Is there any real difference between a £15 and a £7 bottle of wine?

[bakedpotatoforlunch]

Thinking about Christmas presents. I'm not in any way a wine buff although I enjoy a decent glass. But I've had what I regard as good - if not better - a bottle of wine for around £7 as I have on those rare occasions that I've splashed out on one costing £15.

Would a someone who knows about wine appreciate the little more spent if it was a present for them?

If it was a gift, yes I'd spend the extra and it almost always is worth it. £10 -20 will get you something pretty decent. M&S is pretty reliable. For £7 and under you can certainly get something drinkable but as it's a gift I'd spend more if you can.

Huge difference, because the tax is about £2.50. So if you pay £7 you're actually spending less than £5 on the wine (which is also partly packaging, distribution, marketing etc costs, which might be say £3 of those so only £2 went towards making the actual wine). For a £15 bottle, if the tax and packaging etc costs are the same which is reasonable, that's £10 that went to making the wine so you can expect it to be 5× the quality

I think it was Rick Stein that said there's no difference between wine in those brackets. That's what I've always believed anyway since hearing it so buy myself champagne now 😉

But even experts can't reliably tell the difference in blind tasting, and cost doesn't always affect which wine a person enjoys the most, so it's not a given that more expensive = better quality. A lot of the perception of quality would be from googling the label and finding out that it's cheap or expensive.

Plus also some variations in cost are not related to quality. Larger producers have economies of scale and it's not a given that a small producer who needs to charge more per bottle to make a living makes better wine.

Or some wines like Champagne, are expensive due to the name. A £20 Champagne isn't necessarily going to be better quality than a £10 Cremant, which is a similar wine style, just not made in the Champagne region.

OP, you could have a look at the Waitrose £10 offer and split the difference. If they google later, they'll probably be impressed.

https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/shop/browse/groceries/beer_wine_and_spirits/wine/fine_wines_at_just_10_each

My favourite wine is €2.50 a bottle from our local farmers' market. I honestly can't tell the difference between that and a 10 euros bottle. Maybe if you go up a lot more there is a difference but that's out of budget anyway.

I was going to suggest the Waitrose £10 offer too! RRPs are £16-19 and would make great gifts.

You will not go wrong with Villa Antinori in the Waitrose £10 offer. I'm a wine nerd with many wine nerd pals and this is well loved as value for money. I will stock up and use it as our "house red".

I promise that experts can tell the difference in blind tasting between such different price brackets.

For fun, I've done blind taste tests with my in laws at Christmas time before, just as a game to play. None of us are sommeliers, we are all ordinary people not particularly into wine, in fact they mostly drink beers. We could all identify the supermarket own brand instantly, for example.

I recommend you try this as a game sometime, you might be surprised

If the OP doesn’t know anything about wine then she’s unlikely to be skilled at picking a blinder for £7 is she. Also when experts rave about value wines it’s nearly always caveated with “lovely, for the money”.

Generally speaking there is a noticeable difference between £7 and £15 bottles and I don’t think a £7 bottle is acceptable for a gift unless you know the recipient isn’t actually into wine. If that’s the budget I’d swap for chocolates.

Yes, huge difference. As a gift, I'd spend the extra.