Stockist/Retailer: Aldi

(2024) From Utiel-Requena in the southeast of Spain, this is a cheap as chips party glugger offering considerable bangs per buck. Don't come looking for complexity in this £4.99 blend of 60% Tempranillo with Bobal, but it delivers a fragrant nose of black cherry with floral aspects and a smooth as silk, moreish palate of black fruit. Most importantly, it finishes dry without being tricked-up with residual sugar as so many cheap brands. Definitely a crowd-pleaser. Watch my video review for more information.

(2024) Let's make one thing clear from the start: this wine earns its place for a very specific reason, and very specific purpose. Reviewed mid-summer 2024 when it's the height of barbecue season, many people are looking for a fruity, inexpensive red to drink in the sunshine. A priority is lower alcohol and carefree quaffability. Step up this £4 blend of Bobal and Tempranillo from the high altitude vineyards of Utiel-Requena, near Valencia in Spain. With 10% alcohol it fits the bill: chill it if you like, plop a few ice cubes into the glass if you fancy, and enjoy its tutti-frutti red berries, almost non existent tannins, and modest acidity. Not for the cognoscenti. Watch the video for more information.

(2024) 100% Bobal, this comes from Utiel-Requena, just inland from Valencia. It's lightweight stuff, harvested at night from higher altitude vineyards and made in stainless steel. It's a vivid, cotton candy pink with cherry lips and Bazooka Joe bubblegum character, marked as dry on the label but with a bit of residual sugar sweetness. It's far from sophisticated, perhaps akin to a Mateus Rosé without the spritz, but if that appeals it's cheap as chips at Aldi.

(2021) The first thing to point out about this new and exclusive listing in Aldi UK, is that it is available online only and is not in stores.  It's a blend of Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, aged in French oak barrels for 12 months. With a few years under its belt, the colour is still vibrant, the nose deeply-scented with blackcurrant and a very attractive pastille quality, tiny violet notes in the mix. In the mouth it is juicy and sweet, the oak barely perceptible as plush black fruit on the mid-palate gives way to softer tannins and a nicely juicy acidity. It's not particularly long, and the finish feels a touch dilute, but it is very nice wine and a fascinating addition to the UK wine scene having a sub-£10 Lebanese wine in Aldi (online). Watch the video for more information.

(2019) From the Western Cape, this at first looks like another cutely commercial SB to please the masses, its label festooned with jokey cartoon sheep. And while the wine is indeed a crowd-pleaser, it's also cleverly made with partial skin contact and around 30% fermented in 500-litre French oak casks, to give a little more weight, texture and ultimate interest than many at this price point. An undertow of toast and nutty aromatics to the bright citrus fruit, the palate with a bit of real concentration and salty character adding to the sense of freshness and length. The name and those sheep? Apparently a herd of wandering sheep did some early-morning leaf thinning as they munched their way through the vineyards.

(2018) A dry Riesling from the limestone soils of the Pfalz, a warmer region than the Mosel or Rheingau, that gives this a certain fat, though it majors on lime-like fruitiness and citrus again in the acidity. It's Riesling expressing the fruitier and more vibrant side of the variety, crisply enjoyable though with litte in the way of 'mineral' character.

(2018) This eight-year-old Muscat from the Riverina region is a classic style, sweet, dark and sumptuous fruit is harvested very ripe, a little brandy added to fortify it, as in Port wine, before its long, long ageing in barrel. It is flooded with coffee, walnut and sweet, plump raisin aromas, but that lifted floral note of the Muscat is in there too. Thick and luxurious on the palate, there's loads of sweetness here, like sticky-toffee pudding in a glass, but underpinned by that sumptuous chocolate and coffee into a long finish, very nicely balance by a cherry-fresh acidity. Price for 37.5cl half bottle. Watch the video for more information.

(2018) When David Hohnen contacted me to say this wine he'd made had just gone into Aldi stores at £5.99 I just had to try a bottle. David's track record is formidable: the first winemaker for Cloudy Bay, on to Cape Mentelle, and now producing some fabulous wines under his own McHenry Hohnen label. To put a wine from premium Western Australia on the shelves for £5.99 is a coup, David explaining that the "South West Australia" designation allowed him to source fruit from an expansive area encompassing Margarent River, Mount Barker, Frankland River and many other appellations. It's a beautifully pitched wine, with a touch of pea-pod and nettle characater, but much more focused on the pure lime and luscious nectarine fruitiness, exotic touches of mango and lychee too, but the creamy-textured palate finishes on whistle-clean acidity. A terrific bargain really. Watch the video for more information and food-matching ideas.

(2015) Getting a wine on the shelves from the pricy Ribera del Duero is tricky, but getting such a good one must be trickier still. Liquorice, charcoal and smokiness, the fruit in the blackberry spectrum, but it is those dark notes that dominate. In the mouth this has plenty of dusty, dry tannins, but the intrinsic fruit depth is there, and the balance is good, giving this decent fruity and spicy length.

(2015) And yes it's two in a row for Aldi with this 14.5% Garnacha (Grenache) based wine. Tight kirsch and blackcurrant, the fine spice suggesting Sandalwood and delighfully balanced aromatic character. On the palate it is composed and beautifully fruited with a cleansing, crisp finish showing copious fruit but such a precise structure of tannin and acidity. Could cellar for a few years too.