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Now, no way am I any sort of expert but I bought a bottle of white Rioja from Waitrose for £5.75 and it’s fantastic. I am more Harry Gulpers than Harry Sippers when it comes to wine so it didn’t last long.

Long gone are the days when you could buy a really rank bottle of wine - it’s all decent nowadays.

I tend to buy whites cos the missus doesn’t like red, so can anyone recommend a good red I can glug for myself?

Aldi Shiraz is good as is their Pinot Grigio.

On a separate note, anyone use the Calais wine warehouse or similar. They pay for your ferry if you spend £300 on wine. It’s really cheap. £2 a bottle and they also do beer.

Portuguese red is nice
https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/waitrose-douro-valley-reserva-portuguese-red-wine/441246-62116-62117
ASDA may have a Douro in for about £6 which I've necked down as my wife doesn't like red and she insists I treat myself occasionally

Two current favourites of mine at the moment are the 19 Crimes range from Australia £7-8 a bottle as is the Dark Horse range (Merlot and Cab Sav) from California. If you buy six of the same from Sainsbury’s there is a 25% discount 😉

If you're partial to a nice Chateauneuf-du-Pape, like me, I'll give you a little tip. If you see any bottles of Lirac snap them up. It's  basically the same stuff but at a fraction of the price.

This is a good one:
https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/paul-mas-reserve-languedoc-rouge/597041-593795-593796

As sippo sez...Aldi do some good ones also

£300 at £2 a bottle,  150 bottles, thats 12 and a half cases of wine, bet that would make the front sit up. Must admit did do the good old booze cruises when the Sun was doing £10 day returns,  many years ago, Christ, I still wonder how that poor old car ever got me home !!!!,

The Black Stump. Very nice. I last bought that at Bin Ends near The Bear of Rodborough, Gloucs. If your North Wilts/South Gloucs area take a trip. Some interesting Wine Bins there. Well worth it just for the fresh air and views.

PS. The Bear is nice too  :pint:

I'm tight as fuck so Aldi's Baron St. Jean red wine does me. It's lovely and just over £3 a bottle.

Rioja and chianti are favourites, Harvey's Merlot is nice too.

I love CdP. When I lived in Luxembourg you could get a bottle of the stuff at the local petrol station for 10-15 Euro.

Used to love going on a Calais booze cruise with my dad and uncle. My uncle had a volvo estate and would be packed to the brim with wine and beer. How the suspension held up, i will never know.

Went on a booze cruise from Swindon 20 years ago, used a coach and left at 4.00am. The crapper was out of order, by Reading I needed a dump and asked the driver when we planned to stop before the ferry (Dover). "Clacketts Lane"  :(

Bet it was like a turtles head by the time you got there !.

The Black Stump wine is for real, fantastic!


"Black Stump Bordeaux" is rightly praised as a peppermint flavoured
Burgundy, whilst a good "Sydney Syrup" can rank with any of the world's
best sugary wines.

"Chateau Bleu", too, has won many prizes; not least for its taste, and
its lingering afterburn.

"Old Smokey, 1968" has been compared favourably to a Welsh claret,
whilst the Australian wino society thouroughly recommends a 1970 "Coq du
Rod Laver", which, believe me, has a kick on it like a mule: 8 bottles
of this, and you're really finished -- at the opening of the Sydney
Bridge Club, they were fishing them out of the main sewers every half an
hour.

Of the sparkling wines, the most famous is "Perth Pink". This is a
bottle with a message in, and the message is BEWARE!. This is not a
wine for drinking -- this is a wine for laying down and avoiding.

Another good fighting wine is "Melbourne Old-and-Yellow", which is
particularly heavy, and should be used only for hand-to-hand combat.

Quite the reverse is true of "Chateau Chunder", which is an Appelachian
controle, specially grown for those keen on regurgitation -- a fine wine
which really opens up the sluices at both ends.

Real emetic fans will also go for a "Hobart Muddy", and a prize winning
"Cuiver Reserve Chateau Bottled Nuit San Wagga Wagga", which has a
bouquet like an aborigine's armpit.

Very good RD! I'd recommend a nice Pinot Noir from my friends home region of the Wairarapa. Chiefly a Martinborough Pinot Noir. Is a little pricier but even I like it and I prefer reds!

Talking of Portuguese reds, in 2016 I found a litre in a small shop, in Madeira simply called 'Vinho Tinto'. It cost €1. Back here it would've cost around £10 for 75cl. It tasted much above your average table wine but after the 5th glass, it was time to think about getting another gallon.

Will try the white Rioja as this would be a first for me.  I  love the reds which offer a great price:quality combination, imo.

For pure glug-ability, and especially as a summer red, I love the tannin-lite Beaujolais.  I'd tend to recommend the Beaujolais Villages, one notch up from the basic Beaujolais. You should be able to get one at Waitrose for about GBP 8.00

My red of choice for a while has been Malbec. Preferably south American.

Failing that, Italian reds like Montepulciano or Chianti.

Not really a massive fan of wine unless its cooking with it. Happily put a whole bottle of red in a beef stew and let it cook away for hours and hours.

I can drink a bit of white but it needs to be on a sweet side, not desert wine sweet but i hate the bitterness of wine in general.

Cooking with wine is good, as is drinking wine when eating.  I've got a bit of a collection of bottles which I've won in quizzes, so they tend to be on the cooking side of things.

Looks like a few purple nosed master sommeliers on here then.  :)

So how many bottles are put away per week on average?

I normally manage the best part of two to accompany meals.

Is that 2 bottles per meal?

Ha ha. 2 per week.

The other 5 or 6 are normally brown bagged on various benches in town.