Setting off for a fortnight in Brittany shortly….what red wines and other local booze will give me best bang for my Euro?

Benchmark spend/quality level when buying wine in this country is £7-8

I also have a score to settle with Calvados (distilled cider).

Salut!

Stand in the wine isle, watch what the locals buy.

Buy that.

Use the vintage chart here:

Vintage Chart

It’s a quick look up of what years to buy or to avoid.

Also depends on whether you are buying for drinking in the short term or waiting a year or five.

Calvados is from Normandy.

You’ve essentially just done a Devon/Cornwall, Yorkshire/Lancashire there.

You’ve essentially just done a Devon/Cornwall, Yorkshire/Lancashire there.

Oops. Didn’t realise it was that regional. I do buy Black Pudding as a Yorkshireman, though!

drinking in the short term or waiting a year or five.

What is this buying booze “to drink later” you speak of!?

Muscadet is generally good value plonk as white goes.

Drinking now type wine

Any local wines, for about half the price it is here. €4 will net you a decent bottle.

Sc_xc has nailed it

Muscadet is generally good value plonk as white goes

Agreed! When the missus comes back from Brittany I usually suggest Muscadet as my pressie.
I’m not sure about Breton cidre. From fine to dirty, the West country has them licked, unless anyone knows better..?

If you’re completely clueless reflets de France label in Carrefour usually gets you something drinkable.

The above advice about watching locals doesn’t apply. Think Binners in Greggs. You need to be watching someone with a refined palate.

Depends what you like.

Locas drink cider, excellent and cheap although typicall not strong. You must have galette (savory crepe) with cider in small stoneware bowls. It is acceptable to order two main course galletes. “True Normand” for the win 🙂

Wines, lots of cheap Bordeaux, Loire whites (eg Touraine), Chenin red and white all fairly local. Cremont or Blanc de Blanc Brut for cheap fizz. This is of course the season for Rose, pretty much anything from Provence is good. Muscadet is great with fish and as an aperitif

One tip for buying is to look for Paris medal stickers and also on the cap “recoltant” that means it’s made by small growers who do everything in house

Find things you like and bring a car load back.

Provence Rose for us tonight. We had one of our special Burgandy Premier Crus (Mersault) at the weekend, bought direct from grower on a wine tour holiday and kept for 5 years. Burgandy is conveniently on the way back from the Alps 🙂

Just chilling a Muscadet as we speak.

OP if you find a true Breton (who can speak the language) the toast is “yeah mat” (my phonetic interpretaion)

I was told, by a man who really does know, that best bang for buck in supermarkets is Rhone wines

We spend the time on hols sampling stuff that looks likely then buying lots of what we like to bring home. In the second week of sept a lot of supermarkets have their wine fairs and have lots of great deals on. We’ve bought good std claret for a couple of euros a bottle in volumes of a couple of cases of each. They will let you try the stuff before you buy it. €20-25 can get you 2 cases of reasonable cotes du Rhone or Bordeaux that would sell for £7 over here and is easily drinkable and not rubbish.

jambalaya – Member
OP if you find a true Breton (who can speak the language) the toast is “yeah mat” (my phonetic interpretaion)

“Yeah mate” is Australian isn’t it?

@igm Closest I could manage to the sound – it’s mat not mate 🙂

Re Rhone wines, yup a very good drinking cote du Rhone can be had for €5-6, Guigal usually a bit more but great fuller bodied wine (nor so much for summer imho)

OP we are drinking Estadon Rose this year bought in L’eclerc

Languedoc-Roussillon wines (from the south) are tremendous value, both red and white. Generic Cotes du Rhone red blends can be great value too.

Look for “Vin de Pays / Pays d’…” or “Appellation d’origine contrôlée” for decent mid-range stuff.

Jamba – sorry couldn’t resist. Slàinte mhath

Enjoy – France still makes the best wine in the world , he says having just drunk some lovely Sicillian wine over dinfer.

Lanaguedoc is a good source of great value wines and a good shop will point you in the correct direction.

Given you price range, the only recommendation is avoid BURGUNDY, red or white, They are expensive for a reason. Cheap Burgundy is crap Burgundy and should be avoided.

Loved the Beittany v Normandy banter!

go to the biggest town / city and find a cave or wine shop. You won’t get burgundy or bordeaux but Languedoc Rousillon is a good choice, or a beaujolais villages, Loire wines are usually a good VFM choice

Enjoy – France still makes the best wine in the world , he says having just drunk some lovely Sicillian wine over dinfer.

Big call… And it very much depends on price, producer and year.
First trick is to work out what you like, as most French will be blended it makes it a little harder to compare regional production with others.

Best tip would be buy a selection on the first day and see what you think by the end.

Don’t forget that even the big supermarkets tend to stock more local/regional wines than non-local. So if in Alsace, expect lots of local wine with a smaller selection of other wines e.g. Burgundy

I had some cider somewhere in the countryside nearish to Bordeaux that was brown, frothy and delicious. Never seen another cider like it.

