These are strange times in the wine world. The cost of living crisis, the lingering after-effects of Covid and Brexit, the new British alcohol duty regime, and the climate crisis are all in various complex and interlinked ways influencing the kinds of wine that are appearing in UK shops, bars and restaurants – and, perhaps even more dramatically, the prices we’re paying for them. All of which means that I’ve had to finally update some of the longstanding rules of thumb that I use to guide my wine-buying. Here, then, are my five tips for making the most of wine in autumn 2023.
Accept that £8 is the new £5.99
All of us have a kind of sixth sense for what we think constitutes a reasonable price for our regular purchases. It’s the price below which you’d have to be lucky to find something decent, and that you know you’d have to exceed if you wanted the really good stuff. Low inflation and aggressive pricing by the dominant purveyors of wine in the UK – the supermarkets – meant the figure for a decent ordinary bottle was lodged at £5.99 for ages. In the space of a couple of years, it’s leapt to £8.
£12 to £15 is a sweet spot
I’ve also had to adjust what I think of as the sweet spot for quality. That point on the pricing spectrum where you’re no longer giving all the price on a bottle to duty, VAT, packaging and logistics but where you’re not yet paying a premium for reputation and marketing. Three or four years ago, that was £8 to £12. Now it’s £12 to £15.
Buy a case from an indie
Most people understand that if you want the best stuff you need to go to an independent merchant. The flipside, it’s assumed, is that you have to pay more for the pleasure. In fact, indies, many of whom have sharpened their approach to delivery and online sales since the pandemic, will generally offer better prices than many bigger retailers for equivalent quality, especially if you’re able to buy by the case of 12 bottles, where discounts of 10% are common.
Mediterranean Europe, South Africa and Chile for value
One thing that hasn’t changed in recent years is the source of the best value bottles. In Europe, it’s best to head south: to Portugal and Spain, the Languedoc-Roussillon in France, and Puglia and Sicily in Italy, and, increasingly, to Greece. Elsewhere, Chile and South Africa are still doing the best job, sub-£10.
In a restaurant? Order orange/light red/rosé
Over the past five years, sommeliers have been filling their lists with wines that blur the lines between colour and style, which they love for their versatility with food. Next time you’re eating out, look for skin-contact and orange wines made from white grapes that have the texture of red wines, super-light red wines that have the refreshment of whites, and rosés that flit somewhere between the two.
Six wines for five rules
M&S Found Alicante Bouschet
Alentejo, Portugal 2022 (£8, Marks & Spencer)
A superb, richly brambly fruited autumn-into-winter red from southern Portugal. Part of M&S’s consistently good Found range, which offers an array of lesser-spotted grape varieties and regions at prices that are generally in and around the £8 mark.
Gros Manseng Orange Wine
Vin de France 2022 (£8.25, Asda)
The trend for orange wines made from white grapes with extended skin contact has found a receptive audience in the UK’s restaurants. It’s also starting to filter into the mainstream, with Asda’s gently grippy, tropically tangy bottling a good-value starting point.
Co-op Irresistible País
Itata, Chile 2022 (£8.50, The Co-op)
Some Chilean wine producers still chafe at the stereotype that they’re only good at doing budget bottles. Chile is capable of much more than that but skill in making high bang-for-buck wines such as this supple, juicy, subtly earthy red, is not to be sniffed at.
BEST BUY
Domaine de Vavril Gamay Noir
Beaujolais Villages 2022 (£14.25, or £12.65 as part of a 12-bottle case, hhandc.co.uk)
Wonderfully deft winemaking here makes for a silky and pure-fruited red with gorgeous, just-ripe berry compote flavours and a subtle, graphite edge. A wine very much in the sweet spot of high quality to value with or without the case discount.
Quinta do Ameal Loureiro
Vinho Verde, Portugal 2020 (From £11.45, ndjohn.co.uk; winedirect.co.uk; www.harrogatefinewinecompany.com
Another £12-to-£15 sweet-spot wine from a country, Portugal, that is one of the best operators in that part of the price spectrum. It offers a starburst of exuberant citrusy fruitiness with a lovely mouth-filling stone-fruit fleshiness, and all with a relatively low alcohol of 11.5%.
Van Niekerk Vintners Rebellie Grenache
Bot River, South Africa 2020 (£23.50, or £20.95 as part of a 12-bottle case, leaandsandeman.co.uk)
Grenache (aka garnacha) can be used to make inky dark fruit-bombs, but increasingly the red variety is being gently infused into super-pale, elegant crisp but lingeringly red-fruited and fresh, food-friendly wines such as this new-wave South African.
