3 New Great Value Wines
When out there looking for new wines not only are we looking for great quality but also at a price that we think represents good value. When that price point sits below £10 things get a bit trickier however we're pleased to say that after much (hard!) work we've found these three great everyday drinking wines at cracking prices.
False Bay Vineyards, named after the famous bay near Cape Town, are all about creating tasty 'real' wines at affordable prices. When they say 'real' what they mean for this wine is that there are as few additions to the wines in the wine making process as possible: wild yeasts used in the fermentation process, only natural acidity in the wines, and also as little intervention in the vineyards as possible. The grapes are from old bush vines in sustainably farmed vineyards - two to be exact, one in Swartland and one in Stellenbosch.
This Chenin has a soft and rounded body with a surprising amount of richness and ripe fruit all balanced with that natural acidity. A great food wine and also a top alternative to Chardonnay - especially at this price point!
£7.50 mixed 6 price - click here to buy
Okay. So the name is not the most pronounceable. However this wine is something of a little gem. It isn't made from a grape called Silver Myn or is from a place called Argentum, what it is is a South African Bordeaux blend made by Zorgvliet Wines in the Banghoek Valley, near Stellenbosch. This valley has rather a long history in wine making with the first vines planted in 1655 and the first wine made four years later!
Some of the best value wine in the UK at the minute is South African. You can buy a top Bordeaux beating cuvee for twenty odd pounds - see Meerlust Rubicon and Buitenverwachting Christine - as well of course as properly drinkable everyday ones, such as this! Like those two big wines just mentioned the Argentum is predominately a Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon blend with the addition of a small amount of Petit Verdot and Malbec. Dark, brambly fruits with notes of cloves and cinnamon and a clean finish. A real 'bang-for-your-buck' wine!
£8.00 mixed 6 price - click here to buy
The reality in the UK today is that around 40% of the cost of a bottle of wine at £6.50, like this one, is tax. Once you take away transport and bottling costs etc. that doesn't give the winery a huge amount of room to manoeuvre. Quite often unfortunately that can mean a race to the bottom in terms of quality in order to preserve a wine at a 'cheap' price on the shelf. That is something we have never done and will never do here. You can look at different ways of doing things, as in the instance of this wine - The Rambler Red.
This wine is made in Piedmont by one of Italy's leading co-operatives, Araldica. Araldica is also quite big which means that it can exercise its economies of scale to produce a good drinking wine without sacrificing quality. In addition to this (this is the really curve ball bit) is that it is non-vintage i.e. not from one specific year. Before you run off it is worth mentioning that the EU has had for awhile now an 85% rule which means that you may think you're drinking a 2016 Chilean Merlot but 15% might not be from Chile, or from 2016, or even be Merlot!
This vino rosso (sounds better in Italian) is predominately made from Barbera, a native Piedmontese grape, and is medium-bodied with soft red fruit flavours, fresh acidity, mild tannins and is a perfect pizza/pasta wine.
£6.50 mixed 6 price - click here to buy
