How much do you spend on a bottle of wine?

I am so not a wine snob. If it tastes palatable, I'll drink it. That can be anything from vin ordinaire sold in 5L jerry cans at a local French wine cooperative to a £20 bottle of Mersault. I probably wouldn't spend any more than that as there's plenty nice wine around the £6-12 mark which will do me just fine.

I used to work with a wine buff, who had cases and cases of fine wine stored in a bonded warehouse. He said he often regretted developing a taste for the really good stuff as it was a very expensive habit and now he found it impossible to enjoy the good value wines available in all the supermarkets and wine merchants.

I also like dry sparkling whites and quite heavy reds. It's difficult to state an average, really - probably 6/7 quid a bottle, but what I buy (or used to buy in the UK) varied from 3.99 GBP to 18 GBP or so, with the former being rather more frequent than the latter ?. Obviously a bit more for actual champagne, but we never used to drink much of that, especially since our favourite is vintage Pol Roger , which is not an everyday tipple! Actually, in general I think cava and other types of sparkling wine are better value than champagne itself.

I think it's definitely possible to get a good bottle for under a fiver if you follow recommendations/get lucky. Our standard plonk used to be Sainsbury's Portuguese red (can't remember exactly what it was) for 3.99GBP. Our local wine merchant also did a great bottle of Italian sparkling white for about the same price. The one respect in which I am a bit of a wine snob is in turning up my nose at branded New World wines, especially Aussie ones (Hardy's and the like) - not all of them are rubbish but a lot of them are, and it seems such a waste to ship pap like that halfway across the world when we have the wines of France, Spain and Italy on our doorstep. I do like a nice NZ Sauvingnon blanc, but I think I can generally do better for my 20 quid.

For a nice meal at home/vaguely special occasion, I wouldn't bat an eyelid at spending up to 15 quid or more, but to be fair I have two good friends who are wine merchants and will only sell me something that will go well with the food/will be worth the money. If I were relying on my own taste alone I might be more cautious! ?

Varied really. Usually not less than £6 and no more than a tenner for everyday drinking - most of my wine comes from the Wine Society, which is a fantastic value.

I rarely buy from the supermarkets these days as I am a member of Virgin Wines and get their discovery club cases every quarter - they are usually around £5 per bottle when in the case but would be more expensive if bought singly.

I also had an offer from laithwaites recently which cost me £30 for a case of 15 wines - bargain - and so far they're fabulous!

I'll try and buy as best as possible for as cheap as possible.

I;m a wine pleb too - but only started drinking red in the last few years, and now am not so keen on white - and really don't like champagne! I like merlots and riojas (sp?) and now spend up to 8quid a bottle but thats because I can now buy south african wine in the one supermarket locally - its that or a box of wine (quite rough) for a tenner.

Usually £6-12 per bottle although we will spend more for special occasions (usually for good reds). Champers tends to be a treat when we get bought it at xmas or birthdays.

I don't see the point of the question. Surely it's to do with what you want to spend, and what you can afford? I'll buy wines that i like, sometimes some are more than others, but when i m in france i m quite happy to drink wine that costs one euro a litre, which can be excellent.

For an "every day" bottle I'd spend about £6 I suppose, more if we fancy a good bottle. Generally though, we stock up in France and Germany so it's much cheaper than here.

White Lightning doesn't count.

what about lambrini? ?

I live in Knowsley and there is a big sign when you enter the borough saying "Welcome to Knowsley, the home of Lambrini"

Woo! That's something to be proud of. Innit. ?

I can't help on your question CB, I'm a teetotal dullard. ?

The kind of wine that I like is from medium to medium sweet white and rose. I never pay more than £5 a bottle and I don't care admitting that one of my favourites is Asti and I actually had it at my wedding, just for me and H cos I can't drink dry (had to pay a hefty corkage charge though as I bought it in myself).

Generally no more than about £5. MrSun used to buy more expensive thinking they'd taste better but they generally didn't. If it's sparkling then we tend to spend a bit more.

PS, if I buy a bottle of wine for someone, I tend to spend £4-5 on a half price bottle.

I don't drink much these days but when I buy wine it's usually about a fiver, I'm a bit of a cheapskate.

My parents have been wine society members since before I was born I think. They live rather too close for comfort ?, they also stop off at Montreuil-sur-Mer everytime they go to France.

We are lucky, and live in the middle of the largest wine growing area of Switzerland, with about 8 or 9 different Domianes in the village. The closest is at the end of our drive, and produces a marvelous Aligote, which is extremely reasonable pricewise.

