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Decent £6 wine does exist – if you look hard
As I frequently report (complain!), tracking down optimal value wines has become harder and harder over the last year or so.
Often that quest takes us to wines made (or sold) in unexpected places.
For instance, while we are getting used to great value options from Romania, today’s white takes us a step further into Moldova.
Although the source of today’s red is a little better known (Jumilla), the retailer is not one we feature that often; welcome aboard Iceland!
Both wines offer reliable and well-made fare and cost just £6.
In the usual way, hyperlinks and pictures are used where possible to help you locate the bottle in question.
Looking at that red first
2021 Laderas de Romeo Garnacha (£6 at Iceland):
This is great value garnacha (grenache) based red wine from those rapidly improving Spanish regions just inland from Alicante (Jumilla in this case).
Soft and perfumed, this example exhibits juicy cherry and raspberry flavours coupled with good acidity (but minimal tannin) and suggestions of cocoa, mint, vanilla and baking spice.
And for a white to accompany it
2021 Tilting Tree Sauvignon Blanc (£6 at the Co-op):
Currently, its great potential quality and affordable prices make Eastern Europe a happy hunting ground for reliable wine.
This example is from Moldova and it should be no surprise to see that country producing good sauvignon since its latitude is similar to Sancerre.
Crisp and aromatic, the wine itself has apple and melon flavours combined with grapefruit pithiness and good lemon acidity.
All that is neatly complemented by menthol, nettle and herb elements.
See you again on Thursday when the regular review of current promotions in major retailers is joined by ideas for Christmas wines from winners of the People’s Choice Drinks Awards
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Brian Elliott
Brian Elliott is an established wine journalist, taster, judge and writer with a weekly column in Scottish newspapers.
Comments
14 Comments
Decent £6 wine is no easy find Brian, so well done for tracking these down. I recently had to sub-£5 wines (on discount) from Lidl that were also very enjoyable. Includes a SB, too:
https://medium.com/p/9c0ed203b539
Thanks Tom. As you suggest, discounts certainly help with the current cost problems. However, as Richard from Leeds says later on, Some WIGIG’s are very fast moving and one has to be nimble to catch them.
Hi Brian, good to know about the Iceland Red, especially coming from Jumilla, a hot dry region especially suited to reds ( and better known for their superb Monastrells) I do enjoy Garnacha so will definitely grab a bottle when next in store. As you say look carefully and there are still some very good value wines out there, so thanks for this.
Pleasure to offer a few signposts, Dave. Those two varieties certainly prosper in that part of Spain – monastrell demands the heat while grenache is incredibly drought resistant.
Hi Brian,
Your many recent tip offs to certain Wines and live offers have bagged us some very good offerings, reductions + discounts to under our £6 benchmark in the last few weeks, many thanks again.
Prompt response is usually required though to avoid an empty shelf !
Autumnal greetings !
Many thanks for those kind words, Richard. I will not deny, though, that it is increasingly difficult to find £6 wine I can recommend (and it defeats what this site is about to scale down quality to meet a low price point). As some point, I guess any £6 benchmarks will need to be re-set to £7 – difficult as that may be for many.
For £5 you can get a modern zippy Romanian white wine from Asda called Feteasca Regala (Royal Maiden) ,which won a IWSC silver award 2022..Soft tropical fruit flavours.Great with Asian or stir fry dishes.I used this wine in my local wine club evening and club members could not believe how good it was for the price.
Will definitely try this Paul next time I’m in my local Asda. I was actually there over the weekend hoping to find some of their Extra Special Rueda, but they’re still out of stock, the 25% off offer on 6 bottles has ended, and the price has risen from £5-00 to £5-50, (can’t win them all).
I do not think that Romanian white will disappoint. It is from a great producer and terrific value for money.
With you completely that Paul. I have been an advocate of that wine for some time and, coincidentally, it may well appear in this Thursday’s post
Thanks for the heads up last week Brian regarding the Mimo Moutinho Lisboa Red from Aldi’s. As you say, a real bargain at £3 down from £6. Haven’t tried it yet but popped into my local store this morning and picked up six bottles, (they only had about 10 left on the shelf) and one of the girls stocking the wine thought that’s was all they left, and wasn’t too sure if any more was coming in.
Thanks again, and for anyone out there hoping to take advantage of this, don’t leave it too long!
I also get along to my Iceland from time to time, (mainly for their frozen seafood), their Laderas de Roneo Garnacha looks very interesting. I personally haven’t seen it anywhere else, and will hopefully try some next time I’m in there.
I hope you enjoy that Lisboa as much as I did, Steve. As I said to Tom earlier in these comments, some of those offers do fly off the shelves – so you did well to get six.
The Portuguese blend of four grape varieties in Iceland – Rabo de Galo- at £6.15 is a very decent ,quaffable bottle of red wine.
Concur again Paul. It won many friends when it was commended on this site back in April
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