Supermarket plonk recommendations thread

[Archie_tect]

Can't stand oaked wine... which Miss A_T aptly once misread as cak... I think it just ruins any decent flavours and gives it that awful moisture sucking tannin dryness.. yuk. [If you don't like it say so...]

 

[asterix]

Oak (New-, Over-): If you want to start a fight at a Winegeek confab, just ask 'How much Oak is good in a wine?' and stand back and watch the fur fly. Many premium wines are put into small oak barrels, or if you want to be fancy, 'barriques' for aging (and many not-so-premium wines have oak chips dunked in them like a teabag). This can impart nice, complex, toasty dark notes to the wine, or it can leave it smelling and tasting like the inside of your high school woodshop. The newer the oak barrel, the more flavor it will impart to the juice that is inside it. Anti-oak geeks say that oakiness is used to cover up weak fruit or bad winemaking, pro-oak geeks (see Beaver, Termite, Woodchuck) say that used as a spice, it adds depth and complexity. There are all kinds of oak (French, American, Slovenian... no, seriously, Slovenian), each with a slightly different set of flavors to impart. Everyone has a different tolerance level for degrees of oakiness; deep down we're all geeks--can't we all just get along?

 

[Archie_tect]

Cak...

 

[asterix]

Cak...

Right that's it..

I'll see you in the car park

 

[Archie_tect]

An anti-oak geek! My life is complete....

 

[Fnaar]

Lidl's Bardolino is nice

 

[ASC1951]

Lidl's 2009 Catalunya Barrica is a snip at £4.99, if you like tempranillo (which I'm afraid I don't).

You have to be careful with supermarket wines, because the really cheap end - under £3.50, say - isn't actually very good value. Picking, vinifying, bottling, transporting and Excise Duty use up about £2.50 a bottle, which doesn't leave a lot for the wine. If you pay an extra £1 a bottle you can be doubling the price of the contents. IME you get the best value for money in table wine in the £5 to £8 bracket, although Lidl - like Aldi - have a few offerings around the £10 mark which are very good.

If you want 'special occasion' wine you are still better going to a good wine merchant, like Oddbins or Majestic.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Excellent, there's two to look out for at Lidl.

I love tempranillo

 

[Hover Fly]

blah blah

Yeah, but split or sawn? and how long toasted? With how bright a fire? and what to do with all the dead woodworms we always find at the bottom?

 

[asterix]

blah, blah , blah.. the dead woodworms we always find at the bottom?

Just carry on eating them. It's too late to stop now.

 

[dan_bo]

Lime Tree Merlot from the co-op's pretty reliable, and tasty.

Bit early for this innit?

 

[PK99]

Believe it or not, Waitrose is an excellent source of sub £5 wine.
http://www.waitrosedirect.com/wines...:("10051_16511")&pageSize=24&page=1&orderBy=3

Of all the supermarkets Waitrose is the only one respected by wine professionals - all their buyers are "masters of wine" (MW), they do not specify to producers to work down to a price point as eg tesco and sainsbury do and they do not run false Bogoff sales. Hardy's Crest is the classic Tesco Bogoff wine - a decent enough wine but produced in a more expensive bottle/label than it warrants and sold at a higher price for short periods in small quantities on the bottom shelf and then put on the aisle end on a bogoff/toofer discount - the discount price is its real value point. (I'm puzzled as to why waitrose have taken to stocking this at the real price without doing the bogoff - poor decision methinks.

I'd happily buy any sub £5 wine at waitrose and expect value for money, other supermarkets I'm much more careful.

I'd echo the favourable comments re some of Aldi's wine - some hidden gems in there but you have to be careful

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Believe it or not, Waitrose is an excellent source of sub £5 wine.
http://www.waitrosedirect.com/wines/?facet=isWineClub"N") AND isCorporateWine"N") AND parentCatgroup_id_facet"10051_16511")&pageSize=24&page=1&orderBy=3

Of all the supermarkets Waitrose is the only one respected by wine professionals - all their buyers are "masters of wine" (MW), they do not specify to producers to work down to a price point as eg tesco and sainsbury do and they do not run false Bogoff sales. Hardy's Crest is the classic Tesco Bogoff wine - a decent enough wine but produced in a more expensive bottle/label than it warrants and sold at a higher price for short periods in small quantities on the bottom shelf and then put on the aisle end on a bogoff/toofer discount - the discount price is its real value point. (I'm puzzled as to why waitrose have taken to stocking this at the real price without doing the bogoff - poor decision methinks.

I'd happily buy any sub £5 wine at waitrose and expect value for money, other supermarkets I'm much more careful.

I'd echo the favourable comments re some of Aldi's wine - some hidden gems in there but you have to be careful

Interesting you say that, barring independent shops Waitrose is the only place I've never had a bad bottle from.

 

[Archie_tect]

Could anyone explain Costco's wine pricing policy.... it's all really expensive stuff- we only go there for washing powder, toilet rolls, peanut butter and Passata!

I thought Costco was supposed to be cheaper because of their bulk buying power.

 

[ASC1951]

Of all the supermarkets Waitrose is the only one respected by wine professionals - all their buyers are "masters of wine" (MW), they do not specify to producers to work down to a price point as eg tesco and sainsbury do and they do not run false Bogoff sales.

I would be rather surprised by that - to the point of not believing it. Waitrose are a supermarket like the others, just at a different price point and with a different brand image.

Hardy's Crest is the classic Tesco Bogoff wine - a decent enough wine but produced in a more expensive bottle/label than it warrants and sold at a higher price for short periods in small quantities on the bottom shelf and then put on the aisle end on a bogoff/toofer discount - the discount price is its real value point.

You have absolutely hit the thingie on the whatsit there. Supermarket wine discounts aren't discounts at all, because no-one is expected to buy them at any other price. They are displayed at 'full' price for the minimum legal period and often not even for that. But it works - I look at the big shouty labels first, even though I know I'm being conned.

Personally I don't rate Tesco for wine. An apparently huge range, but a lot of it very similar and never any 'hey, this is unusual' bottles. Just dull stuff made and sold industrially. Sainsburys locally has equally unimaginative stuff, slightly more expensive. Of the big four, I would go for Morrisons. A smaller selection but I always feel some thought has gone into it, and they have had MWs as wine buyers since forever.