If you’re one of the 70% of people who don’t * make up their mind what brand you’re going to buy until you’re in the store you might well be wondering what advice Hughesy can offer when it comes to wine purchases. Actually, I may be able to help quite a bit.
As indicated in the previous post, the same source indicated the top five Australian wine brands in terms of last bottle purchased were Jacob's Creek, De Bortoli, Wolf Blass, Brown Brothers and cleanskins, which might not be a brand as such but is a big enough share of the market to warrant being considered as one.
Now, if you’re in the habit of buying any of the first four of those, you’re more than likely going to be more or less satisfied with your purchases.
I don’t go out of my way to buy Jacob’s Creek, but at the same time I won’t turn around and bolt when someone offers me a glass. And occasionally they turn out a very good drop, like the 2006 Riesling (Halliday rating 94, remarkable in a $10 wine).
De Bortoli have snared a sizeable chunk of the bag in a box market, and if I was going to invest in a cask, that’s probably the first brand I’d be looking at. If you’re looking at the extreme value end of the spectrum it’s hard to go past their Sacred Hill range, which I’ve seen as low as $5 a bottle. Again, remarkably good value. I you’re looking at a wine to go with spicy Asian food, it may well be worth in shelling out the five or six bucks for a bottle of the Sacred Hill Traminer Riesling.
Given the resources Fosters can draw on you’d expect the Wolf Blass entry level wines to be (at least) consistent so you can probably be confident where that brand is concerned and the care with which Brown Brothers have grown their range of varietal wines means you’re not likely to find many duds if you head in that direction.
Towards the end of his life, my late father’s drinking habits graduated from a glass or two of cask lambrusco over to dinner to something out of a bottle, and I did a bit of research to see if I could help him get maximum benefit from minimal outlay, which accounts for my familiarity with the De Bortoli Sacred Hill range, for a start.
When the average consumer is faced with the array of wine on offer in even the smallest local liquor shop I guess it’s hardly surprising that there’s a tendency to go for something familiar, particularly when something familiar has a This Week’s Special tag in front of it.
At the same time, given the substantial discounts that are part of the industry’s standard operating practice you can quite possibly afford to try something different if it’s a consistent brand and it’s on special.
Better still, if there are a range of brands you’ve found to be reasonably consistent value, grab a bottle of something different from one of those brands at the start of the week or so the special offer lasts, try it when you get home and if you like it, grab a couple more next time you’re passing by the grog shop.
Brands to watch for?
As previously mentioned, De Bortoli’s Sacred Hill is a good starting point.
In the same sort of price range, there’s Angove’s Butterfly Ridge, particularly the white varieties. There was a Riesling a couple of years back that was truly exceptional. Further up the hierarchy they’ve also got the Long Row ($10) and Nine Vines ($15) ranges if you’re looking to go a bit up market.
And at the same price point as Sacred Hill and Butterfly Ridge you might want to have a look at McWilliam’s Inheritance range as well.
Also in the regularly discounted to the $8 - $10 bracket, you can also be pretty confident with Yalumba’s Oxford Landing range (particularly the Sauvignon Blanc) and McWilliam’s Hanwood Estate (from the reds try the Shiraz Viognier).
Bearing in mind that you can almost certainly be sure at least one of those lines will be on special in just about any liquor chain’s stores at any given time, the average price-conscious consumer should be able to do very nicely by making a selection from the current special early in the week and going back for a couple more before they jack the price back up if you’ve found one you like.
At least that’s what I’d be doing....
* (According to the AC Nielsen survey quoted by James Halliday in the Weekend Australian Magazine Food and Wine issue in mid-April 2009)
Wednesday, 13 May 2009