annhig

back [just] on topic, we were amazed by the low prices of wine in Germany, if you knew where to look. They drink all the best stuff themselves, sadly.

dwdvagamundo

Annhig--Same in France (to some extent)--got a bottle of really good 2009 Bordeaux in a Carrefour north of Paris for less than E10! However, we paid a lot for a Burgundy at dinner in Dijon. Worth it just to see what a really good bottle of wine tastes like.

kerouac

I buy some pretty good 5-liter containers of box wine for 10 euros.

In a restaurant, you should never be surprised by paying much more than the "real" price.

Wine prices in a restaurant are multiplied by 4, while food prices are multiplied by 3. So if a bottle of wine costs 40 euros at the restaurant, it means that it costs no more than 10 euros at the supermarket.

Vera18

Dear Kerouac,
Could you please tell us where you buy this 5-liter container of box wine ? What is the name and what kind of wine is it?
I never bought any box wine on my previous visits to Paris but I would like to try it on my next visit.

flpab

I saw the "house wine" and it came out of a box in France at several establishments but was good enough for house wine. I happened to notice as I went to the loo. Then I made a point of looking. Bandit in the box is from Joel Gott and love it. I love La Vieille Ferme because you don't need a corkscrew.

dfourh

My "trick" for buying wines at supermarkets in France/Spain/Italy/Portugal used to be to look for the spots on the shelves that were highly indented because they were popular with the locals - - lots of people were grabbing bottles from that brand.

The problem with that strategy, was the that the bottles that were flying out the fastest all cost about 2 Euros 50. The locals all drink the cheap stuff.

Still, the best strategy overall proved to be to buy regional wines - - stocked in supermarkets from local producers that do not get exported, and that locals treasure, and that are reasonably priced. Looking for the local selections that have a dent in the shelving, and cost 5 Euro or more, tends to be a reliable strategy.

Last July I did that at a Billa in Venice, got a valpolicella that looked popular, and when I showed the bottle to the hotelier on return she swooned, then waxed poetic - - and it was a GREAT wine.

dfourh

Re: annhig on German wines

In terms of whites, Germany has a smattering of varietals that anybody living anywhere else has never heard of. I love Bacchus in particular, and Scheurebe - - and have found great luck and joy with Rivaner, Mueller-Thurgau and other things nobody nowhere else never knows.

Germans themselves tend toward Chardonnays because they are in vogue (though they can suck BIG time) while ignoring the traditional local grapes - - and I just can't figure out why. The amazing and supple blend of fruit sugars and tart acids in even an average Bacchus is so lush and superior to the dull, austere, chards and other import varietals sold in Germany that it is head-scratching that people can't appreciate the wonder and quality right in front of their noses, and instead buy things that sound more trendy and foreign.

bilboburgler

dfourh, sorry I have to disagree Bacchus is terrible (we have it in the UK as well and slowly being grubbed up). Rivaner, Mueller-Thurgau used to be interesting but have gone back to being high volume cropped. Right now Rieslings are as good as they've ever been but Germans are drinking ever more Pinot Noir whenever they can get it, which is leading to poorer examples coming to market. Sylvaner (the core Franken wine) is continuing to drop out of the market which seems a shame, while the likes of Dornfeldr and the new horroe of St Laurent is coming up.

German Chardonnay, found a few that are drinkable Jordans in the Mosel is ok and certainly found experimental growths in a number of winyards Mosel/Pfalz/Rhinehessen but I've not found many producers very excited and they tend to make a Riesling-like wine out of them

annhig

Germans themselves tend toward Chardonnays because they are in vogue (though they can suck BIG time) while ignoring the traditional local grapes - - and I just can't figure out why. >>

nor I, dfourh. my penfriend's DH loves german Chardonnay which frankly makes me think of gnat's piss, and dornfelder rather than pinot noir if he wants a red, which I agree can be pretty grim, though we did drink one of two decent dornfelders on this trip.

but for day in day out drinking, a german riesling is very hard to beat, so long as it's not that other trendy style - "trocken", which IMO removes the point of drinking a riesling in the first place. When I first went to Germany and was introduced to wine by my penfriend's father, he like his wines to be "herb" [dry] but what he called herb, and what is now called trocken are two very different things.

kerouac

Vera18, every supermarket in Paris sells box wines, but the smaller ones generally have only the 3-liter boxes. The one that I have on hand at the moment for ordinary meals is a Pays d'Oc terroir but <I>grenache syrah</I> is what is marked in huge letters on the box with the brand being "Pierre Chareau." It comes from an Auchan store.

