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I’m not a wine know-all by any means. I’ve been drinking red (mainly) now for a number of years, but not in outlandish amounts (I swear). A bottle a week, at times -if that. I haven’t made notes on what I like or dislike, but I thought I’d relate my findings on the broader view of the wine-scene as I see it…

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A few years back I had grown tired of having my throat burnt by 6.99euro bottles of battery acid and I started slowly upping the price I was willing to pay for my fermented grape juice.

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I plateaued at around 10 – 13ish euros, enjoying the quality at this level. It seemed to me to be better value. Also I found that a glass or two at this range did for me, whereas I had often polished off a cheaper bottle of an evening and opened a second. The higher priced wine seemed thicker, more meaty and thus more filling/ fulfilling to consume.

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Maybe I was maturing, like my fine(er) wines, or becoming more conscious of the price of each mouthful. I don’t think this was it, but who can say for sure.

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Anyway, a year or two ago I found these 12ish euro bottles increasingly more hit-and-miss. I had a few that to me felt as battery acid-ish as the half-the-cost bottles I had come from. Of course there’s more to choosing wine than just the price, but now it seemed price was no longer any kind of indicator at all.

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In fact I tried some cheaper bottles around this time and indeed found many (most even) to be delicious. So I spent a while buying cheaper bottles until again the acidity seemed to rise in this range and I went back to 12ish euro pricetags -which is where I’m at now once again.

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Problem is, 12 euros seems to be the new 6.99. The wine in supermarkets, from my limited vantage point is more miss than hit. Even my “never fails” tactic of buying anything from 2006 no longer seems to work (where available for less than 15euros at least).

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So how do I find a good wine? I know there are different varieties of grape, different years, etc., but the good cheap wines of a year or two ago seem to have gone and the assurance that came from paying 13 euros for a good bottle has also evaporated.

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Another thing that turns me off wine is a stupid brand name. I was in Dunnes Stores during the week and for the first time I couldn’t find _one_ bottle I wanted to purchase. Everything looked and sounded like it was straight from a TV commercial: Heron’s Arse, Badger’s Piss, Yellowtail Creeky Pukewater. Where do they come from? When I see an animal named on the bottle I immediately imagine the contents are in some way made up of the pulped innards thereof. “Blood from the Fountain of Youth that is a virginal mountain goat, pulled from the innards of the stoic wolf that had consumed her by the talons of an endangered species of Hawk -straight to your luscious lips!”

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These names remind me of our Celtic Tiger naming conventions with housing estates: Meadowlark Lawns, Bloomington Park, Evergreen Vista. The “value” in these estates was (as we all know) in the blandly-nonsensical upmarket-sounding name itself and had nothing whatsoever to do with the cardboard walls and cramped bedrooms to be found within.

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Likewise, it seems to me, the wine market (at least that part that is accessible via supermarkets) is becoming increasingly based on perception and brand rather than content.

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