Setting off for a fortnight in Brittany shortly

Spend the fortnight buying different wines that cost about 5-7Euro a bottle and trying them. Buy a load of the ones you like before you come home. Simples.

last year we went to a wine supermarket near Roscoff ferry terminal. We went around paying attention to all the labels, bought half a dozen bottles for around 8-10 euros and half a dozen for about 4 euro.

6 weeks later we couldn’t remember which were the cheap ones and which weren’t. Tthey were all quite tasty though 😆

Stand in the wine isle, watch what the locals buy.

Except if it’s “Vin de Table” – best keep that one for cooking or my grandad.

Not regional but i will buy St Joseph or Cote Rotie.

edhornby – Member
go to the biggest town / city and find a cave or wine shop. You won’t get burgundy or bordeaux but Languedoc Rousillon is a good choice, or a beaujolais villages, Loire wines are usually a good VFM choice

This, in spades.
You’re going to buy wine for drinking rather than admiring in your cellar. Loire sparkling whites: crement, Saumur, Vouvray are all great quality and very good vfm.
The reds up there are far lighter the Rhône and Languedoc, as my mother in law would say “good for lunchtimes” Chinon and Bourgueil for example.
Buying direct from producers and coops are always a good call. They’ll almost always throw in some freebies if you buy a few cases.

@mike it’s all subjective based on personal tatstes in food and wine itself but I too say the French wines are significantly better than their competitors around the world and generally cehaper too. I used to drink a lot of Aussie and NZ wines but no longer as they are substantially overpriced especially versus French wines bought in France. A good mate (and wine expert) recommended me three of his favourite Kiwi Pino’s from The Wine Society (so well selected and priced) £100 for 3 bottles, treble the price of equivalent Burgandy I buy.when I told my wife she nearly had a fit ! All scew top too – yuch. Now if I where living in Tasmania I imagine I would buy only local wine but for me here the Aussie, Kiwi and Californian wines make no sense at all.

Buying from small growers direct is what we do but the OP can’t realistically do that in Brittany, depending on where he’s going its 2-6hr drive to the Loire which is the closest region.

The one in the 2 litre plastic bottles.

Aussies use screw tops as they aren’t burdened by tradition, and snobbery in Oz is arguing over utes.

I used to drink a lot of Aussie and NZ wines but no longer as they are substantially overpriced especially versus French wines bought in France.

Brexit’ll sort that issue for you 😉

If you see any Fronton wine, try it.
This one is rather nice

Vin de pays means regional wine. its generally fine. The trouble in France generally is that you can buy direct from vineyards very easily which can be hit and miss. They will always let you taste it beforehand thought. Cru bourgeoise is a bit better and grand cru even better then premier cru is really special. the north is not well known but obviously you can buy other regions wines and can’t really go wrong with a Burgundy (light flavour) or Bordeaux. I would go for a merlot or pinot noir grape to start. Some of the Normandy cider is excellent.

Except if it’s “Vin de Table” – best keep that one for cooking or my grandad.

If it’s vin de table, use it for cleaning paint brushes or degreasing chains. Jesus, a perfectly servicable bottle in a supermarket is only a few euros more than that crap.

I’d go with the buy lots of single bottles, bulk buy anything you’ve liked. A lot of places will advertise a Foire aux Vins (wine fair) at supermarkets, often in a big tent outside. Don’t be fooled into thinking you’re necessarily getting a big discount. Usually the supermarket will have a wine bloke and if you can manage to explain the sort of wine you like and your budget, he’ll recommend something like it.

Above all, buy French. French supermarkets are shit for much quality wine from outside France… seems obvious but even here almost within sight of the French, German, Luxembourg border, you’d be hard pushed to get a decent bottle of Luxembourg/German Moselle wine.

I still remember holidaying in Brittany and shopping at a small back water supermarket…..there was a huge pallet of wine at the front of the shop and all the locals seemed to be tucking in, so I grabbed a couple of bottles.

That night we tried it and the next morning I was back there buying a dozen!

L’Auchan (supermarket) have a decent range of wine called La Selection.

They’re generally reliable, have a wide [French] range and are pretty cheap (about €4-5).

Generally ignore the boxes on offer at the end of aisles; would you buy it in the UK??

And visit a cider farm, buy some. And pommeau, and calvados. And honey. All excellent.

I usually buy the wine that seems to have a hole in it on the supermarket shelf. Ie the ones where a pile has been sold already.

This strategy hasn’t ever let me down

I think the French buy wine based on region ie. Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhone, Alsace etc and the supermarkets aren’t particularly selective. They have some very cheap wine.

If you find something you like, fine. Otherwise I think Waitrose have a better ratio of price to quality.

There are good wine merchants, but they are likely to be at least as expensive as the UK for the same wines.

I think the French buy wine based on region ie. Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhone, Alsace etc

And region being a blend and style the chateau neuf du pap for example being up to 12 varieties I think (off the top of my head) and designed to hit every flavour receptor on your tongue. However if you like varietals then you could be disappointed.