(UK) Why does Supermarket Wine always tastes awful?

Because it's wine and wine tastes vile

Blimey! Looks like us Naim owners are also members of the Wine Society (or is it the other way round?). We DO have such good taste. Must arrange a meet at the society to down a bottle and discuss the merits of the vine and the audio.

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Looks like us Naim owners are also members of the Wine Society

We clearly do have good taste, and recognise good value too! Have you been to the Montreuil showroom - very nice, and good restauants in town too.

Nigel

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Yes it looks like Debs requirements are similar to ours.
If anyone can produce a sensible list it would be appreciated.

Seconded

Cheers

Don

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Originally posted by Don Atkinson:
Tanners wines

Looks interesting but.....

A quick flick throught the Burgundy and Bordeaux lists shows fewer than half a dozen bottles at under £10.

Have we drifted off track here? I thought N-N was looking for 20 bottles a year at £6 a piece = £120 pa including delivery.

Perhaps I will take more time to explore their site this evening.

Cheers

Don

Hi Don,

my £120 pa quote is from looking at my past history based on 17 bottles a year, but a lot of this was money wasted - quite literally down the kitchen sink waste ; )

But if it takes say ~ £10 to buy an enjoyable bottle of wine then that's what i'd spend.
There is no point in struggling to drink nasty wine at £5 - £6 a bottle if for only a few bucks more one can enjoy pleasant taste instead. Although, i know it's not as clear cut as that, it's possible to get less expensive wine that's good but i guess it's more likely to be satisfied if one spends a bit more outlay?

I also have the advantage of not being an alcoholic, and i know my consumption will not go higher than 24 bottle a year at most, even if it was the most wonderful wine ever, so imo this justifies looking at quality instead of quantity, and if i need to spend £200-£250 pa on wine to satisfy my palate then so be it : )

Debs

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Originally posted by rodwsmith:

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Originally posted by naim_nymph:
I've had a look around locally, and found Tanners-Wines seem have many branches around the Welsh Marches area.

Does anyone have any experience of this wine merchant?

I may just as well buy a few sample bottles there to check it out : )

Debs

Debs,

Tanners are excellent. They have a very fine range. What kind of things do you like? I'm happy to have a look through their list and make some recommendations for you. Taste, of course, is very personal, and if you can actually get to a shop, I am sure there will be things to try and qualified people on hand to help.

Santé

Rod

Rod,

Thank you very much for your input on this.

I wish i could describe what taste i'm looking for but my knowledge of wine is almost hopeless!

But i'll do the best i can... i only ever drink Red Wine, and enjoy it as an apéritif while i'm cooking, and drink it with food, usually cheesy pasta dishes.

Red wine i have liked has been more fully bodied, fruity, only slightly dry, but most importantly without the acrid back taste which seems to be the usual effect of poor supermarket wines.

When i get the chance to go into Town, i'll visit Tanners and probably buy a mixed dozen of reds to try out, and ask if they do wine tasting days, never know your luck.

Will i have to be careful this time of year, with xmas coming will they stock up on pap?

Debs

I'm also a member of the Wine Society and thoroughly endorse them but I also buy from a whole range of suppliers. In your position I would be inclined to head over to your local branch of Majestic as you can sample a range of wines at various price points. Having said that I don't agree that it's impossible to find a few decent bottles at your local supermarket - Waitrose have a cracking 2009 Wither Hills Sauvignon available at £5.99 (down from £8.99), Sainsbury's White Burgundy at £5.69 is very good, too. Tesco have a very impressive 2006 Chianti Reserva on offer at £5.49 and, also at Waitrose is a really excellent value Shiraz, a 2008 Errazuriz which is also on offer at £4.99.

Yes, I'd always prefer to support the specialist wine retailer but sometimes, when budget is tight, a little searching reveals some really decent bottles on the High Street.

Dave

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But if it takes say ~ £10 to buy an enjoyable bottle of wine then that's what i'd spend.

