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Not your favourite or special occasion best but the nice bottle you open at home in front of the fire and keep stocks of? I never really seem to pick a bad beer, whisky or whiskey but I don’t seem to have much luck with wine. As a guide, Opi Malbec is about the only one I ever return to. What are you glugging?
Aldi. For the price it should taste like battery acid. It definitely doesn’t.
Supermarket or further afield?
Devils Corner Pinot from Tasmania
D'Arenberg Footbolt
Though my random selections have mostly been Chianti or Rioca
https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/Products.htm?articleId=12087&ar=7
I can get through an unhealthy quantity of this and it's ridiculously cheap.
https://groceries.asda.com/product/all-other-grapes/wine-atlas-feteasca-neagra/910001814345
A fabulous drop for a fiver, honestly try it then thank me later.
This is on offer in Morrisons for 7 quid a bottle at the moment. Just having a glass now. It’s bloody lovely!
For quaffable I quite rate a Beaujolais Villages like this https://www.majestic.co.uk/wines/beaujolais-villages-7099
Very easy drinking and suits those who are not ardent red drinkers.
This,
Or this,
Only Bordeaux Reds for me..
Waitrose are knocking these out quite cheaply ATM..
I am far from a wine connoisseur, but i like the Barefoot Merlot. It’s my standard go-to weekday wine.
If i am feeling flush i really enjoy Apothic Red.
Just about to crack open a bottle of Yellow Tail Jammy Red Roo, which i like too.
I bet most red wine lovers will turn their nose up at my choices....
Toro Loco or Jamshed when it's on offer, it's super plummy, probably more for the summer. Loco more suitable for the winter.
I bet most red wine lovers will turn their nose up at my choices….
Fine if you like it.....
The comment from inside the aussie wine side was never buy anything with an animal on the bottle - it's called critter wine, they put the animal on to make it look cute and get rid of the real crap 😉
If i am feeling flush i really enjoy Apothic Red.
Seconded. Good bold New Word flavour.
You can get it from Costco for £47 for six, that's about £7.84 a bottle.
I like the toro loco as well and that campo reserva Rioja
For me chapoutier crozes heritage takes some beating, not cheap cheap but far from pricey. To be honest I've never had a bad bottle under the chapoutier label and their hermitage proper is probably my favorite French red and sensibly priced (not so sensibly priced variants are available).
A good Aglianico can be had for round the 10 mark and is excellent wine generally.
So what is the price point for everyday quaffable ?
Usually anything in a Brown paper bag.
Or a Malbec from Adi.
So what is the price point for everyday quaffable ?
I think the cost is sclerosis, or looking like Adrian Chiles, or both.
19 crimes. Recently discovered and very tasty. Also has an AR app to compliment the back story.
Any montepulciano d’abruzzo that’s a few years old
well. Nearly any
stella artois
Yellow Tail Malbec.
Porta 6 (Majestic sell this).
Both can be had for £6/7 per bottle.
Pillastro primitivo or Cabalie Grenache blend. Both from laithwaites.
For 19Crimes part of
https://www.tweglobal.com/brands
good brand list there, probably coming out of on of their big SA locations, penfolds generally doe a decent drop too though grange might be over the everyday price limit
Pillastro primitivo or Cabalie Grenache blend
Hey, that's my choice! 🙂
A good 2013ish Rioja when the price is right. Any old Merlot and maybe Chiraz of new world.
Though I'm careful with quaffing reds as it's really nice but ends badly.
Another vote for Yellow Tail Malbec. The Shiraz is good too
Oh and the Italians have it right 😉
Refill from the tank in the shop - perfect for young wine really not much oak needed there to get the fruity flavours
I buy Roche Mazet Merlot from France by the box at 9 euro a pop. Tres bien! 🍷
The Wanted Zin from Morrisons.
It's normally £10 but is often on sale for £7 which is when I stock up. It's Italian wine (so Primitivo technically rather than zinfandel,) but aged in American oak. Primitivo/zinfindel just different names for the same thing same as Shiraz/Syrah.
Any Californian Lodi old vine Zinfandel is going to be pretty good but your then talking north of £14.
Campo viejo reserva rioja (the 1 with the orange label,) is very good indeed and if you spot it on offer around £8 it's a must buy.
+1 for Jamshed best wine I've tasted. Lidl's £3.99 Australian Shiraz is my cheap quafable alternative.The Yellow Tails are ok.New world shiraz for me any time now. I used to be a big fan of quality riojas and bordeaux , clarets and Italian chiantis but they all taste too thin and watery to me now.
I'll be drinking QC next at this rate.
Sainsbury's Primitivo...
A fabulous drop for a fiver, honestly try it then thank me later.
funny you should say that - I had never heard of Feteasca Neagra until Friday, when I was in Aldi and picked up a Romanian bottle of Feteasca Neagra / Shiraz for £5.49, just out of curiosity.
I am now a convert and will be back there tonight to grab a couple more!
w.r.t. the OP - our previous quaffing red was also an Aldi bottle - Estevez Cabernet Carmenere (which is actually made by the more well known Concha Y Toro brand) for about £4.80. The one that Binners posted is pretty reliable too!
