CHEAP WINE

[bixy]

No doubt this question has been asked before. There can be few that haven't ben asked on this forum. But I'm going to ask it anyway. Why are so many British people obsessed with buying cheap wine? Most of the Brits we know in France, both resident and not, seem quite happy to spend out money on almost anything except wine. It can be a trial going to dinner. You take a decent bottle but it doesn't get opened. Try this, they say, cheeky little number, got it in the agricultural supplies shop [absolutely true] only 10c a litre. The smell almost makes you pass out and then you taste it. Mmm, you say, as what can only be described as paint stripper passes into your digestive system, very interesting.

Does this ring a bell with anyone? Now I know someone is going to get on here and say they know a little chap who supplies them with Chateau Lafitte, 50c a bottle no questions asked, but by and large my experience with French wine is that you get what you pay for. By paying €4 or 5 you can get something perfectly decent and you are still getting it alot cheaper than in the UK. So why then are so many people obsessed with drinking plonk?

Patrick

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Good, cheap wine does exist. The last time I placed an inexpensive gem

(a Corsican number, red that sold in LeClerc for €2.45 a bottle -

incredible value for what it was) on this board it was sold out of

existence in about 10 days. I'd like to flatter myself that my little

contribution was responsible for this sudden take-up, but since only

about six people looked at the post (and I was two of them, to check

the spelling) I feel I would be stroking my ego just a touch too much.

There are some very, very good and cheap wines available in France (even cuvée

Gamm Vert), but I generally agree that you get what you pay for. If you

are lucky enough to find soemthing wildly underpriced, my advice is to

tell no-one until you've given a good home to a couple of cases, which

is exactly what my friends and neighbours do.

I agree that there do seem to be many Britons buying Drain Cleaner AOC. 

Perhaps after years of quaffing New World cheapies* our palates are

generally so ruined that anything that is not bland seems like a treat.

Or perahps it is just the novelty of being able to buy wine for a quid

a bottle. I couldn't say really.

One thing have leaned is that quite a few French people (the majority,

I'd say) are completely clueless about wine. The market in those 5l

mini barrels of rotgut is not supported solely by the British immigrant

population...

* EDIT: Just before anyone decides to jump on me, there are, of course,

some exceptional wines from the US, Aus, NZ. These ones are easily

recognised by the exceptional prices they command.

[Cassis]

Possibly after downing a couple of bottles the distinctions start to blur ...

[Miki]

Going up to 4 or 5 euros guarantees nothing quite honestly...............

We have been buying and therefore selling wines for many years in

France, albeit for the resto. We found many years ago the quality we

needed, so as to ensure wines we bought, were liked by the majority of guests. We have

for our house wine ( Red, Rosé and white), a wine that wholesales at just over 2€20 plus T.V.A

per bottle (min 12 bottles) and comes from the Augustin Florent stable.

We have been buying and selling that particular brand for many years

and even the most discerning guest has never complained and in fact it

has been commeded not only on its price bit on its qulaity.

OK we go quite

a way up the scale and once, some time back now, bought 15 euro plus

bottles wholesale(not a lot of money really in comparison to many top

wines) that could be sold for more than 70 euros in a restaurant. Yes,

of course you could tell the difference but.......................

But having said all that, I entirely agree with your remark about how

many buy vin ordinaire and think it is OK. Well to be fair, I am no

wine snob, even though I have been on courses (even working on

racecourses for a wine company) and spat out numerous good gob fulls in

the sake of research ! I go along with the old saying that if you like

it, then that is the benchmark...It is those that pass it on to you,

thinking you will like it too, that annoy you I think?

Difficult isn't it, well, smile and be gracious and do the same back to them.

[Alcazar]

Puts me in mind of one day when I was about 14, and travelling down France towards Spain with my parents. We'd overnighted with the caravan on the large square at Wizernes, south of St Omer, and my mum sent me to a local shop to buy her some of the "rough red wine" she reckoned to crave.

I came back with a bottle of wine labelled as "Docks du Nord", costing around 90 centimes, or under a Franc! It tasted as if it were made with water from Calais dock!

I DON'T remember if she finished it, honestly[:D]

Alcazar

[Cassis]

Try her on the white, Alca!

