Debs

This question is far to subjective. What I like may be bloody awful to you and vice versa. Even Mrs Mick and I squabble over what is a decent bottle of wine.

You will just have to do what the rest of us do - experiment.

To be honest, experimenting with wine is half the fun of it.

Also I have yet to taste bad cav sav, so you are pretty safe.

Mick

Debs,

              Try the Brian McGuigan range. There are several variants. It's an Australian brand.

The Black Label range is < £10. Some are very soft and easy drinking. Quite consistent in quality/taste.

Penfolds' Koonunga Hill do a fat Shiraz and Cab Sav. I'm not a big red wine drinker anymore but given the option, this is what I'd drink. Good VFM. Appx $10-15 here in NZ. Would assume it's 12-15 quid?

wrt - Koonunga Hill, I remember when it was still GBP 4.49 a bottle from Tescos

Debs, I know from experience I can't recommend a wine you'll like but I do recommend 'Sideways' if you've not seen it 

Chris

When it was released, a film credited for absolutely killing Merlot consumption!

The directors commentary makes the movie doubly hillarious.

Debs,

last month I was on Mull and we each had to bring a varied mixed case with bottles up to £20 per bottle (with a few magnums of Cote Rotie thrown in for good measure!  Rather more than £20 per bottle...).  There were some good and some not so good wines (luckily the former outnumbered the latter).  However, for me, the stand-out red wine values were from Santa Rita of Chile;

Santa Rita Medalla Real Gran Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2007

Santa Rita Medalla Real Gran Reserva Carmenere 2008

These were real eye-openers.  I had been woken up to the potential of Chile ever since tasting the incredible 1981 Cousino Macul Antiguas Reservas.  I spent weeks tracking down every bottle I could lay my hands on - sadly only two and a half cases.  A sublime wine that reminded me of classic Bordeux like Leoville Barton at its best (Try the L-B 1985).  A friend put a bottle into a blind tasting he did at his wine shop of 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th growth Bordeux wines, and it was far from embarressed.  In fact, in a few cases it came out top.  The wines mentioned above are not at that level - and sadly no Antiguas Reservas since has got anywhere close to the '81 - but if they came from France they would be two or three times the price.  Impressive.

There were two notable wines for their incredible value for money too;

Gran Fabrica Gran Reserva Carinena 2001 (Tempranillo, Grenache, Cabernet Sauvignon)

Ravens Wood Zinfandel (sorry, I have forgotten the year and not at home so can't check)

At a guess I would have said they were both good examples of a £10-15 wine. The Ravens Wood in particular was quite delicious. Their actual cost was £3 a bottle, bought in Calais.  I've already been over on the Ferry and snaffled some up.

Don't ever visit Bordeaux Mick, it's awash with bad Cabernet Sauvignon (and not necessarily just the cheap stuff)!

But you're absolutely right that experimentation is half the fun and taste is completely subjective...

Debs, as a generalisation, for best value reds currently look to Spain and Southern Italy (esp Sicily). It is just easier to make red wine where the sun shines freely (although the risk is excess alcohol). The Aussie $ is too strong for there to be many bargains in the UK right now, and the situation is relatively similar for South America (the Brazilian market is booming an drinks almost exclusively Argentine and Chilean wine - they don't make much themselves).

Almost everything on a multibuy deal is worth what you actually pay for it - the 'was' prices are purely made up, and the whole system advantages the big producers with the largest marketing budgets - who are the main players for the supermarkets. Your local independent merchant may appear more expensive, but it's because they don't carry any of these spurious deals, and that's exactly how the supermarkets want it. DFS do the same thing with sofas. Convince yourself you've made a huge saving and feel good about having bought a crappy product for exactly what it was worth.

To be honest I am now 6 years out of living in the UK and I only really sell super high end stuff in my job, that I am out of touch with regard to specifics. But try a good Nero d'Avola/Merlot blend from Sicily, a Primitivo from Puglia, or a wine from Jumilla in Spain and see how you get on...

I’m just about to go sleep off my night-shift now [gosh i'm tired] but i now have some ideas so I’ll sleep on it and write out a mixed bag order list later to 'Tanners' my local wine merchant.