Currently the 3 for £10 offer at tesco, bottles which were 5.20 ish a bottle but i'd never buy at that price. apart from that i must be cheap as we generally get bottles from 2.99 upwards. no blue nun, no asti, no liebfraumilch. alcohol budget is £10 max a week. (i've also made wine and cider quite successfully) so spending £30 would double our food budget. we don't go to the pub so the alcohol we have in is what we get :-)

My parents are about 45 minutes away from Stevenage so I go down to the warehouse regularly. And come out significantly poorer every time ?. The great thing is that there's always something new to try - I always note the ones I like but then another few come along and so on. I like the fact that a lot of smaller vineyards are being supported.

Baron, if you want something fab try to get hold of some 2008 fitou.

Got a link? Can only find the 2004 on the site.

Not sure if you can get it yet from the wine soc, i didnt look at the website. i got mine in france <smugtwat> ?

I'm not a huge wine fan but If I do buy it Ill spend 5 - 6 quid on white , H is a red wine lover but will still only spend up to 6 quid now. Times are hard ?

Wine ?

If it's just for general quaffing in the house, I usually spend around a fiver.

I'd spend more for a special occasion or perhaps to go with a special meal we are having.

What Roobard said, really. Around a fiver for day to day stuff, more for special occasions.

If the good stuff is on offer we'll buy that too though.

I don't drink wine that often at home - usually spend £5 to £8 per bottle. What we do more than that is when Sainsbuggers have a spesh on Champagne, buy loads of that (they usually end up with some coming down to £10 per bottle).
Then I am stocked for when we have people over. No one has ever mentioned it tasting like paint stripper ?

L
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so, you have a pantry and fridge full of wines then? ?

We sort of do have cupboards full of alcohol, which has grown out of liking cocktails, because you end up needing a lot of ingredients. So we have tonnes of spirits and loads of champagne. Mostly, I don't drink

L
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H has been stocking the wine fridge with various montrachets from the Wine Soc (he's a bit of a ponce ?) which cost a scary amount, but they're 'for the future'. Stuff to drink now we usually get either wine soc own label or go to Majestic and stock up there, usually from the ones which are buy 2 save 20% or whatever - they usually have pretty good offers on, so something that would be £10 costs £8 if you get a couple.

That, of course, is responsible middle class drinking, rather than tesco 'a litre for 30p super-strength lager' irresponsible dregs of society drinking ?

For me it totally varies. We tend to go to Majestic and stock up on a dozen bottles or so at a time and buy a variety. I've had to start writing the prices on the back so I can decide afterwards whether it was good value or not. Champagne we tend to buy a box of when Majestic have some good stuff on 50% off offer which they do sometimes.

TBH I generally don't buy stuff because it is on offer in the supermarket mainly because I tend not to buy much there - the exception being if we're going away in a group where I usually try and make the pot of money stretch as far as I can by getting decentish wines that are half price/3 for 2 or whatever.

I love the new oddbins wine- its in basic packaging and £3.99 a bottle. I went in yesterday to get some rose and the guy said they sold out nationwide and wouldn't have any more for three weeks- the company has completly underestimated hwo popular it would be.

In a supermarket probably £6-7. i'm not a wine buff, and don't drink red, so I tend to stick to French/Oz/NZ wines and aviod Italian, German and US wines, just because I prefer the taste of the former. I like Italian wine in Italy though- they don't seem to export much of their good stuff (except gavi, yum)

hm, i dont agree. the majority of their best wine is exported, since thats where the money is. its a shame you dont drink red either, some italian reds are amazing, and outclass many french wines.

i ve never found supermarket wine to be good value, ever. i think their so called "offers" can be really misleading too. "this week, £2 off pinot grigio" well thats great, unless the price was £3 overvalued in the first place, which it often is in my experience. i think one problem here is that we are conditioned to think that 3 quid for a bottle of wine equals not very good, whereas in france for example, generally speaking, people are a lot more discerning, particularly in the regions, and wouldnt dream of paying the euro equivalent of £3 for a bottle of wine when they can get excellent wine for 2 euros a bottle, or even 2 euros a litre.

One of the good things about living over here is that wine is super-cheap. Sadly, that hasn't actually affected our booze bill- we just drink better stuff most of the time ?

We buy wine at all sorts of different prices- from €4 cheap white to €20- for everyday drinking, but I think that probably gets you better quality than the same money does in the UK. We tend to spend a fair bit more in winter, as we generally drink more red (which I always feel repays spending more) and heavier, more serious wines generally. In summer I like lighter wines and, in my experience, decent lighter stuff tends to cost less than full on serious clarets etc.

Having said that, this morning I bought a bottle of claret for €45 as a present for someone who did me a favour, and it's sitting on the table tempting me ?