How Do I Find Quality Wine In Supermarkets?

Recently, a stranger sent me a meme on Instagram (perks of the job). The image in question: an incredulous American in front of a fully-stocked wine aisle in a supermarket, captioned: “the american south is something else, you sell alcohol in grocery stores!” The response? A succinct “stares in british”.

In the UK, a supermarket aisle dedicated to wine is as commonplace as a bus stop, as unwavering as The One Show at 7pm. It’s something we are enormously lucky to have, yet totally take for granted. We have historically been a nation of wine consumers (our role as wine producers is still in its nascence) and this new generation of drinkers is more adventurous than ever. This now means there aren't many wines you can’t find in supermarkets, which comes with its own set of issues: where on earth do you start?

Wine is complex enough. There’s a lot of noise and admin, pomp and circumstance, French and German. So, just like choosing a new nail tech or energy provider, you have to kiss a few frogs to find your prince. This can be an expensive and tediously time-sucking task, which is probably why this isn’t the first time I’ve been asked for quick advice on this subject.

So I’ve distilled my knowledge of the wine market (plus my love for a good bargain) to bring you five tips on how to find quality wine in any supermarket. With these at the back of your mind, you’ll know what to ignore, what to seek out and how to leave with something delicious.

I know, I know it’s a very asinine place to start, but it really is of the utmost importance. If you don’t love it, who cares how much money you saved? Everyone’s tastes are different, dictated by our DNA, our flavour preferences, our age and our experience level.

If you’ve never given this much thought to what type of wines you like, take a second to do so. Do you like something simple, crisp and acidic? Or perhaps you favour something more textural, deep and sumptuous? (Struggling to pin-point these flavours? See my previous article on describing wine for some guidance.) Once armed with these basic descriptors, do some research on which wines are stylistically similar, so that the next time you’re faced with a ludicrously capacious wine aisle, you’ll be able to use what you know.

While our parents’ generation let rosettes and scores dictate their decision-making, this generation is a little more savvy. The wine scoring system is a complex one, wrought with internal politics and, ultimately, subjectivity. For all its faults, it’s a total lifeline for producers, many rely on scores to sell their wine. But don’t be blown away by high scores: it’s crowded at the top end of the scale. For instance, you may be impressed by a bottle with a score of 87, but once you learn that a passable wine will likely never be scored less than 80, you can get a bit more discerning. All that glitters is not Puligny-Montrachet.

This is a good trick to single out quality wines, particularly those from ‘old world’ regions. Simple, see if a label indicates a classification after its states the winemaking region (AOC for France, DOC for Spain, or DOCG for Italy). To legally put this on a label, a wine is subject to many rules that influence every part of the winemaking process: from grape variety to yield to use of herbicides. This differs from region to region, but when you see a wine has been subject to a classification system, you can be sure of a certain level of quality.

Please note that this is only applicable to old world winemaking countries, as new world countries like the USA and South Africa will often show the grape variety on the label, across quality levels. It is, however, a brilliant hack to quickly decode a fussy French wine section.

There’s something questionably but undeniably sexy about adding some Taste the Difference Heirloom Tomatoes to the shopping cart. So why don’t we feel the same way about own-label wines? I’ve worked behind the scenes at various importers and distributors, and I can confirm from the inside: the own label stuff is where to go for brilliant value. The wine buyer for the supermarket will work directly with the winery, meaning each wine will be the result of rigorous testing and tasting to make sure it’s of a brilliant quality. Own label wines are cheaper than their branded equivalents, too.

How much should you really be spending on a bottle of wine? At what point do you get to when you’re paying for the name more than you are for the wine itself? I have a friend who is convinced wine doesn’t get any better after £30, but what’s worth spending in a supermarket? Does wine really get better the more you spend, or is there an optimum price to quality ratio?

Thankfully, wine importer Bibendum has an ongoing research project that reveals exactly how much of wine’s overall cost is actually spent on the wine itself. It shows that for a £5.50 bottle, after all duties and taxes have been deducted, only 21p (4%) of the £5.50 is actually spent on the wine itself. This jumps significantly to £1.46 (19%) for a £7.50 and further still for a £10 bottle, where £2.48 (25%) of the cost is going towards the wine. Because of this, I think that this price range is a good place to start when seeking out great value wine. Turns out, you really do get what you pay for.

This article goes into further detail.