[img]http://www.cathedral.org/wrs/agm2004/wine/cheap-white.jpg[/img]

[Will]

I agree about the obsession with cheap wine, but disagree about it only applying to wine. Go to any France forum and you will see plenty of evidence of penny pinching and a general tendency to ignore value for money and go for out and out cheapness. Some of those that spring to mind are building materials, telephone calls, ferry crossings, internet access - all things where Britsih in France seem willing to put up with all sorts of poor quality and travel miles just to save the odd centime. Just do a search on 'cheapest' at some forums and see how much comes up. No wonder we have a reputation among the French for being cheapskates.

[Christine Animal]

That's absolutely true Will and it's not only in France.  Always pleased to get a good deal or the summum, something "for free".  "We had a whole five course meal and they gave us coffee for free".  They seem to spend endless time trying to calculate how to get the best deal, the best rate, the best amount... and "never mind the quality, feel the width" !   [:P]

Yet, to others, in another way England and the English are known for such quality things such as tweed, leather goods, china, carpets, etc.

 

 

[Patmobile]

The obsession surely stems from the fact that all wine, and to some extent, decent food, are vastly overpriced in Britain.  Thus it's a pleasure and a surprise to British visitors to France to find they can buy decent wine for a couple of euros, and eat a decent meal out for less than a tenner.

You can blame the government for the excessive duty on wine, but who do you blame for the outrageous cost of pub and restaurant food in Britain?

Patrick

(with my new haircut)

[Blanche Neige]

Patmobile, I think you've hit the nail on the head!

 

A girlfriend and I stayed in a Fr. run Chambre d'Hote nr. Amiens and had the evening meal including a bottle of wine, all very good. My friend (a bit of a wine snob[;-)]) liked the wine so much she decided to buy some, we looked in the local supermarket and found it on sale at 1,20 euro! [:)]

[Alcazar]

I STILL try to get my wife to buy those wines from Eastenders, to seve to the staff at her school, at ends of tems etc. You know, the ones named after a certain part of a male dog's anatomy[:D]

Can't remotely understand why she ignores me...........

Alcy-zar

[Patmobile]

[quote user="Alcazar"]

I STILL try to get my wife to buy those wines from Eastenders, to seve to the staff at her school, at ends of tems etc. You know, the ones named after a certain part of a male dog's anatomy[:D]

Can't remotely understand why she ignores me...........

Alcy-zar

[/quote]

Your wife has probably figured out that much better wines are on sale, at less than half the price, at the Aldi (or is it Lidl) shop 90 seconds further down the road past the roundabout.   She's probably already worked out that if she stuck a seaside postcard on the front of every bottle, she would still have the laugh and save about £1.50 into the bargain.

She wouldn't have to queue up with the coach parties, either

Patrick

(and me new haircut)  

[Cassis]

Could always try Rosebud's Vin de l'A r s e.  Good wine and a funny label by all accounts.  [:)]

[Richard-R]

We find, that 5-10€ gets a god drinkable wine, but it is no easy to find good wines (at any low price), we buy a lot from some of the new and smaller domaines in our area.

[Cassis]

I find 3€ buys a good drinkable wine, but my palette is probably not as refined, tastebuds  having been killed by years of Nukey Broon.

[KathyC]

It would be lovely to be a wine buff ( I was going to say conneseuir but I couldn't spell it!) but if my palate came to expect 5-10E bottles of wine as the norm I  would only be able to afford to drink it a couple of times a week and never have it with meals in restaurants. I wouldn't necessarily go for the cheapest either, but when quaffing large amounts of heavily chilled rose on hot days, quality goes out the window. ( Mind you, when quaffing large amounts of red on winter days, quality goes out the window as well!)

[Norman]

Will said:

"No wonder we have a reputation among the French for being cheapskates."

Have`nt heard that reputation very often Will, but maybe that`s because I`m the poorest person I know. Most french people I know don`t tend to spend more than they have to either, money is tight and in the general scheme of things saving some centimes each month is a necessity to get by.

I don`t want you to get the violin out just yet, but some of us have cheapskate down to a fine art although it`s not generally applied to food buying, in our house anyway. I have french relatives so I`m afraid my girlfriend just could`nt stand the shame of putting a cheapskate meal on the table...... you know what their like.

I`m not complaining.

Norman.

