The Lemon Fool

I will be really grateful for any suggestions as to a “nice red wine” as a gift for a special birthday. The recipient would not want me to spend more than £18 – £20.

I simply want to buy it from Amazon and get them to wrap and send it. At our age we are pragmatic!

TIA

Jon

Buying from Amazon limits things a bit but personally I would be very happy to receive something like this :-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Berry-Bros-Rud ... hol&sr=1-4

Or

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Berry-Brothers ... hol&sr=1-2

I have never had a poor bottle of wine from Berry Brothers, They are a regular "go to" for me for quality wines.

Yep, a decent burgundy is the way to go.

BJ

Totally agree with Berry Bros. It also has the cachet of being supplier to her Maj so the recepient can always say they use the Royal Vintners

R6

I would say that decent Burgundy is over priced, better value with a Bordeaux, but best value is really to be found in Spain. You can't go too far wrong with Berry Bros own brands but my recommendation would be this, it's an excellent wine. Give it an hour or two to breathe.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Imperial-Reser ... 67&sr=8-30
MM

PhaseThree wrote:Buying from Amazon limits things a bit but personally I would be very happy to receive something like this :-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Berry-Bros-Rud ... hol&sr=1-4

Or

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Berry-Brothers ... hol&sr=1-2

I have never had a poor bottle of wine from Berry Brothers, They are a regular "go to" for me for quality wines.

Very many thanks indeed PhaseThree for the excellent suggestions. Most grateful. I’m intrigued by your comment that ’buying from Amazon limits things a bit’. I can’t help wondering what you would suggest if I were to leave Amazon out of the picture...

Thanks also for other replies supporting your choice.

ATB
Jon

MaraMan wrote:I would say that decent Burgundy is over priced, better value with a Bordeaux, but best value is really to be found in Spain. You can't go too far wrong with Berry Bros own brands but my recommendation would be this, it's an excellent wine. Give it an hour or two to breathe.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Imperial-Reser ... 67&sr=8-30
MM

Thank you very much indeed MaraMan for your comment and suggestion. Year 2011 means to me (not knowing more than a very modest amount about wine) a bit of maturity. I appreciate your help.

ATB
Jon

Jonetc15 wrote:I’m intrigued by your comment that ’buying from Amazon limits things a bit’. I can’t help wondering what you would suggest if I were to leave Amazon out of the picture...
Jon

If possible I would seek out a local independent wine merchant - they do still exist and will be able to direct you to a suitable choice. Personaly I tend to order directly from Berry Brothers (https://www.bbr.com/category-berrys-own-selection) but postage is prohibativly expensive for single bottles.

Cheers Jon

Yes maturity is very important, I would not drink a decent red wine that was less than 5 years old, and preferably a lot more. I buy a lot of red wine en-primeur and then store it for 5 years or more before opening. For example I have just open a bottle 2010 Bordeaux from one of my cases from that year, it was an exceptional year, but will still improve for at least another 10 years. It's a big mistake to drink good wine too young.

For what it's worth I buy and store my wine with the Wine Society https://www.thewinesociety.com/, who I highly recommend. As mentioned already though it's usually not cost effective to buy single bottles from them. I have bought wine and spirits from Amazon many times and appreciate their efficient service and pricing.

MM

I bought a case of CVNE's Imperial Reserva 2012 Rioja a couple of years ago for special occasion and was disappointed - it wasn't 'off', just 'ordinary' - to the extent that I went out quickly for a case of Marqués de Murrieta Reserva 2015 at the same price.
Perhaps I was just unlucky as CVNE has improved quality hugely over the last few years.

Another rec for Berry Bros.
The only trouble I have is when I visit the Pauillac section of their catalogue I start to mentally drool and contemplate increasing my mortgage ...

Jogged a memory this thread, and I went searching for an old BBC radio episode of With Great Pleasure, wherein Leonard Rossiter reads an except from Hugh Johnson on a tasing of a Chateau Mouton Rothschild. Sadly, it seems they’ve lost it. And having thrown out all my father's old tapes, I have too.

GrahamPlatt wrote:Jogged a memory this thread, and I went searching for an old BBC radio episode of With Great Pleasure, wherein Leonard Rossiter reads an except from Hugh Johnson on a tasing of a Chateau Mouton Rothschild. Sadly, it seems they’ve lost it. And having thrown out all my father's old tapes, I have too.

Even better is the memory of drinking a few bottles! I've kept photos of the labels of a Mouton Rothschild 1978 and 1997 which were particularly nice .

Those were the days.

Howard