No probs Debs. I probably average out at £10 a bottle. BBR house red is full-bodied and comes in at just over a fiver. Its good. I also buy two or three specific wines at £10 (from Waitrose and BBR) and they are really good. Occasionally I spend >£20 at BBR and have always found these excellent. Most of the time I settle for "very good".

Never felt like using any of the above as sink cleaners. But occasionally have poured some bottles of <£10 supermarket stuff straight down the drain - wouldn't even claim it acted as a cleaner!

You might have difficulty shifting 12 bottles between now and Xmas (thats about 3 bottles a week) - and still remember which one(s) you really liked!

Cheers

Don

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Originally posted by naim_nymph:
Red wine i have liked has been more fully bodied, fruity, only slightly dry, but most importantly without the acrid back taste which seems to be the usual effect of poor supermarket wines.

Hi Debs

Obviously tricky from a distance, but it sounds to me as though the wines to avoid for you are those of high acidity. All wine is acidic (pretty much everything we consume has a pH lower than 7 apart from indigestion tablets and cucumber if you think about it). This may also account for why you prefer red to white. Range of acid in wine runs from pH2.2 (Champagne, German, English etc) to just under pH4 (Argentine reds, although mainly for domestic consumption). The warmer the climate the softer the acidity (and the more likely the wine is to be red). But some varieties (most Italian black grapes, and Pinot Noir) are higher in acidity than others.

So, avoid wines from cool places, and where high acidity is prized (Italian reds in general although of course there are exceptions - wines from Sicily, and the grape variety Dolcetto).

However, adding acid is a very common practice in the so-called New World. Australia is especially fond of acidification. Some Ozzie Shiraz has very high acidity, coupled with lots of flavour and high alcohol, that is simply impossible for nature to have achieved in a bunch of grapes - which is why a lot of wine snobs turn their noses up at them. The less you pay, the more the grapes/juice will have been "adjusted" by adding (or subtracting) components.

I would therefore recommend wines from warm places in Europe (the Rhône, Languedoc, Spain, southern Italy) from places in the New World where acidification is less the norm (California, south America - esp Argentina), and from grape varieties noted for softer acidity in the first place - Merlot, Malbec, Tempranillo, Zinfandel [aka Primitivo].

Given your limited consumption the Wine Society may not be worth the effort for you, and as Dave points out Majestic are good, and almost always have something open to try - their minimum sale is now usually only 6 bottles. Waitrose are the best of the supermarkets (partly because of size).

If you can find, and try a Chilean Merlot and let us know whether it 'worked' that would be good. Names to look out for include Errazuriz, Montes and - I think someone already mentioned - Concha-y-Toro whose 'budget-ish' brand is called Casillero del Diablo.
This would fit the bill from Tanners, although it may well be in the supermarkets also.


Rod

NB lots of generalisations in the above - of necessity. If you are a) interested and b) a bit bored {or insomniac} you can read the English journalist Andrew Jefford's speech to the Australian wine industry concerning some of the above here. Erudite and well judged. Just quite long!

Thanks Rod!

All very useful information.

I will be in Town next weekend so i'll pop into Tanners on Saturday and buy a few bottles...
This gives me some time to research your grape list : )

Bottoms Up

Debs

Rod...."top man"

Popped into Waitrose and picked up a Chilean Merlot 2007 from the Colchagua Valley. Aptly named "Cono Sur"

Fits your description above to a tee.

Cost £7.50

Cheers

Don

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I thought that there was a crisis going on

....really?....

OTOH, minimum price of a bottle of red in Waitrose is about £4 for a "Good Ordinary Claret" - OK, but not "good" IMHO. BBRs house red at c.£5 (price varies slightly depending on whether you buy a case or a bottle) is a good wine - my choice of adjective - others might say it was excellent, and yet others -crap!

What I bought today for £7.50 was very good IMHO.

Perhaps we'd best all move to Spain!!