I've started drinking £4 - £4.50 wines and to be honest most £8 wines are no better. I've also started poor man decanting - poor the first glass then shake the bottle to get air into the wine. Makes it much more drinkable.
Aldi Exquisite Pinot Noir or Malbec. Under £7 and very drinkable.
This for us - which reminds me I must go and stock up, we are getting low.
Ravenswood Old Vines Zinfandel.
https://www.majestic.co.uk/wines/ravenswood-lodi-zinfandel-18641
McQuigan from Aus, all the reds are nice, but I avoid all Shiraz, too spicy for me and beats the crap out my intestines.
Whichever Spanish or Italian is 33% off at Waitrose.
So what is the price point for everyday quaffable ?
Good question.
Anything less than a fiver is probably chemicals saturated in dye. Or massively discounted £8 stuff, in which case go for it.. but even £8 is still IRO chemicals with a bit of wine added.
I’m a snob, no problem about that, so I always look for wine without massive sulphites added or included or anything less than £8. £10+ or discounted £15 bottles are easily available.
Organic wines can be had for £12 in Waitrose, these are always my go-to or I spend a decent amount on n bottles. Local vineyards knocking out £9-£12 English whites easily available.
Its not just the price, it’s the quality. 2 glasses is more than enough IMO and you want to enjoy it not wash your food down with it.. if that’s the case buy a squidgy container and go proper glugfest or drink water.
La Ville Ferme or Campo Viejo reserva when its on offer. Cahors Malbec when on offer too. Aldi again - their D'ouro is good.
Organic wines can be had for £12 in Waitrose, these are always my go-to
If you're after organic, this stuff crops up quite often these days (esp in your local poncy organic shop) for £8-9 and is rather tasty. I visited the vineyard a couple of years back and can testify to its organic-ness!
Anything under 5 quid and over 14%.
Cant say ive ever noticed the front labels.
The second cheapest.
Aldi's D'ouro called Animus is a lovely bottle of wine.
The Aldi Argentine Malbec is great foir 6 quid a bottle. They also do a sort of bag of Malbec which holds 2 bottles. Its very good, but is absolutely bloody brilliant for festivals and outdoor shennanigans as an alternative to warm Carling when you're trying to make out that you is culchared.
Also handy if you're a massive piss-head like me, and your bin of shame is looking and sounding a bit too shamefull 😀
The pale red from Provence.
In fact the paler the better.
Thank you for all of the suggestions. I’ve picked up a couple from the list that I wouldn’t normally think to try and which are at different ends of the quaffable price range. I’ll have fun slowly working my way down the others as the nights draw in until I strike gold. Cheers.
Anything under 5 quid and over 14%.
Cant say ive ever noticed the front labels.
Not just me then!
I just go for whatever is on offer in waitrose around £7. Though I've just moved to Copenhagen and their supermarkets seem to be about 50% booze and it's actually cheaper here, well the offers are. £10 for a 40cl beer in teh pub the other night though..
For me, anything cheap with a decent %!
I just don't get paying silly money for a bottle of wine. (Anything over £7 is a Xmas present)
Waaay back (in the day) a mate of mine was a truck driver & did the beaujolais nouveau runs each year. He'd pick up from various French vineyards & bring the vino back to drop off at various (Some quite well known) vintners over here, from London to Inverness. Obviously he got a fair bit for himself & wasn't afraid of sharing it, ranting on about how it was top notch stuff & would be selling for £25 a bottle (I'm talking 1984 ish).
Well even then it tasted pish, & I don't think my palate's changed since then!
I aint no snob!
Aldi Stellenbosch Cab Sav, at £6.99 it'll knock your socks off and its 4.5 / 5 on Decanter.
And it looks as though Sainsbury's are doing their "save 25% when buying 6 or more bottles" offer starting on 26th September.
Perfect timing 🙂
+1000 - it's really nice.
My only problem is that the bottle is so heavy I think there's still some wine left in there but sadly no, I've drank it all
beaujolais nouveau
Thats a marketing tool for selling sour wines that wouldn’t pass “ummm.. niiice” test.
We used to do it in the 90’s and bring a few cases back, out of the 6-7 cases you could probably rely on only one case that contained decent new wine.. the rest went in for cooking.
It was cheap though..
£7 for me would be for a special occasion! Guess thats why I've got no friends 🙂
Thats a marketing tool for selling sour wines that wouldn’t pass “ummm.. niiice” test.
Well I thought that at the time. I used to think, 'who pays good money for this shit?'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaujolais_nouveau
Current favorite 'everyday' red is Castillo Albai Reserva Rioja as it's on offer at Tesco for £6.50. Also like Campo Viejo Reserva when on offer.
Failing that I agree that the Yellow Tail reds are always drinkable (except that Jammy Red one, although my wife likes it). Hardy's Crest can be reasonable and cheap but is hit and miss.
