Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Food & Drink => Topic started by: valkyrie on 27 September, 2009, 10:55:48 pm
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It seems to me that every supermarket I go into these days has loads of different wines at either £5 off or "half-price". I use inverted commas 'cos invariably they're wines I've never seen before and I'm not entirely convinced that they've ever been for sale at the alleged full price. Having said that, I have been wondering if any of them are any good and it would be handy if anyone discovering a genuine bargain could list it here. I picked one at random yesterday and quite enjoyed, so much so that I'll be stocking up on it -
Tescos - reduced from £6 to £3 - "Cuvee Du Midi" 2008 - a Vin de Pays de Vaucluse red. It's in a green claret shaped bottle with blue screw-top and blue label with gold writing. Soft and fruity, very decent everyday drinking wine at a price you don't mind cooking with.
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An Essex Girl's favourite wine?
"I wanna go to Likeside!"
Oh sorry, I thought you said "whine".
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Waitrose have a very nice pink Prosecco - it's been reduced to just over a fiver and it's a bargain at that price
Borgo SanLeo, Nerello Mascalese / Prosecco Rosé NV Italy, Sparkling Wine - Waitrose Wines (http://www.waitrosewine.com/230515277/Product.aspx)
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Tip from my BiL.
"Just buy any wine that begins with B."
Not bad for a Leftpondian. I've tried it and it works :thumbsup: ::-)
The obvious exception that proves the rule being Beaujolais. Not bad I s'pose for sitting in the garden with onna sunny day, but not not much cop as an evening or dinner wine.
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Tip from my BiL.
"Just buy any wine that begins with B."
Not bad for a Leftpondian. I've tried it and it works :thumbsup: ::-)
(http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00637/SNA0329Q-280_637998a.jpg)
;)
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:o ::-)
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I read something recently about what you're actually paying for when you buy a bottle of wine for a fiver. The wine itself accounts for a very small part of that outlay - well under a pound.
The article recommended £7 as the entry point.
To draw a parallel with bikes under £200, what you're really buying for your fiver is a wine-shaped object.
Which is not to say that a three-quid bottle of plonk might not be perfectly suitable for some people depending on what they need it for. ;)
d.
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Sainsbury's Austrailian Shiraz
£3.99 and rather drinkable, none of that £2.99 Spanish piss for me.
::-)
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Tesco Cotes du Rhone Winebox. Bargain. My daily pint...
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I used to buy any old crap but an £8-10 wine really is much better than a £4 one. I just don't buy anything these days unless there's at least a third off and I can't remember the last time I spent more than a fiver.
Tonight it's Lindeman's Secret Valley Cabernet/Merlot. £4.50 and it's bloody good.
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What does the house think of those branded wines that are usually around the £5-6 mark?
Lindemans
Mason
Gallo
Hardys
Blossom Hill
Jacobs Creek
Echo Falls
Kumala
etc
PS - Tesco currently has a wine fest on, mixed cases are half price.
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PS - Tesco currently has a wine fest on, mixed cases are half price.
I spotted that yesterday. Going to get together with my brother and order a couple (or 4). ;D
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What does the house think of those branded wines that are usually around the £5-6 mark?
Lindemans
Mason
Gallo
Hardys
Blossom Hill
Jacobs Creek
Echo Falls
Kumala
etc
PS - Tesco currently has a wine fest on, mixed cases are half price.
Wild generalisation coming up...
The reds are like Ribena and the whites aren't dry enough.
HTH
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What does the house think of those branded wines that are usually around the £5-6 mark?
Lindemans
Mason
Gallo
Hardys
Blossom Hill
Jacobs Creek
Echo Falls
Kumala
etc
PS - Tesco currently has a wine fest on, mixed cases are half price.
Wild generalisation coming up...
The reds are like Ribena and the whites aren't dry enough.
HTH
Another generalisation. Austrailan wine tends to be overpriced for what it is. An Oz red for under a fiver is unlikely to be much cop
My current wine buying tactic is to look for stuff that is a fiver but marked down from 8 or 9 quid
For example, in Sainsburys in Taunton they have Piccini Chianti Superiore for £5.32 a bottle
It really is superior :D
Coop had Faustino on special last week, must go in there and try and pick a couple up
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What does the house think of those branded wines that are usually around the £5-6 mark?
Lindemans
Mason
Gallo
Hardys
Blossom Hill
Jacobs Creek
Echo Falls
Kumala
etc
PS - Tesco currently has a wine fest on, mixed cases are half price.
Wild generalisation coming up...
The reds are like Ribena and the whites aren't dry enough.
HTH
It's not just me then...
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Another generalisation. Austrailan wine tends to be overpriced for what it is. An Oz red for under a fiver is unlikely to be much cop
Yeah, the fact that it's on the other side of the world may have something to do with that. See my previous post - most of what you pay for a cheap bottle of Ozzie wine goes on the cost of transporting it over here. That and the taxes.
I rarely pay much less than a tenner for a bottle of wine these days - just as well I don't drink much wine. But if you buy a bottle for a tenner that's marked down from £15, that can still be considered "cheap" for what it is.
