How to win at the wine list

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/29/wine-list-british-bottle-menu

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What’s in a wine list? A lot of unfathomable information and intimidating hidden codes for many people, or so it would seem. A survey carried out by Asda found that British wine drinkers more often than not “bottle it” when it comes to choosing wine from a menu. Drinkers feel “completely out of their depth” when it comes to trying new wines, with a majority “choosing the same wine every time they eat out”. And half of us always go for the second-cheapest option on the menu, no matter what it is.

A scurrilous rumour has been aired on many occasions that some restaurants knowingly apply a higher margin to the wine sitting above the house wine, reaping the reward from wine-list ingenues – I’ve never known this to be the case in any restaurant I’ve worked for as a sommelier. So while putting that myth to bed, where should we look for value on a wine list, and which wines are likely to give you more bang for your buck?

How to avoid cheap plonk

As a general rule, some countries and regions tend to offer more value at a lower price. Chile and Argentina are good hunting grounds for full-bodied, deeply flavoured, fruit-forward reds that will please a crowd. Parts of southern France are an excellent source for good-quality house wines, and indeed for many restaurants these are the entry-level wines, with the Languedoc providing particularly ripe pickings.

Don’t turn your nose up at wine served from a box

An increasing trend is that wines are served from a wine box: don’t turn your nose up at these, the cost savings from not using and shipping bottles are passed all the way down the chain until it ends up in your glass. A good restaurant will make the effort to ensure their cheapest wine is not a nasty drop of paint-stripper.

Côtes du Rhône offers great consistency and quality, and countries like Romania and Hungary are producing good value wines at the lower end, and are worth looking out for. The white wines of Picpoul have become a safe and very decent choice for gluggable, uncomplicated drinking. Southern Italy is another good bet at the lower end, particularly Puglia and Sicily.

When it’s worth splashing out

The “finest wines known to humanity”, as Withnail memorably intoned, will often, like anything of good quality, also carry a commensurate price tag. However, there are exceptions. German wine used to cost more than top Bordeaux over 100 years ago before its reputation took a nosedive, but a renewed focus on quality over the last couple of decades means you can find genuine fine wines (Riesling in particular) for a fraction of the cost of the great wines of Burgundy and Bordeaux.

California produces some world-class wines, but it’s tricky to find real value as most of the good stuff is pricey, and you can often find wines of equal or better quality from other parts of the world.

What not to gamble on

Related: ‘Special occasion’ drinking: the 12 times you just have to crack open a bottle | Michael Hogan

The big dog regions of Burgundy, Bordeaux and Champagne will always attract sales, but there is a lake of mediocrity waiting to snare the unsuspecting. Here, knowledge of the producer is everything, and if you aren’t familiar with the producer, you’re taking a bigger gamble than on an unknown wine from the Languedoc, for example. Montepulciano and Chianti are other categories where you can often get burned, Rioja can be a bit hit-and-miss, and some bigger volume south-east Australian output can be pretty trashy.

Champagne can be shocking, but we have many more choices now from so called “grower champagnes” – winemakers who own their vines and control everything from growing the grapes to making the wine. Look for the letters RM (Récoltant-Manipulant) at the bottom, which is the stamp of these wines.

If in doubt when faced with a scary tome of wine that looks like you need a PhD to decipher it ask the restaurant staff what they like and your budget. A personal vote of approval is better than diving straight for that second wine on the list. Again.