With the cursed credit crisis taking its toll on all our wallets, few of us can afford to be disappointed when it comes to buying a bottle of wine. We want quality without paying over the odds, and, if the occasion arises to splash out on a really special bottle, we want to know that the wine will be just that – special.
Many of us choose to make our wine purchases in the supermarket, for the sake of convenience as well as price, and the supermarkets and winemakers have not been slow to cotton on to this. Visit the red wine aisles of any supermarket today and you’ll find a bewildering array of special offers, recommendations and a dazzling range of glitzy designs. With so much choice, and so much competing information, how can we be sure that the bottle of red wine we are choosing is going to be one that we will really enjoy?
As the renowned supermarket wine writer Malcolm Gluck famously commented, ‘Never go off price or label’. A pricey wine is not necessarily a fine wine, and a well-thought out label design does not necessarily denote an equally impressive tipple.” So what should we be looking for when making our red wine choices?
First of all, it helps to know what is what when it comes to the label. Much of the information found on today’s bottles is mandatory by law, and a great many wine producers are choosing to ‘double label’ their wines – with an attractive image on the front and all the legal information, and very often an enticing description of the wine itself, on the back.
A brand name or name of the producer will generally be given prominence on the front label, together with the wine’s grape variety and its place of origin. Increasingly, European wines are being labeled by the area where the grape was grown, such as Rioja or Bordeaux, and buyers may have to look to the back label to find the actual grape variety, if it is there at all.
Somewhat confusingly, the opposite is often the case with ‘New World’ (eg from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Americas) wines, where the type of grape is given priority on the label. With New World wines increasingly highly-regarded, however, customers will increasingly find mention of the area the wine is from – such as Napa Valley in California or Mendoza in Argentina. Grape variety is considered by many to determine the style of a wine, but factors such as climate, soil type and wine making techniques mean that variety alone is no great indicator of how a wine will taste. So if you’re a fan of a particular type of red wine or red wine from a particular region, pay attention to the label to make sure you get what you think you are paying for.
In today’s financial climate, price is more of a determining factor in wine-buying than ever before. But how can buyers be sure they are getting value for money when choosing red wine in the supermarket? Will a wine that costs twice the price of another really deliver double the pleasure? And if not will the extra money be worth it?
It is true that wines that are more expensive to produce often produce wines that would generally be perceived to be of higher quality, due to a combination of factors such as better vineyard sites and limits on the volume of wine being produced. But, with some supermarkets ramping up prices one week just to drop them the next and announce it as a massive reduction, apparent bargains might not be all they seem.
What you will want to spend on your bottle of red wine will depend an awful lot on the occasion. If you’re heading for a casual evening of drinks and nibbles, a dependable but not exciting bottle by a label such as Jacob’s Creek will likely foot the bill. If the occasion demands something more special, you might want to do a little advance research. Many food and wine magazines, and newspaper weekend supplements, have sections dedicated to the best supermarket wine bargains, so it pays to read up on these. In addition, an increasing number of supermarkets are choosing to employ in-store wine experts, whose role is – like those in a specialist wine store – to advise on the best wine, for the best price, according to the customer’s taste. Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all method of buying red wine at the supermarket, but if you come armed with a decent knowledge of the regions and grape varieties you have enjoyed in the past, you should be able to find something that will fit the bill, without paying too much.