Cheers

Don

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Originally posted by Don Atkinson:
You might have difficulty shifting 12 bottles between now and Xmas (thats about 3 bottles a week) - and still remember which one(s) you really liked!

Don

12 bottles of wine would take me at least 6 months to drink!

I'm certainly not one to go out and stock up just for xmas, December is a very busy month for me and i stay very sober with it, which is a shame really but there you go : (

But i do worry about wine traders stocking up on cheapo plonk at hiked up prices at this festive seasonal time of year all ready for the spend-o-hollic xmas shopper ... so i wonder if right now is a good time to buy.

I'll have to buy myself a few bottles though, i'm fresh out of wine in my celler and that won't do!

Debs

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Originally posted by Don Atkinson:

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I wish I were able to tell you which specific wines were worth a punt, but I haven't lived in the UK for three years

Rod, I have always found your advice helpful - and I'm sure there are others on here "in the know" who haven't been absent for so long!!

I'm lucky to have Waitrose < 200m away and BBR <10 miles away. But otherwise, I genuinely don't know of an independent wine merchant within 10 miles. Lots of little corner shops selling a few bottles and lots of petrol filling stations (mostly operated by Sainsbury, M&S, Tesco etc also selling a "range" of "specially imported" (well, we know that is euphamism for "crap") wines.

We have a Pork butcher in Newbury, there is (or was) a cheese shop in Streatly, but we now have to travel beyond Kingsclere to get to our usual butcher and as for a "grocer".......... Sad really.

Cheers

Don

Don,

I think you need to start shopping in Overton - 'Caviste' Wine Merchant (run by ex BB&R chap and aussie ex wine maker), Turners Butchers and a good deli that does decent green grocery

Overton, here we come, t'other side of Watership Down, Bright eyes open.

Many thanks.

Cheers

Don

The tip I always give people is wine should be rested for approx 2 weeks after you buy it. It doesn't like being sloshed around all the time and it certainly gets that with the handling in supermarkets. Why do you think you have wine racks.

You would be surprised how much difference it makes.

My greatest regret in life is my good lady cannot drink wine so I emptied my Wine cellar of vintage wines and vintage port such as Lafite, Latour, Chassange Montrachet, Taylors, Dows etc. Nearly broke my heart but a lot of friends enjoyed some high quality vino FOC.

(UK) Why does Supermarket Wine always tastes awful?

Because it's all mixed up with sulphites and other nasty additives.

Like most things these days, it's all f****d about with and not natural, bit like hotdogs!

Probably made with mechanically recovered grape skins or something...

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Probably made with mechanically recovered grape skins or something...

Actually Stephen,

Funny you should say this but my theory is on the waste management from wine producing vineyards of the world...

Once upon a time they would pay a hefty charge to the local toxic treatment works to tanker this effluent waste matter away for careful and extensive treatment of this dangerous mix of well barefoot trodden chemical matter. This was a highly expensive operation and a drain on profitability.
But one day they discovered a new way of solving this problem, nowadays they pipe this waist fluid onto tankers and sell it to the UK, where it’s bottled up and marketed as honest looking wine for the rogue Anglo-Saxon palate, this mix is then rendered completely harmless after filtration though the kidneys of millions of voluntary Brits who actually pay lots of money to contribute to this very ecological solution.
Cleans the toilet up nice too, kills 99% of known germs apparently

Debs

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Originally posted by Stephen Tate:
(UK) Why does Supermarket Wine always tastes awful?

Because it's all mixed up with sulphites and other nasty additives.

Like most things these days, it's all f****d about with and not natural, bit like hotdogs!

Probably made with mechanically recovered grape skins or something...

I'm no wine expert but can appreciate a good bottle. I've tried many £7-10 bottles when looking for something new to try but can always guarantee that I pick the crap ones.

I am fortunate enough to have my granny who's pushing 91. She used to produce around 3000 kilos a year for personal and family consumption. Not being able to up keep all the vineyards we managed around 600 kilos of white and 900 kilos of red this October. Its now fermenting.

