Red Wine

[Phil D. Rolls]

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It all depends really - I tend to find there's no such thing as a perfect year for wines as it varies from vineyard to vineyard.

Geology, soil, microclimate, cultivation techniques, picking season etc aren't contemporaneous across vineyards and it can be hit or miss.

I had a bottle of 2005 Bordeaux a couple of years back, having chased it after how good the first one was and it wasn't anywhere near as good, despite 2005 being lauded as one of the best wine years in the Bordeaux region in recent times.

The Champany do a lovely Gran Reserva (Imperial Gran Reserva) from both 1999 and 2004 which are lovely (and around the £25-35 price range.

For any interested parties (either living down here or set for a visit to the London area), there's an excellent wine festival that takes place on the South Bank in July (Rioja Tapas Fantasticas) - a mix of tapas stalls, wine tasting/merchants in plentiful supply and expert appearances from (for example) the guys who select the wine for Saturday Kitchen, who you can do private tasting tours with, where you pay £10 and they walk you around the stalls getting you pished

Any idea of the date. Going to see a play at the Globe, and it would be great (maybe even essential) to combine getting drunk with it.

[Sylar]

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Any idea of the date. Going to see a play at the Globe, and it would be great (maybe even essential) to combine getting drunk with it.

14th and 15th of June.

http://riojatapasfantasticas.co.uk/

There's the website for last year, which tells you all that goes on.

[sleeping giant]

Right , went to the Champany today (thanks Sylar) but couldn't get much advice as the lady there was the hotel receptionist and the wine guy was not in until later.
So i just chanced my luck.

Went with a bottle of Capitel De Roari , Amarone 2010 (cheers Bollah) and a bottle of Rioja Bordon Gran Reserva 2005.
Anyone got any thoughts on these ?

Sending the wife out this efty for a selection of cheeses too

[Sylar]

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Right , went to the Champany today (thanks Sylar) but couldn't get much advice as the lady there was the hotel receptionist and the wine guy was not in until later.
So i just chanced my luck.

Went with a bottle of Capitel De Roari , Amarone 2010 (cheers Bollah) and a bottle of Rioja Bordon Gran Reserva 2005.
Anyone got any thoughts on these ?

Sending the wife out this efty for a selection of cheeses too

The 2005 Bordon Gran Reserva was what I had with my Christmas dinner last year actually and it's a lovely bottle of wine!

[sleeping giant]

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The 2005 Bordon Gran Reserva was what I had with my Christmas dinner last year actually and it's a lovely bottle of wine!

Excellent. I will look forward to having that later

Nice wee place too !

[Sylar]

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Excellent. I will look forward to having that later

Nice wee place too !

The food is superb - if you're a fan of meat (particularly steaks) you'll struggle to find better in the area.

[Steve-O]

Pinot Noir from Otago, New Zealand. Get some of that down ye. My wine if choice if I am having some. There are a few different wineries but all pretty reliable from that region.

[speedy_gonzales]

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This one---->http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Produ.../?id=262047476

or this one ----->http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Produ.../?id=252105986

I've had both of those but prefer the second one at £14, it's this one that can be found for £9.99 when on offer,,,,Tesco Corstorphine have another Barolo on the shelves some times but not always, has an all black label but can't find it online, it's usually around the £16 mark and is also rather splendid!

[sleeping giant]

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I've had both of those but prefer the second one at £14, it's this one that can be found for £9.99 when on offer,,,,Tesco Corstorphine have another Barolo on the shelves some times but not always, has an all black label but can't find it online, it's usually around the £16 mark and is also rather splendid!

Think i just seen that in Asda in livingston. I was getting the wife some cheap rosy and notice a Barolo on offer at £11. Couldn't justify it tonight seeing as i just spent £40 already on wine for myself today.

Got some nice cheese too

[sleeping giant]

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The 2005 Bordon Gran Reserva was what I had with my Christmas dinner last year actually and it's a lovely bottle of wine!

Quite nice Smells lovely too.

