A decent red wine at £10/12 a bottle

Buying supermarket wine is very hit and miss. I'd recommend you join The Wine Society, whose wines are totally reliable, customer service is second to none and the wines great value at prices from £6 to hundreds. That said, I bought a bottle of Araldica's barbera from Waitrose on the way home for £8.99 and it's a great wine. Just right for tonight's dinner of gnocchi in tomato sauce.

You might have a look at Naked Wines website.

The principle behind things is that subscribers commit to a monthly figure, which, in turn, allows Naked to provide funding for smaller independent winemakers.

I've been a member for a couple years now, and enjoy the variety of wines on offer, with some real gems so far.

Dave.

Hi stokie for around that price I would recommend a lovely Australian Blend . The wine is called Wirra Wirra - Church Block.  I was introduced to this last time I was in Oz by my friends father and it was his go to wine when guests were coming (even poms) . I buy it from Waitrose but I think its available from Tesco too ?? Reassuringly its cheaper over here than in Oz . Great wine for the money . 

Peter. 

the wirra wirra church block is awesome…  

If you want to "upgrade" a little more ? I would suggest Delta Pinot Noir from NZ about £17-18 .

Baron de Ley Rioja Reserva is good vfm at around £10 - £12 per bottle. Also Campo de Viejo Gran Reserva.

Ken, you could try Soligamar, a decent Rioja from Lidl, about a tenner a bottle.

I like the italian Merlot from Giol, they have a very nice Pinot Grigio as well. Both are organic wines, so they should be quite healthy

Thanks for all your advice so far. I shall compile a list of your recommendations and start shopping.

I think CHEERS is the probably most appropriate response. 

Ken

Our local Solar store (The East Anglian Co-Op) is flogging their Amarone off for fourteen quid a bottle. Bargain! A very fine one too.

G D Vajra  Dolcetto d'alba most excellent Italian dry red. Berry Brothers gave it.

Scoot, Tony M, Kiwi cat,

Thanks, I will follow these up.

Ken

I'm not pissed you know! 

Hi Ken

What kind of wines do you actually enjoy? I'm sure everyone is being supremely helpful above but they are recommending wines which they have liked, and that is no guarantee that you will too. For example, Dolcetto d'Alba and Amarone are geographically quite close, but apart from both being Italian and red, they are extremely dissimilar. Dolcetto means 'the little soft one', and is aptly named, while Amarone is a dried-grape bruiser monster of a wine often weighing in at 16% alcohol, and in practically medical need of venison or similar. It's difficult to imagine you or anyone would like both, and certainly not equally or in the same circumstances. Likewise, frankly, New Zealand Pinot Noir and Barossa Valley Shiraz. Both red and Antipodean (and good), but otherwise chalk and cheese.

As you have enjoyed (I assume) the reds above in your opening post (I can't find out much about them) they are both European and mid-to full bodied wines from warm sunny places. I'd stick to that, and find other things from Sicily and central Spain, and expand out from there. Let it be a journey - wine is always most rewarding that way.

Sicily's best red - which might just be found for your price range - is Donnafugata's Mille e una Notte, and if that one is now too much (I am out of touch with the UK market) then one of the other Donnafugata wines is a good bet as they are the Island's best producer and exceptionally consistent. To compare with the Spanish wine, then search out something else from La Mancha (the best area of which is Valdepeñas) or the smaller regions of Jumilla and Yecla nearer Valencia. Your Vina Sol wine, and practically all of these are made from Tempranillo - Spain's great trump-card grape variety so will be similar. 

It's time to search out a wine merchant you trust, and whose service exceeds that of those you have been disappointed by. Although all really good wine merchants now have internet and mail order options, if you'd like me to find someone reputable for you locally (Taunton still?) then I can ask my UK trade friends. St Austell's range certainly used to be good and well sourced, but I have been out of it for 8 years now so that may well have changed.

You are right about the supermarkets. All the discounts are phooey. You get what you pay for. If it claims to be "£9.99 - buy one get one free" you will be buying two £5 bottles of wine, at full supermarket margin, pure and simple. The 'previous price' will have been available at one store, somewhere distant (usually, for some reason, in Inverness) for the legal obligatory 28 days. And that's it. The minimum quantity that Tesco will even consider is 25,000 cases. And this cuts out about 90% of all the world's wine producers (and, in my opinion, all the good ones)

The Wine Society is a great tip. It is actually technically a non-profit making thing (although absolutely technically so is Waitrose [part of John Lewis] and although they are the best of them, Waitrose is still a supermarket). I can't say I am enamoured of the Naked Wines model, because Rowan Gormley is such a twunt, and I know more than a few winemakers who use it solely to dump wine they cannot sell elsewhere, but there are always two sides to every story, and it has been successful, so they must be doing something right - they just reverse took-over Majestic for example.

Nevertheless, finding a good independent wine merchant, local to you, to whom you can talk and maybe taste with, will save you money in the long run in terms of ending up with wines you actually enjoy.

But beware - wine can become just as much of a 'thing' as hifi (and football), and then you run the risk of:

Shudder!!

Cheers

Rod

Thanks Rod, That's a good write up and very informative. My initial plan was to search for Spanish and Sicilian wines similar to those I have been buying. I will also give the wine society a go also. If you know of someone in the Taunton area that would be helpful and appreciated. I like the cartoon also 

Thanks again,

Ken

We'll see about that on Friday 

Ken

1.80 Euro per bottle.................

Still, if it tastes nice and nobody is loosing money or being enslaved, why not ?

Nevertheless, I have a feeling that old Rod will be sending the Wine Police after you, Frank Beware !

I'm sure Don was simply joking, Rod. Your knowledge is always useful and much appreciated.

We bought some wine from Naked once, on one of their introductory offers, and it was very run of the mill. Then you get all that Wine Angels nonsense arriving in the email. Paying regularly and then getting something unknown indeed suggest that you'll get the stuff the growers cannot shift, unless you have absolute confidence in the buyers.

We had a Sancerre from Waitrose last night, which was £12, allegedly down from £15, but I've had Haut Poitou Sauvignons for £7 that are considerably better.

We've belonged to the Wine Society for years and it has great buyers who really know their stuff. You buy a share for £40, which gives £20 off the first order. Then you can order as much or as little as you like. So long as you order 12 bottles or spend £75 delivery is free. The even have their own vans and friendly drivers. One nice thing is that they have a shop in northern France, under an hour from the tunnel, selling the wines at French rates of duty. We try to pop over once a year for a few boxes, a good meal and a night in a hotel - it's a good excuse for a mini break.

HH is spot on - on both points.

I am no expert on which are the best wines at any given price point, but I miss not being close to the Co-op anymore.

They ran some very nice reds, especially Rioja and Bordeaux, as far as I was concerned. 

I used to enjoy a bottle on occasion and never found that a nice wine seemed worse the second day if corked and more than half full. Probably that is a Cardinal Wine Sin!

I used to buy bottles between £6 and £10, so not the bottom shelf, but certainly not the top. 

I found the Co-op managed the trick of seeming to buy/sell wines that were consistently enjoyable. It even led me to experiment with different types. 

These days the same wines seem to be on the £10 plus mark, and that is too much for me. But I'd rather abstain than drink something not very nice.

Rod, do you know anything about the Co-op's wine buyers. Am I totally wrong to think that they know their eggs?

ATB from George

+1 more for the Wine Society. Very hard to go wrong in truth.

Another +1 for the Co-op - for a supermarket, it seems to me to have the best "hit rate" in terms of quality v price, if not always the widest choice. The latter might simply be that ours is not the biggest...