I just help myself
Re pricing you may find this (un)interesting but you're really not paying much for wine at £5. Of course if you like what you're drinking it doesn't matter anyhow but your 8 pound bottle reduced to 5 was never an 8 pound bottle - there isn't actually enough margin in there to discount that much even if everyone all along the chain worked for free. The only way you'd bring the price down that much is if HMRC cut their end and, well, death and taxes.
The thing with the economics of wine (and I've seen a few pictures like this), is it assumes less money for the wine making = less quality. It probably does, but then again it may be a particular wine maker is really very good and efficient and making quality wine for low prices (or just pays their workers a pittance).
I'm no wine expert or snob, but from brief experience of a boozy trip where we were introduced to an increasing cost of wine each day, the wine really did massively improve with the price once you get past the €20 point. That said the higher the price the older the wine more likely and that is also key for some types of wine. On that point, again with the economics of wine pricing, a good quality wine of older vintage is often significantly more expensive, but it may not have been any more expensive to make. Okay some cheap wines are not designed to be stored. I'm not sure those that are, are really that much more expensive to make though. There is storage, but not a vast cost.
Blimey, this still going? Mine is a the grey labeled Rioja from Lidl. It must be good, it has a cork, made of cork.
Most reasonable red wines taste pretty much the same to me anyway, so I wouldn't bother following my recommendation 😀
The thing with the economics of wine (and I’ve seen a few pictures like this), is it assumes less money for the wine making = less quality. It probably does, but then again it may be a particular wine maker is really very good and efficient and making quality wine for low prices (or just pays their workers a pittance).
yeah there are definitely economies to be had. The Aldi Estevez range, I read recently, is made by a Chilean megabrand (Concho Y Toro) and shipped to the UK in containers. It's then bottled somewhere in the UK and shipped to stores (apparently this used to be common practise, even for posh wines, at one point). So given that 50% of the weight of a bottle of wine is the glass, you can see how economies of scale can come into it.
Similarly, I doubt many producers of £20 wines (often smaller places) can buy bottles and shipping for the same price that (say) Hardy's pay...
most of the cheap plonk we have these days is taste better than most house wines for a third of the price. the lidl's temperanillo is really nice as is their cheap rioja and chianti, we always have a few bottles to toro loco (nice with a curry :)) Also the Aldi or lidl champagne is really good too for the price.
Always take the advice of experts. Bernard and Mani have always been my role models.....
Does yourwine reach these shores Kiwijohn, what's the brand?
Good shout on the Jamshed. Opened a bottle tonight & it’s now a firm favourite.
Tried a few of these now the best are the D'ouro and Stellenbosch, how they knock these out for the price. People go there and fill their trollies like it's the cash and carry.
The worst the good ordinary claret drinkable but just boring, should be renamed ordinary claret. The Jamshed WTF! Did I get a bad bottle it tastes like it's had a bag of sugar added to it.
The Wanted Zinfandel is a lovely wine for not much money, but it does pack a punch - It is known in my house as Velvet Cosh.
this week i have mostly been drinking this from the wine soc
Bought it a few weeks ago for a party, then in the last week or so it's been everywhere as the wine to buy for xmas (i obv got lucky). It is actually pretty good for the money
Pale ruby. Amazingly inexpensive for a Hungarian wine! Smells of Pannonian-warmed Pinot. Certainly not burgundy and fully mature. Very slightly syrupy but there is no flab. What a steal! Polished and sweet but still refreshing. Very good value. - Jancis Robinson"
New to The Wine Society, this Hungarian pinot noir is all bright redcurrants, red cherries and cool lines – seriously impressive at the price, and a joy to drink slightly chilled. - Victoria Moore
Pinot noir’s elusive forest floor earthiness and juicy red berry fruits are both in evidence in a smart Hungarian bargain that is a good-value choice for those who favour a lighter red with the turkey and trimmings. - David Williams
Polished off a bottle of this last night and it was very, very nice indeed. £10 ish a bottle and I shall be purchasing a few more bottles.
Kumala Pinotage from Asda. A fiver.
Maybe too full bodied for some to fall into the quaffable category but I like it.
Aldi’s D’ouro called Animus is a lovely bottle of wine.
Yep - really good, and a fiver a bottle.
Recently tried the more expensive Animus "Reserva" with the black label - probably a better wine, more sophisticated, but the original (white label) stuff is perfect quaffing wine.
Any kinda Pinot Noir going tbh. Yet to find a bottle I don't like.
My favourite everyday wine is the Aldi Pinot Noir that is just under a fiver
To me a snob is somebody who wants to be seen drinking something expensive but has no idea what it is (apart from expensive)
Nothing wrong with liking wine because of its interesting flavour or how it’s made.
Good wine is for sharing not showing off.
Been drinking a nice Romanian Pinot Noir this week, £8.50 a bottle.
Made by a Brit/Romanian couple and very nice it is too.
Whatever red is reduced to about 6quid in tesco.
I used to bring back a LOT of Argentinian Malbec - the good Trumpeter Reserve was about £6 out there! Since the new government has tackled the blue dollar economy inflation is rife and it’s now cheaper here than there 😣