Choosing the right bottle

publication date: Nov 8, 2006

• Decide on a price bracket and stick to it, but it can be worth spending at the top of that bracket. Remember that in Britain where excise duty alone is about £1.30, the price of the wine inside a bottle selling at £2.99 is about 60p whereas there is about £1.50 worth of wine in a bottle selling at £4.99 and more than £4 worth in a bottle priced at £9.99. However, a wine that sells for £100 per bottle cannot be said to have £40 worth of wine in the bottle. The additional price may partly due to the increased cost of land for better vineyards, and perhaps a greater proportion of new oak barrels, but most of the price difference is made up of scarcity, ego or ambition.

• Take a look at special offers. In today's competitive marketplace, heavily scrutinized by a bevy of wine critics, these bargains are almost certainly there to lure you into the shop, or make you aware of a new wine rather than to offload rubbish. At least 50% of wine sold in the UK is sold on special offer and the increases in sales during the time of a promotion are staggering. Wine producers queue to get a slot in the promotional calendar. But often the ‘special offer’ price is much closer to the true value of the wine than its supposedly ‘regular’ price from which it has been discounted. And, unfortunately, few of the most interesting wines feature in these promotions.

• If possible, pick a bottle that has been on its side, and has not obviously been kept anywhere the temperature may have varied considerably. Avoid bottles which have been standing upright in strong light (although supermarkets turn their stock over so fast this is not usually a problem and better specialist stores have a policy of constantly changing the one representative bottle from a horizontal lot that is stood upright). Be wary of bottles which have 'wept' around the cork or have a relatively low fill level as both of these are signs of temperature variation.

• Try to grasp the names at least and ideally the characteristics of the major grape varieties Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling among whites and Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Syrah/Shiraz among reds.. If, once you become relatively familiar with the most common wine names, you spot a bottle that seems to have a completely unrecognizable pedigree, give it a try. It is probably there only because someone passionately believes in its inherent quality; wine buyers generally err on the side of caution.

• Be wary of wines designed for early consumption that are more than two years old.

• Remember that very expensive wines carrying vintage dates less than three or four years old are almost certainly years from being fun to drink.

• Try to take a note of any wine you particularly like so that you can find similar styles of wine.