The vineyard is on top of a mountain in a natural habitat only to be seen by the sun, wind and rain, no artificial fertilisers. The process is pick the grapes, squash the grapes, wait, drink wine.

Just grape juice no added shit.

It was not so many years ago that thanks to Rod a lot us rushed out to Safeways to buy a very nice white wine (a Cassilero del Diablo) from South America.

I think that some of you are buying to much from the right hand side of the menu and then being disappointed in the product.

It may be beneficial for Debs to buy wine in half bottles so that the wine does not hang around part consumed so long. The unit cost will increase but perhaps the enjoyment might increase.

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It may be beneficial for Debs to buy wine in half bottles so that the wine does not hang around part consumed so long.

Exactly what I have done recently with BBRs House Red which comes in half bottles at just a little more than the full bottles.

Well worth the effort/cost

Cheers

Don

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(UK) Why does Supermarket Wine always tastes awful?

Because it's all mixed up with sulphites and other nasty additives.

Like most things these days, it's all f****d about with and not natural, bit like hotdogs!

Probably made with mechanically recovered grape skins or something...

Sorry, but that is not true. Sulphites can be present in the wine naturally, directly as a result of the fermentation.

It is true sulphur is also added, especially prior to bottling but the limits are controlled.

The "contains sulphites" warning statement must appear even with levels as low as 10mg/l which can occur naturally through fermentation alone.

I come back to the main point I made previously about price and what it appears most of the supermarket shoppers want - three for a tenner. You cannot get brilliant wine at these prices anymore than you can a brillaint hifi system for £199.

However, the wine may be good enough for "most" supermarket customers who buy below £3-99 a bottle and then drink it within 24hours. The more discerning amongst us would buy at a higher level and keep the wine a bit before drinking it.

I do not work for a supermarket or an independent merchant so do not have an axe to grind either way. However, I have seen and bought some great wine from supermarkets - at a price -and do think they have done a lot to make wine more accessible to ordinary people.

The notion that they conncoct cheap wine by adding colouring\flavouring etc to crap grapes is not something I recognise from my experience.

There is, of course a world glut of wine against falling consumption so the supermarkets are able to buy cheaply from the producers and reflect this in their prices.

Higher quality wines will generall always command a higher price.

Falling consumption?

I take that as a call to open another bottle of red.

Cheers!

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Originally posted by rodwsmith:
..... just as the best meat comes from a butcher, the best fresh fruit from a greengrocer, and the best fish from a fishmonger, the best wine will come from a wine merchant....

This rings true for me. Although I've had good wines from supermarkets, I found it useful to find a good wine shop that can recommend something to my taste. I found Wines of Interest in Ipswich (of all places) very good in this respect (Google 'em). I told them what we like to drink, and in what circumstances (e.g. friends round, wine with food, quaffing plonk after a day in front of a computer, chilling in the dark with some tunes....) and they came up with a good mixed case or two as a first stab. After a few duds, we can now be pretty sure we're going to get something we enjoy. To be honest, I'm generally ignorant of what it is, but it's been a while since I've had to pour it down the sink. And it's not necessarily expensive. Most places like this will do mail order, but collecting in person is also fun when I can - great sense of humour.
But IMHO a large part of enjoying wine (I'm no expert here) is the environment - I've drunk cheap plonk on a warm evening while watching the sun going down over the Rhone, and it's been heavenly, but I bet the same wine would taste like sh&t if I bought and drank it here......
Good call on the Wine Society though - I'll investigate, thanks for the heads-up
Cheers
John

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But IMHO a large part of enjoying wine (I'm no expert here) is the environment - I've drunk cheap plonk on a warm evening while watching the sun going down over the Rhone, and it's been heavenly, but I bet the same wine would taste like sh&t if I bought and drank it here......

Quite possibly John. In a similar vein, I think that the most important single thing I learnt in my time in the trade was that it's not what you're drinking, it's who you're drinking it with.

Best, Chris