Not that every bottle of wine that costs a tenner is worth that much - you can still get some crap at that price. But you can also get some very good bargains (ie a relative bargain for something that's actually worth drinking).
d.
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Morrisons are doing 2006 Salava Hiac Saint Chinian at half price for £5.00 at the moment. I'm 80% of the way through a bottle at the moment and it's very nice. Loads more character than most of the New World stuff at the same price.
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There is a load of bollocks spoken and written about wine. There are great value wines produced all over the world.
Yours,
a former wine merchant.
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What does the house think of those branded wines that are usually around the £5-6 mark?
Lindemans
Mason
Gallo
Hardys
Blossom Hill
Jacobs Creek
Echo Falls
Kumala
etc
PS - Tesco currently has a wine fest on, mixed cases are half price.
My personal take, is avoid the Californian stuff like the plague.
IME, the only people to bring Gallo or Blossom Hill to dinner, are the ones who don't like wine!
My favourite is Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Marlborough Sauv Blanc. However, it is a very cat's wee Sauv blanc and it might not be for everyone, but I love it. :P
It seems to typically be on sale for £7.99 but I won't buy it unless it's on offer.
C'mon then Noodles, tell us what we should be buying to save our pockets! ;)
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Yours,
a former wine merchant.
you were f'in busy - between the wars
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There is a load of bollocks spoken and written about wine. There are great value wines produced all over the world.
Yours,
a former wine merchant.
Agreed. I just find it harder to find New World wines that I like at a decent price point in supermarkets. I can't be bothered buying books or researching it enough to keep up to date and simply find that French plonk at a reasonable price point tends to be more inserting and complex than the New World stuff, though I might make an exception for some of the wines from Argentina. One of my friends used to be a wine merchant and he used to do blind tastings with us on with his samplers. Some very surprising results. To a certain extent price bore no relation to quality especially with French wines. Producers with a good name commanded a premium price even if they had a bad year especially if they produced a small quantity.
That said I avoid Beaujolais like the plague and tend to stick to Bordeaux or stuff from the South West (my favourite) which has traditionally been under valued (and a lot of it quite bad) but has been getting better year on year. Avoid the 2.99 French stuff though as it tastes like Ribena.
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Avoid the 2.99 French stuff though as it tastes like Ribena.
But I like Ribena. :-[
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My personal take, is avoid the Californian stuff like the plague.
IME, the only people to bring Gallo or Blossom Hill to dinner, are the ones who don't like wine!
Indeed - it's the equivalent to taking Budweiser to a beer festival.
Unless you're actually in California, where the selection extends to the esoteric.
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Avoid the 2.99 French stuff though as it tastes like Ribena.
But I like Ribena. :-[
So do I but not when I want to drink wine.
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I really like Jacob's Creek Grenache Shiraz.
I'm not generally keen on French wines - they always seem quite thin and tinny to me. Apart from champagne - I love champagne.
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C'mon then Noodles, tell us what we should be buying to save our pockets! ;)
Ah the good old days when I got to taste wine and get paid for it... :thumbsup:
I can no longer advise on the 'best' bargains, but IMO there are a lot of bargains to be had....it would be too simplistic to recommend an area, country or grape variety.
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The Saint Chinian is no more. It's recycling collection on Monday and I put the bottle in our crate but it was the only thing in there and looked lonely so now I am having a Stella so that it will have company.
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I can't be bothered buying books or researching it enough to keep up to date and simply find that French plonk at a reasonable price point tends to be more inserting and complex than the New World stuff
Am I imagining it or do some Australian producers (they seem the main culprits) mistake "high in alcohol" for "having lots of character"?
Avoid the 2.99 French stuff though as it tastes like Ribena.
Useful if your lawnmower runs out of fuel, though.
d.
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On holiday this year near Bezier in Languadoc we were drinking the wine from the local farmer CO-OP at 6 euro for 5 litres. It was fantastic. Not great like a vintage Bordeaux but great like a £7.00 or £8.00 bottle of wine in the UK. Loads of character and not too much tannin and no hangover after what was really too many glasses. As a warning though I have bought undrinkable muck that should have been used as tractor fuel before from CO-OPs in France so YMMV.
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Against the trend in this thread I find some wines from Leftpondistan quite acceptable.
I have a Washington Hills merlot in front of me. Near enough for a sick squid.
Although, as I also have a plate of Melton Mowbray pork pie with lashings of mustard and branston pickle, I'm sure anything would be acceptable.
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I'm with Basil on this.
I've just spent a week undertaking research into Washington/Oregon wines.
I'm sure I can state that there are some cracking ones though it seems that, if you drink enough of them, you still get a headache.
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My current favourite bargain is Celier des Dauphins, seen at £3.99 in Morrisons and £4.99 in Tescos in these parts.
It used to be the best part of a tenner in the UK, or ten francs if you went to France for it.
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I'm lucky to have a really good wine merchant down here. It's a small shop with bare boards and boxes stacked with bottles. Cardboard tags describe the wines. I just ask for something that, eg., resembles a good burgundy, and he gives me a few choices at less than supermarket prices.