Thank you everyone for replies, very interesting reading!

Debs 

Debs,

           Let us know your choices and how you found them.

look for the WeinStein app in de AppleStore. It is free and provides you with the best wine-suggestions you can think of

Hi Debs,

I'll second Richard's suggestion of Ravenswood Zinfandel. My wife and I were in San Francisco a couple of years back and did a tasting there, $5 for 4 tastes.  About 15 Zinfandels each we're we finally left! I think the guy on the seller door was enjoying overdoing the tasting limit as much as we were enjoying tasting!

Their Lodi old vine Zinfandel is good value at under a tenner a bottle (google ravenswood Lodi) at majestic. I think Morrissons (of all people) may carry it also, but majestic are offering 8.99 each for 2 or more. Definitely worth a go.

Agree with Rod that Primitivo from Puglia can be very good - I only recently found out that Primitivo and Zinfandel are from the same grape/vine (someone will hopefully give the correct details).

Finally, I've recently got into Valpolicella Ripasso, made by passing Valpolicella over 'used' Amarone grape skins to impart more flavour - has a wonderful preserved fruit character, not as much as Amarone itself which is made from 'raisinated' grapes, but a hint of it.  Expect to pay upwards of £12 a bottle for a reasonable drop, and in my experience it softens considerably after half an hour of opening for a more rounded flavour, so do decant :-)

Cheers!

Phil

I was a fan of California (red) zinfandel many years ago, but over the past 15 or so years the style turned to, to our tastes, overly jammy, overly fruity, very high alcohol.  We call that style a "fruit bomb."  It is a style that Robert Parker apparently likes, as that style was gaining high marks from him and with cabernets too.  I have had Ravenswood zins that, literally, tasted of black raspberry jam.  Truly some residual sugar, as the sugar content was so high originally that the yeast could not convert it all by the time the yeast died at something close to 17 percent alcohol.

I recently tasted some California zins out in San Francisco, and I do believe that to a small extent the older style is starting to come back.  Back in the early 1990's, I thought of these wines as closer to Rhone reds -- spicy with some black pepper notes.  And not nearly so fruity.

Debs,

I find the South African Rockridge  Merlot  a very smooth and fruity red, easy on the palate for everyday drinking. If you feel a little more adventurous, try a bit of Italy's Le Marche's Rosso Cornero(Villa Malacari), heaven on earth, at a  very affordable price!

KR

Tony

One of the best things you can do as a wine drinker is join the Wine Society. They sell a huge range at very good prices, have been going since 1876 and have very close links with a range of top growers, many of whom suppy the Society's own label wines, all of which are fantastic value. Have a look at their website!

There is no need to spend £10 to get drinkable wine - they have loads at £6 to £8 that are really excellent, and being a cooperative, there is no profit involved. They do some really good mixed cases and an introduction to grapes or regions, and you get free delivery on cases of 12 or orders over £75. I've been a member for years and rarely buy from anywhere else.

On the other hand, I find Tesco's range to be awful, and some of their alleged half price wines are truly appalling. Most mainstream big brand Aussie wines from the supermarkets are bland overpriced rubbish. The value tends to come from Italy, Spain and Southern France.

Herederos del Marques de Riscal

Old traditional Spanish winery, since 1858

Different vintages but even the newer wines such as the Rioja Reserva 2006 is one of the nicest red wines you'll find at a modest price. Perfect IMHO.

http://www.vinissimus.co.uk/en...html?id_vino=mrisr06

I thought there was a limit to how high wine alcohol could become without fortification?

Unless wine yeast has been developed over the years ~ 

to provide plonk for people who only want to get drunk quick?

Some of the nicest reds I’ve tasted have been around the 12 ½ % or less.

Here’s another question: Screw cap or Cork, does it matter these days?

Debs

Or even rubber corks?

When out for a meal with screw caps and rubber corks,You cant send it back for being corked 

There is no pollution on plastic or rubber.

Stu.

Richard,

Carmenere is such an under-rated grape. It's rather good.

Debs,

Consider a Shiraz\Cabernet Sauvignon. Brings out the best of both grapes - absolutely cracking.

