Why you should always go for the £10 bottle of wine at the supermarket
Buying a bottle of wine for £10 hits the 'sweet spot' of quality against cost, the former of Waitrose boss said
SHOPPERS should buy £10 bottles of wine at the supermarket, as this hits the "sweet spot" of quality against price, a former Waitrose boss has advised.
Bottles that cost around the £5 mark won't be as good quality as those that are just a few pounds more, he claimed.
According to the , Mark Price made the remarks while promoting his book, The Food Lover’s Handbook, at the Oxford Literary Festival.
He said: "A lot of the things you get in a bottle of wine are fixed prices. The tax you pay in the UK is the same on every bottle, no matter how expensive.
"The cost of the glass is roughly the same and the transport is probably the same. So if you buy a bottle of wine for £5, the value of the wine inside that bottle is just under 50p. It’s actually 47p.
"If you buy a bottle of wine for £10, the quality of the wine inside the bottle is just under £3. So for twice as much you effectively get wine that is six times the quality."
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Price added that if you go up to £20 a bottle, the quality of the wine is about £7-8. "So while it is better, you've effectively doubled up," he said.
"So if you buy a bottle for about £10 you’ve absolutely hit the sweet spot of quality against cost."
The former boss of posh supermarket Waitrose, who is now the trade and investment minister, said that at the £30 a bottle mark, wine came down to personal preference.
"You are paying for the chateau and you’re paying for the taste," he said.
Restaurant critic Jay Rayner last year said that diners should always order the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu list because restaurants make it too complex and overpriced.
He said: “Wine lists are fraught with problems but mostly because of the b——- spouted by wine connoisseurs. They irritate me profoundly.”
When asked if it was better to drink house wine in restaurants and leave the expensive stuff at home, he said he would “absolutely agree”.
Sommelier Mark Oldman agreed with Rayner's claim, saying that restaurant diners might be better off choosing the least expensive option due to sneaky mark ups.
The second and third cheapest wines are most likely to be marked up the most, and may not taste nicer than the bargain bottle on the list as a result, he said.
If you can't afford to splash out on wine, Aldi has launched a brand-new selection of 12 cut-price wines, with prices starting at just £5.
Given that Aldi has won a top award for its wine in the past and was recently named the best place to buy wine, it’s definitely worth checking out.
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