An aside: he bought quite a lot of the contents of Keith Floyd's cellar at a bankruptcy auction a few years ago - apparently that's where all the money went.
Alan Clark said that a claret that cost less than thirty quid wasn't worth drinking (presumably around £50 in today's money). Ho ho.
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Just drinking a nice 2004 Mendocino County red, which I took a gamble on in Waitrose today. It was hugely reduced to about £6, and I worried it might be a bit elderly. Not at all :)
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What citizen smudge said about australian wine would seem to apply to US wines as well. Gallo and similar mass market wines aren't highly regarded in the US, and shipping them a few thousand miles isn't going to improve them, just drive up the price.
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What citizen smudge said about australian wine would seem to apply to US wines as well.
Indeed. And South American and South African wines too.
If you think about the economics of wine making, you have to conclude that Eastern Europe is probably best placed to provide the real bargains.
These ones, for example, look promising (I've not tried either) - well, they could probably hold their own against an Aussie wine at the same price point:
Eva's Vineyard Chenin Blanc / Pinot Grigio / Királyleányka 2008 Neszmély Region, Hungary - Waitrose Wines (http://www.waitrosewine.com/230307127/Product.aspx)
Eva's Vineyard Merlot / Kékfrankos 2006 Szekzard Region, Hungary - Waitrose Wines (http://www.waitrosewine.com/230307118/Product.aspx)
d.
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You often get good value wine from the less fashionable parts of France. My current favourite fizz is Aldi's Cremant Du Jura - the Jura is only about 50 miles from Champagne region but without that name the wines are much cheaper. I think Aldi's one is £5.99 and it's at least as good as most champagnes under £20.
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Many years ago I bought some Bulgarian red wine. It was bad with a capital B. I've never tried any E. European stuff since.
You often get good value wine from the less fashionable parts of France. My current favourite fizz is Aldi's Cremant Du Jura - the Jura is only about 50 miles from Champagne region but without that name the wines are much cheaper. I think Aldi's one is £5.99 and it's at least as good as most champagnes under £20.
We had a similar experience when we were in the Rhone area. The local fizz was called Clairette de Die and was ver' nice. Well, quite good enough for our penchant of making kir royale anyway. Never seen it here though. It was cheap as chips there.
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Many years ago I bought some Bulgarian red wine. It was bad with a capital B. I've never tried any E. European stuff since.
The Bulgarian State Wine Exporter, Vinimpex Sofia, got an acknowledgement in my PhD thesis :)
Some of it's good, especially these days. I've never had a decent Kekfrankos though.
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My local Sainsbury's currently has a load of wines on offer at 3 for a tenner including Hardy's Crest which is more often discounted to about a fiver from the notional £9.99
The strange thing is that if you buy six bottles of wine the extra 5% discount is applied to the £9.99 which makes each bottle come in at under £2.90 !
Siamo tutti farabutti (http://www.yudu.com/item/details/86954/Anch-io-Farabutto)
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Many years ago I bought some Bulgarian red wine. It was bad with a capital B. I've never tried any E. European stuff since.
I don't recall having sampled Bulgarian wine. I had some very good Hungarian wine when I went to the Gay Hussar a few years ago. It was actually the only good thing about that meal. Cost rather more than the two I mentioned above, though.
And I had Georgian Saperavi wine in a Georgian restaurant once. It was not at all bad and went well with the food - hearty and richly fruity. Georgian wine isn't so cheap, though - probably largely down to them not being in the EU.
d.
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The generalisation with Bulgarian wine is that it has a pretty good flavour and an excellent price but it doesn't "burn clean"
I seem to get more of a hangover with Bulgarian stuff
The least hangover-ish stuff is german dry riesling. Mrs Vorspung has a low tolerance these days to wine the night before but reports some success with Prosecco
The South African wine seems better at the low price point than the Oz stuff. For example Coop do a generic South African Red wine that is unexciting but quite glugable. Back in the 80s I used to live in London and got a bottle of wine most nights from the wine shop ::-) The best stuff I used to get then was red austrailian with a picture of a duck on it for a fiver. Maybe even less than a fiver, I don't remember exactly. Utterly fantastic
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Altivo Rioja Reserva 2004 from Sainsbury reduced by 50% to 6 quid.
Lovely. :thumbsup:
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As a past fan of Wolf Blass Yellow Label Cabernet Sauvignon, you can imagine how pleased I was to see it in Sainsbury's at the weekend reduced from £8.99 to £5.
A very drinkable drop of plonk. :thumbsup:
d.
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As a past fan of Wolf Blass Yellow Label Cabernet Sauvignon, you can imagine how pleased I was to see it in Sainsbury's at the weekend reduced from £8.99 to £5.
That's a lovely wine and a bargain at that price.
I find the vast majority of supermarket special offers are worth exactly what you pay for them, the "reductions" being marketing foo. That's a genuine deal though.
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Morrisons had a blindingly good Saint Chinian a few weeks ago on offer at £5.00 instead of £10. I wish I had bough a couple of cases as it's now back up to £10 :(
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I'm a big fan of Cono Sur Pinot Noir reserve and Tricastin uranium flavoured cotes du rhone