How to buy good wines Cheaply
No matter what you may have heard elsewhere, buying good wines cheaply is easy.
Simply follow these useful tips and you’ll be well on the way to finding great
value wines without compromising quality.
Firstly, always “back the little guy”. By this, we mean hunting down small,
boutique wineries, which don’t have large advertising budgets to convince you to
buy their wines, or cash to buy space on supermarket shelves. Instead, the only
way that they can get their wines noticed is to ensure that the quality is of a
very high standard. Wines of this type can be bought from retailers who support
small producers.
When looking for a decent, cheap wine, a good tip is to seek out less
fashionable regions. The wine trade is obsessed with fashion and the result of
this can be a compromise in quality. Wine estates in Bordeaux and California for
example, are often more known for their investments by millionaires, rather than
the wine itself. So to enjoy good wines without the fashion tag, you should
search out the retailers who source their wines from places that make similar
wines. Chilean Cabernet Merlot is a good alternative to Bordeaux, while
Grenache/Syrah blends are a perfect substitute to Chateauneuf du Pape and
Chilean Chardonnay is to Chablis. And don’t forget New World fizz if you are
looking for a cheaper alternative to Champagne.
Another useful hint is to avoid wine brands and heavily advertised wines. Why?
Well, large brand wines are produced in significant volumes, using mass
production techniques, and as winemakers look to achieve consistency, they
compromise quality by using artificial processes such as adding sugars and
adding citric acid to their wines. In addition, they heavily promote and market
their wines, meaning that significant mark ups are likely.
Similarly, big name bargains are a definite no no. Although, through their
buying power, supermarkets and large wine retailers can force producers to sell
wines at incredibly low prices, they can only do this at the expense of the
quality of the wine. To make ends meet, producers will be forced to plant on
land that isn’t good enough to bear the region’s name or worse, they will
increase yields and dilute the wines. So while a bottle of Chablis for a fiver
may sound great, we guarantee that it will leave you feeling disappointed!
Finally, make sure that you buy your wine from an online wine retailer. Online
wine retailers will offer you far better value for money compared to
supermarkets and ordinary merchants, as they don’t incur many of the building
costs, which are then passed on to you, the customer. Also, as online retailers
aren’t restricted by shelf space, they can offer an unlimited range of wines
that ordinary merchants don’t necessarily have space for.
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