Newspaper pieces about ‘best value’ wines are all too often littered with mass production supermarket own brands and big name labels. Whilst it is true that these certainly offer plenty of plonk for your pound, you aren’t necessarily getting much bang for your buck. Not every wine you find on our shelves can be bought with the change in your pocket, but there are certainly many that offer fantastic value and deliver a whole lot more for the money than what you are likely to pick up in a supermarket. We were therefore thrilled by Victoria Moore’s article in The Daily Telegraph this weekend – ‘Wow-factor wines for under £10’, in which she states:
‘When drawing up lists like this I often give priority to wines that are widely available, in other words, wines on the supermarket shelf. This time there has been no positive discrimination of any sort. In this era of alleged fake news I thought you deserved to know about the very best, wherever it was from.’
In order to make the cut, Victoria had three conditions – a) be delicious b) be the best value wine of its type I could find and c) meet the price criterion. Five Lea & Sandeman favourites made the cut, and we of course agree that these are some of the very best value wines available in the UK.
You can order them by clicking below:
2016 PICPOUL DE PINET Domaine Reine Juliette
‘As with prosecco, picpoul has become fashionable so fast that much of it is now dilute and disappointing and tastes like old boiled sweets. This one returns it to glory: it’s saline, dry and slightly hawthorny. Great. Nice to have the freshness of the new 2016 too.’ Victoria Moore, The Daily Telegraph
75cl Bottles: £9.95 Case Price: £8.95
2015 DOMBEYA Sauvignon
‘There’s no way you’d mistake this for a Loire or Marlborough sauvignon. It has a faint air of baked apricot skin , and also smells of wet river rocks, lemon grass, green figs and white asparagus. Carefully metered, to the point of being almost prickly, and dry. Very good.’ Victoria Moore, The Daily Telegraph
75cl Bottles: £10.95 Case Price: £9.95
2015 DUROU ‘EXCEPTION’ MALBEC Fabrice Durou
‘Malbec from the Cahors region, with a restrained structure that is closer to claret than the juicy malbec of Argentina. Savoury and gruffly elegant. Particularly excellent in this vintage.’ Victoria Moore, The Daily Telegraph
75cl Bottles: £7.95 Case Price: £7.50
2015 CÔTES DU RHÔNE Rouge Cuvée Mistral Domaine Coulange
‘When Keats wrote, “O for a beaker full of the warm South” he might have had this sultry Rhône in mind. It’s brimful with the taste of sweetly ripe berries, heady with alcohol and smells like the scent the earth exhales at the end of a hot day. I want this bottle on my kitchen worktop. Open.’ Victoria Moore, The Daily Telegraph
75cl Bottles: £10.50 Case Price: £9.50
2015 TALENTO Monastrell Ecológico Ego Bodegas
‘Monastrell (the growling, feral mourvèdre of Bandol) is the grape behind this accomplished red from Murcia in Spain. At its heart is a rich, polished flavour of blackberries, with a whiff of violet and granitic undertow. Lovely stuff.’ Victoria Moore, The Daily Telegraph
75cl Bottles: £10.50 Case Price: £9.50
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