Debs,just try a Sagrantino di Montefalco for fun.It costs about 14 Euro(Spoleto Ducale) in Italy,don't know its price in Uk.What about a Cabernet Sauvignon from Veneto?

Look for Nappa Valley, Sonoma, Santa Cruz on the wine bottles! They are the best IMO.

Yes - research at the University of Davis in California by Dr Carole Meredith set out, via genome mapping - to discover exactly what Zinfandel was (it had to have come from Europe - native American grapes being a different species). Turns out both Zinfandel and Primitivo (gnetically identical) are the offspring of Plavac Mali, a Croatian grape variety (also makes good wines, if you can find them), so may have come from there.

But over the course of four hundred years apart the two have mutated into somewhat different things, which is what plants do. The name "Primitivo" comes from 'primo' as in 'first' (to be harvested) rather than anything primitive. Primitivo is indeed generally the first black grape picked in Puglia. Zinfandel, on the other hand, fully ripens about five weeks later. And five weeks of more sugar results in a lot more alcohol in the wines generally (too much for me, and - I suspect - for Debs also).

Puglia (which would sound more palatable - perhaps - under its Italian name of Apulia) produces more wine than it knows what to do with (historically a vast amount of it was sent north to a village in Piedmont called 'Cinzano' - I imagine you can guess the rest) so there is fantastic value to be found, but you do need someone to have sorted the wheat from the chaff.

Debs, winemaking yeast usually gets to about 15½% and then dies, leaving any unfermented sugar as residual sweetness. Any Australian (for example) wine that has 15.5% on the label is almost certain to have sugar left in. A few yeast strains are capable of fermenting to slightly higher alcohol (the max being 17.5% in Valpolicella for Amarone). Most governments impose more tax on wines at higher than 15.5% (because they are usually fortified with spirit), so there are a lot of labels that say 15.5% irrespective of what is actually inside.

To my taste - and we are all different - any wine with more than 14% alcohol is too much. Wine is all about balance, and grapes cannot produce that much sugar without losing too much acidity (freshness) or acquiring dried raisiny flavours. American winemakers will routinely add acid from a packet to compensate for over-ripening the fruit. To me I'd rather they had just left it to nature. 

European vineyards are usually picked a little earlier (there is generally a greater threat of Autumn rain or hail than in the New World) resulting in less alcohol, no residual sugar and more restrained flavours. This is, of course a hideous generalisation, but applies in the main. Plenty of 'Australian' style wines in Languedoc and Sicily, and Paul Draper at Ridge Vineyards in Santa Cruz in California is with me on the alcohol thing and picks earlier (and he's not alone). But then, he trained in Bordeaux.

Cork v screwcap. Hmm. Doesn't matter, take your choice. Wine that needs long term ageing is probably better under a cork, but risks being infected with a substance called TCA that originates in the tree and tastes mouldy ('corked'). Screwcaps are perfect seals - what comes out is what went in. No risks, but less potential for development. If you don't keep wine in a cellar for long periods, have no fear of screwcaps. Incidentally, although the screwcaps cost less than cork, the glass costs a whole pile more (to take a screwcap the thread moulding has to be accurate within a tenth of a millimetre, but it doesn't matter with a cork). No-one switched to screwcaps to save money, certainly not at first.

This guy's wines are worth seeking out:

http://www.bigredwine.co.uk/PP/Treloar/Treloar.asp

Cheers!

Rod

Fabio, my local wine merchant has: Sagrantino di Montefalco DOCG, Rocca di Fabbri 2006 but the price is £26.40

Too expensive for my salary : (

Debs

This is on the order list: A dozen of...

Ampelo Primitivo/Merlot, Tarantino IGP 2011 - £10.70 a bottle

This is one i remember from a couple of years ago, very good after decanting [see the old thead below].

The price has gone up a few quid...

https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...952#1566878607131952

Another one i've had before is on the list...

Vicuña Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot, Valle Central 2011 - £6.20 a bottle

You forgot a bottle of Herederos del Marques de Riscal Rioja Reserva 2006

It's not like your usual Rioja at all....