[sleeping giant]

Sitting in the garden with the 2010 Aramone
Lovely day

[Sylar]

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Sitting in the garden with the 2010 Aramone
Lovely day

Sounds nice - I'm still waiting to drink the bottle of 2007 Gran Reserva I got for my birthday last weekend, as I've been under the weather ever since.

We've just booked a long weekend in France/Belgium for later in the summer.

Eurostar over to Calais with the car, wee drive up to Brugge, Ypres etc and stopping in at the infamous Calais wine warehouse before heading home

[sleeping giant]

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Sounds nice - I'm still waiting to drink the bottle of 2007 Gran Reserva I got for my birthday last weekend, as I've been under the weather ever since.

We've just booked a long weekend in France/Belgium for later in the summer.

Eurostar over to Calais with the car, wee drive up to Brugge, Ypres etc and stopping in at the infamous Calais wine warehouse before heading home

Just moved onto a 2007 gran reserva. Wife just got it from Lidl Baturrica Tarragona . Not expecting much tbh.

[hibsbollah]

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Sitting in the garden with the 2010 Aramone
Lovely day

The connoisseurs would tell you you're drinking that far too young

But whatever floats it...

[sleeping giant]

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The connoisseurs would tell you you're drinking that far too young

But whatever floats it...

You recommended it Mr !

[hibsbollah]

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You recommended it Mr !

I did indeed, it's my favourite red. Four years in bottle means it will be even more concentrated and deep purple than normal, if you had a 2005 for example, it would be that bit smoother. But it all depends on your taste

[hibsbollah]

Im having a 2009 Barolo tonight, from the home of bargains that is Lidl Craigmillar. £10.99

[Pretty Boy]

Accepted an offer for a new job today so just cracked open a Bollinger Special Cuvee. Got a Pol Roger chilling in the fridge as well.

Should be an enjoyable night.

[sleeping giant]

Sitting in a hotel in York and have just purchased a god awful Merlot Pays D'OC Le Charme.
Its that crap , it doesn't have a year marked on it
£16.99 tae

[Steve-O]

[Hibee87]

The best Red Wine (more of a black colour) is made right here in britan by some benedectine monks

[Mr White]

Bottle of carta roja gran reserva 2007 bought from sainsburys this evening. Reduced from £9 to £5. No idea if it's any good and I probably wont even touch it for weeks but nearly half price seemed too good to ignore

[Aldo]

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Bottle of carta roja gran reserva 2007 bought from sainsburys this evening. Reduced from £9 to £5. No idea if it's any good and I probably wont even touch it for weeks but nearly half price seemed too good to ignore

It's very nice SS. Sainsburys have a decent selection of wines. I usually watch out for the McGuigan estate wines as the usually have them with 4 or 5 quid off..... Usually 9 or 10 quid a bottle..

[Mr White]

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It's very nice SS. Sainsburys have a decent selection of wines. I usually watch out for the McGuigan estate wines as the usually have them with 4 or 5 quid off..... Usually 9 or 10 quid a bottle..

cheers aldo. My wifes dad likes Australian wine, often has mcguigan or wolfblass when they're on offer.

[oregonhibby]

Just listened to Hot August Night. Red red wine go to my head........... Neil Diamond 1972 on a NAIM. He was in the room!

Tuscan Super Reds for me

[Scouse Hibee]

What's the wine actually worth?