[bixy]

It's perfectly understandable that someone on a limited budget will look to save money on all purchases. However the people I'm talking about are not short of a few bob, and in other areas are quite happy to spend out. There just seems to be this peculiar British thing of buying cheap [and very often very nasty] wine. I'll give you an example. A chap I know told me that he was now a millionaire - patented some kind of process - big house, big car. Came back from his holiday in France with those litre bottles with the stars round the top, which you return to the shop to get your deposit back - you know the ones I mean. WHY?

The other objection I've got to cheap wine, apart from the taste, is the additives that are put in it. Apparently there are about a 100 different substances that can be legally added to wine. Some of these additives give me the most dreadful headaches and I have found that it is the cheaper wines that are the most adulterated. I was on my own, only drinking a couple of glasses a day so thought it would be a good idea to buy one of those wine boxes. This one was Bergerac. Had a couple of glasses with my dinner and woke up the next day with the most appalling headache. Must have drunk more than I thought. Next evening I only had one glass. In the morning same result, so I threw the rest away. God knows what they put in it - weedkiller probably.

Patrick

[Cassis]

If we're talking about bringing wine back from France to the UK, there's not much point in bringing back very expensive stuff as the relative saving compared to the UK is minimal.  The amount saved is (theoretically) the same per bottle regardless of the quality of the contents as UK tax is calculated per bottle.  So your best buy is a cheap-ish wine that you find nice to drink without turning your tongue green and giving you halitosis.  More expensive wines you may make no saving on at all - you may as well buy in the UK.  If you look at the relative savings in Tesco or Sainsbury's France wine stores where you can directly compare UK prices and savings you'll see what I mean - for the majority it's a similar saving on every bottle + 50p, regardless of actual price, other than where they have a special offer.  Or so it was until a couple of years ago when we moved over here.

[Missy]

My father used to go to his local Intermarché with his car boot filled with crates of bottles and those purply cubic containers. This local place had a huge tank inside and you were able to fill all these bottles just as you would fill your car with petrol. Don't know if you can still do it....

He'd then go to the corking machine, pay and home. Same again next week or when supplies ran dry!

There was quite a routine involved with the storage. He'd organised his cellar such as any bottles left from last trip came to the front of the bin, bottles that had a 'poshish' label were put to one side etc... The wine was very drinkable and never caused gut rot...

The bottles that had those 'labels' were served at family gatherings, sunday lunches, etc... Us the kids had been well versed to keep 'bouche cousue' on the matter of these 'bons p'tit vins!' my father bought for such occasions!

His wine costed him on average 1.50FF a bottle which is about 23cents of a Euro!...

[Patmobile]

At a lunch with a group of 30-40 golfers from various clubs in the Pas de Calais and Picardie, we were served generous quantities of a red wine, which all agreed was delicious, included in the very reasonable cost of the meal.

My french colleagues were surprised and a bit miffed when I pointed out that it came from Chile.  They cheered up somewhat when they were informed by the restaurant manager thet the Chilean vineyard belongs to the daughter of a prominent French businessman from the Pas de Calais.

They all then concurred that the magic ingredient in this foreign wine must have been French savoir-faire.

I was left with the impression that if they had known it was Chilean from the start they would have hated it.

Patrick

[Christine Animal]

Nice...   [:P]

 

[DaveR]

You have a point but frankly you need to chose

your friends with the same discretion you evidentially apply to choosing your

wines.

Dave

[Gardian]

One thing not mentioned so far, which we've always found (and most friends concur).

That is that you can often 'get away with' a cheapish red, but it's fraught with danger with a white.  I'm not saying that good cheap whites don't exist, but it's a bit of a lottery.

Accordingly, we buy the local coo-operative oak-aged chardonnay at €4 / bottle for the odd occasion when we fancy some white, but the 5 litre merlot boxes for everyday drinking. The latter isn't fantastic, but certainly not dire. Bottles of CdR Villages Rouge at €3-€5 for guests or visiting. 

[WJT]

I am sure I will be shot down for this but Chile wines are my husband's favourite. They do seem to be pretty consistent albeit for the ones that sell for over £10 a bottle in the UK.  We do struggle to find French wines here in France we both like, we have tried all price ranges and find that in many cases it makes no difference. I hate to say this but it does feel a bit of a lottery for us at times with the French wines.

I am sitting here now with a glass of red that we bought yesterday for about 12 euros and it is pretty ropey [:(]. But at the same time we have bought some at around the 5 euro price that has been very nice. So if anyone has the secret could you please let me know what it is? [:D]