Is boxed wine any good? Do awards mean anything? Expert reveals the answers to TEN vintage dilemmas

In the years that I have been teaching wine tasting masterclasses and events, certain questions come up again and again. These are the questions I am asked most often:

Is £8 the magic minimum to get good wine?

The accepted wisdom is that if you spend at least £8 on a bottle you’ll get something decent. There is truth in that, especially when you consider the packaging and transport costs, the retailer’s warehousing and duties (which went up last month) and the 20 percent VAT. . . anything less makes you wonder how much is actually spent on the wine. Excise duty on still wine under 15 percent alcohol in Britain alone now stands at £2.67 per bottle. Ouch!

What do those price stickers mean?

Brits love an award sticker, even if they don’t recognize the competition. In supermarkets, some stickers are more impressive than others, such as those for the Decanter Awards or the IWSC (International Wine & Spirit Challenge). Having judged both, I can confirm that wines are tasted blind by professionals and competition is fierce. If you’re interested, Google the competition to see how legit it is.

Is a cork closure better than a screw cap?

Not anymore. A cork in perfect condition is still considered the ideal closure for storing wine in a cellar, but good wine can still be corked. But you can now also get deliciously good wine under screw caps. The caps are convenient and perfect for ready-made wines that will be ready to drink within a year.

What is ‘vintage wine’ and does it matter?

Vintage refers to the year the grapes for that bottle of wine were grown. The term is associated with fine wine because it sounds poetic, but even the cheapest wines are technically ‘vintage’ if they list the year in which they were produced. Where it matters most is in areas with more variable climates, often in the Old World.

Hail showers or too much or too little rain can affect beautiful wine regions such as Bordeaux, the Rhône Valley and Burgundy. Elsewhere, conditions are more consistent year on year. However, for champagne it is the norm to use reserve wines for the blend. These are Non-Vintage (NV) wines.

Vintage champagnes are really special because the conditions were so good in one year that they were only made with that vintage.

Search vintage maps online for regions you are interested in.

Bag-in-box: always a bulk purchase and bad?

Absolutely not, although some are better than others. Technology has advanced so much that producers are eager to put better wines into boxes. Consumers also appreciate the cost savings of this type of packaging. Most boxes require less CO2 to produce than glass, so they also have good ‘green’ properties. Wine professionals regularly conduct taste tests and the results are often surprising. Check out wine writer reviews.

Which supermarket own brands are the best?

I am usually pleasantly surprised by the supermarkets’ own-brand offerings. After all, they are constantly competing with rivals and so these ‘house wines’ have to be good. They are often made by heavy hitters in the wine industry, but they don’t come with the price tag that comes with them.

Some supermarkets also have quality ranges. I’m blown away by the new M&S top of the range ‘Collection’ wines (think £12-£25). And Tesco Finest knocks it out of the park on the more accessible side, at around £10. Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference range is pretty reliable too.

Champagne, Cava and Prosecco: what’s the difference?

There are two main methods of making sparkling wine: the traditional way is more labor intensive and therefore more expensive.

Prosecco is an easy-drinking, pear-scented, frothy fizz with a low alcohol content (often 11 percent) and the bubbles are formed in large tanks. It doesn’t try to taste like champagne with its complex flavors that come with age. Prosecco is drunk young and is therefore cheaper to produce.

Cava is made in the same ‘traditional’ way as champagne, namely per individual bottle. This is why it also has complex, savory, roasted notes as the juice remains on the lees (dead yeast cells) after fermentation. However, it is cheaper than champagne because there is much more of it, coming from four Spanish regions. Less expensive Spanish grapes are used than the typical ‘Champagne grapes’ and production costs are lower.

Cava also does not have to pay for the marketing campaigns of major champagne houses. . .

Are supermarket deals worth it?

We Brits love a bargain, but often wines that are constantly on sale are sold at the ‘right’ price when offered at a discount, and then occasionally increased to make the savings look impressive.

Certain cava producers are very good at this tactic. Wines with one-off offers in the supermarkets are more reliable, especially if it is wine that you buy often and can buy elsewhere.

These discounts are designed to entice you to buy more at once and also put other things in your shopping cart. Often there will be a deal between the supplier and the supermarket to take their more expensive wines in exchange for making very little – or even a small loss – on cheaper wines.

Is Provencal rosé really the best?

Not necessarily, but it is the most consistent. Rosé wine is white wine that gets its color because it has been soaked for a very short time (hours and not days) in the skins of the red grapes that are added after pressing.

It can be made anywhere. Before Provence successfully convinced the world that the pale, dry and salty rose of Provence was the best, buying pink wine was a minefield.

Color meant nothing, as pink wines of all shades could be dry or very sweet. You never knew what you were going to get. Provence gave us a consistent style we could rely on: pale and elegant-looking, inherently premium, always dry and with a more salty, salty touch. It became the choice of the refined. A wine that goes with everything.

Winemakers around the world have changed the way they make pink wines to appeal to lovers of Provence, but it is still just one style of rosé. Other, lesser-known styles that offer consistency include Tavel – another, much smaller French appellation that makes savory, wild strawberry-scented, almost pale red, gourmet wines.

Why are some wines so expensive?

This is the most frequently asked question, especially when it comes to French wines. The short answer is that price is determined by global supply and demand.

World-famous regions such as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and later Tuscany and the Rhône Valley have had centuries to build their reputations for fine wines. Moreover, these old regions cannot continue to expand, so demand is high and production is low, which will cause prices to rise.

However, ‘Fine Wines’ needs more work, which costs money. Consider manual harvesting instead of mechanical harvesting.

Specific pruning of vines; expensive oak barrels and tanks made of steel, concrete and clay; refrigerated cellars for maturation; Vineyard maintenance and middlemen all add up, affecting costs.

The good news is that lesser-known areas in top wine regions have upped their game – so you can get great wines in similar styles right near the famous castles. (See “Great Wines for Less” on the cover of this excerpt.)

Helena Nicklin is an award-winning drinks writer, broadcaster and international drinks competition judge.