Currently in the UK on a wine selling for £5 per bottle £2.64 is actually tax!
There are two parts to this page. Firstly explaining the con the supermarkets use to sell inferior wine, and secondly a breakdown of the actual costs of a bottle of wine where you can see who is actually making all the money, and why you really shouldn't buy £5 wine!We can all begrudge the ever increasing price of a bottle of wine, and naturally to save money we tend to look for the cheaper options. The supermarkets seem to have some great deals on - half price, reduced from £9.99 to £4.99 - that has to be a good deal, right?No!!! It is not, and here is why:Firstly for these offers to qualify legally as a genuine half price deal, the wine has to have been on sale at one branch for at least two weeks at it's "full" price. They get round this by giving it an obscure single facing on a bottom row virtually out of sight, in a remote store, at a massively falsely inflated price. After two weeks they then give it multiple facings, centre shelf nationwide at half the inflated price. Looks like a great deal, but in reality the wine is now on sale for the price it should have been in the first place. In the trade this is easy to recognise because we see the same wines from the importers at the same prices year round, routinely over inflated by the supermarkets at regular intervals. It should be illegal, but the supermarkets are experts at bending the law, and they're now so powerful the government is scared to touch them. The supermarkets work on a 35% margin on wine - this would be completely impossible with a genuine half price deal! In fact nobody makes a margin where they can genuinely offer this kind of discount. Use your head - if it looks too good to be true, it is. You are being conned.Now onto the real price of wine!I've just been looking at some wine which will cost me US$50 per case of 12 from the USA. That's $4.17 per bottle, which is roughly £2.62 per bottle. Ok, so could I retail that at £5 then? On the surface you would think so, but when you look at the horrendous UK taxes you would have to double that retail price! Most winery owners are dumbfounded when I tell them how much we have to pay. In fact although it's the winery owner who slaves away for a full year growing the grapes and making the wine, it's the Uk government who will actually benefit and "earn" about three times as much per bottle as the winery!!Let's add shipping cost from California, about 40 pence per bottle. Then let's add UK excise duty of £1.81 per bottle, plus the customs tax of 5 pence (on wine from outside the EU). This wine is now costing me £4.88 per bottle. Now let's add the VAT of 98 pence. So the wine is now costing me £5.86Now when I sell the wine I also have to charge 20% VAT and pay the VAT on the difference between cost and sales to the VAT man. So if I sell it for £8.99 and it cost me £5.86, I make a gross profit of £3.13 which is £2.61 for me, and another 52 pence for the VAT man. If I happen to make a profit at the end of the year after all my costs I then pay the Inland Revenue some corporation tax too.So the Inland Revenue have actually made: £1.86 excise duty & customs tax, plus £1.50 VAT, so £3.36 in total. I have made a (GROSS) profit of £2.58, and the winery has probably made about £1.This is obviously a massive money making exercise for the government and explains why a bottle of wine is so expensive in the UK. So how do the supermarkets offer 3 bottles for £10? Well in truth those offers are more like 3 for £11 these days so let's have a look.At £11 there is £1.83 VAT. On 3 bottles there is £5.55 excise duty (let's assume these are EU wines) which is £7.38 in total, leaving £3.62 to pay for the supermarket margin of around 35% - let's be generous and call it only £3. This leaves just 62 pence to pay for the wine, the glass bottles, the labels, the cardboard box, the transport from country of origin and UK transport. The supermarkets apply immense pressure on their suppliers, often driving them out of business. I heard last year of a deal for 24,000 cases of Pinot Grigio on which the winery would make £500! - assuming there wasn't a breakage. The problem for the winery at that scale is there aren't many customers who can take that volume, so once they are geared for large production their custom base shrinks and the supermarkets can pretty much dictate their own terms. The winery then has to choose - get rid in one job lot and make nothing, or sell in dribs and drabs and get stuck with excess stock which will badly affect the next year's capability.So what is the genuine value of the wine?Basically the wine is worth about 5 pence per bottle! Yes, that is genuine fact. It's mass produced plonk full of chemicals. The supermarket buyers are instructed to pay no more than US$0.35 cents per bottle, labelled and packed! As you can see if you spend a little more from a bona fide wine merchant, like the £8.99 example above, you will get a wine worth £2.62, approximately 53 times more than the supermarket plonk!It certainly makes you think what you're putting in your body when you drink this cheap plonk. Would you eat meat or fish which cost just 5 pence? Or would you suspect it wasn't going to be good for you.......?I recently discovered another interesting article about an "app" for iphones which calculated how much of the wine's price was actually tax. It was interesting to see at the price point of £5 per bottle that £2.64 is actually tax!