This. As someone who worked in the trade for ten years, I absolutely support this view. And not simply because the wine is indeed better. Supermarkets are killing wine quality, absolutely hollowing out the sector from bottom end to middle-of-the-road. Wine is essentially an agricultural product, and vineyards are being treated in the same shameful way as dairy farmers are these days; i.e. supermarkets are turning up and telling them how much they're getting for their wine, regardless of quality. Otherwise they'll leave them high and dry without a second's thought, with bumper crops withering on the vine.
Can't agree here, I'm afraid. With the exception of the Manley vineyard stuff they were doing - with the Shiraz and Pinotage being particular stars - it's mostly mediocre stuff.
There's no substitute in my view for getting yourself down to Cornelius, Villeneuve or the like - you get wine that has been chosen with the least possible consideration to commercial numbers. Further to that, small wineshops tend to work very, very hard on providing their base range - they might only have six wines at 6, but they'll have spent ages selecting, negotiating and pricing it. They're their signature wines, so to speak.
The simple fact is you get what you pay for. Wine can't be produced for buttons, end of story. If you want wine for 3 and 4 a bottle, then I'm sorry, but you're part of the problem for the poor gadgies who produce it. You will get wine that is by definition sub-standard mass production grape juice (your Gallo-style, sugar-poured-directly-into-the-vat style pish), and either a loss-leader or the product of some poor farmer getting screwed over. You simply cannot go under 6-ish without this being the case. End of.
( can we block senga de bounce reading this post please )