Vera18

oh, thank you very much...kerouac

Dickie_Gr

Tip No1.

Buy anything from the Southern slopes of Montalcino.

bilboburgler

ann, he probably meant "fienherb" which I think is somewhere between trocken and halb trocken or for the French somewhere around "amabile" though I doubt you will find any real definition of these words which is just weird given how focused Germans tend to be. Still at least they don't print many Oechsle figures.

I also doubt if French or Italian fizzy makers pay any attention to COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 607/2009 of 14 July 2009 when they are labeling wines and so Brut can mean anything

annhig

bilbo, reaching immediately for my Langenscheidt's dictionary, I looked up "feinherb" [and just in case your spelling was right, "fienherb"] but found nothing, however "herb" is there and it means "dry" when applied to wine. but i agree that in german terms, what was seen as dry 20 years ago is probably viewed as being at least halbtrocken now as tastes [except mine!] have changed.

I still have the problem of sourcing decent german wines here. Lidl has a fine wine section, but only sells bog standard Liebfraumilch at about £4 a bottle which doesn't count. However, we are lucky to have within about 45 minutes' drive the wonderful Constantine Stores, where as well as over 300 sorts of whiskey, they stock a great variety of top end wines. Not cheap, but it'll soon be Christmas.

Who would believe that you could find this in an obscure Post office on the Helford:

http://www.drinkfinder.co.uk/

bilboburgler

ann, not bad at all. You should be able to find Dr Loosen (various) in Waitrose which can be very good.

I don't speak German so I admit fien or fein is the same to me but Mrs Bilbo tells me that is the word they use pron "Feen"

bilboburgler

The Piesport description is a bit off "
A blend of 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot and 8% Petit Verdot, the nose is perhaps a little more introverted and broody than other Saint Juliens" for a Riesling white.

annhig

The Piesport description is a bit off "
A blend of 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot and 8% Petit Verdot, the nose is perhaps a little more introverted and broody than other Saint Juliens" for a Riesling white.>>

lol, I spotted that as well but I'm prepared to forgive them when you can walk into the shop and select from over 100 single malts and that in the middle of nowhere.

BTW, in german, I before E is pronounced "EE" as in SHEEP, E before I is pronounced I as in EYE.

so FEIN is pronounced fine and WEIN is pronounced vine.

Yes you can get something decent from Waitrose but only one or two selections under £10 if you're lucky, otherwise it's the dreaded Gruener Veltlinger which I'm not very fond of. The Austrians have done great job of rehabilitating their wine after the scandal of a decade or so ago but they only seem to export the one variety.

My search continues!

bilboburgler

I went to a tasting a couple of weeks ago with a very posh London wine merchant who offered us his Gruener Veltliner, it was pretty bad so I asked did he have any others and he explained this was £14 but he had another 30 more expensive which seemed to him to be a sensible answer. Still them in London live in a different price point from those of us in God's own county (which I heard the BBC call Devon recently)

chartley

I hadn't realised that Grüner Veltliner was now out of fashion. Just one bottle to go, and then I can give up. I used to enjoy it, but that was yesterday. Viognier also used to be fashionable, but it is now almost as common as Chardonnay, although it still tastes better to my mind.

Is it still OK to serve a French Vermentino?

kerouac

I'm still scratching my head about what the posts above mine have to do with wine in French supermarkets.

And it is extremely strange to talk about grape varieties rather than <I>terroir</I> when talking about wine in France.