle in UK exceeded Austria's total production!
They were forced to admit that most of the wine actually came from Hungary. This may have led to their decline in popularity.
It must be said that Hirondelle and the Reckitt & Colman subsidiary, Charbonnier were primarily responsible for popularising wine drinking in the UK.