aster wrote: The problem with Wolf Blass is that their wines have taken a slight slide in recent times. They're still good, but today's Yellow Label is inching towards former Red Label territory.
Interesting. I remember many years ago an Australian friend visiting me in London, and bringing a bottle of WB Yellow Label. Even then it was locally say a £10 wine, so a clear cut above everyday drinking wine. And indeed, it was most enjoyable, delicious!
It wasn't really a brand that was on my radar, or that I bought for many intervening years. Until maybe 2-3 years ago I bought a bottle in Singapore. It was either on special somewhere, or I picked it up in Duty Free (DFS). So it was with high hopes I opened it, looking forward to rediscovering a wine from c15 years earlier. Only to find to my dismay, that is seemed no better than an anonymous 'table wine', and a pretty poor one at that!
It's experiences like that that put me off regularly buying wine in Singapore. You either have to pay some pretty serious money, and preferably go to a wine merchant to get 1-1 advice*... or you're at the mercy of anonymous high-street aisles of 'mid-priced' stuff, and little or no way of knowing what's going to be ok, and what's going to be complete swill. The same applies at Changi DFS, who knows what most of the wines are, so how do you pick? You can't assume value for money as I've bought wine cheaper, and not on any kind of special, at NTUC than I have seen the same for sale at in DFS.
*Example: I recently bought two bottles of wine from a merchant at Tanglin. One was a French Bordeaux, that I wasn't familiar with, but I asked for an opinion on it from the proprietor. That was pleasant enough/nothing exceptional. The second is an NZ Cloudy Bay Chardonnay; I'd have probably gone for the Sauv Blanc if it were just for my enjoyment. I have no doubt that that will be an enjoyable wine, well hopefully since it costs about 3* what it does back in England! A few months ago I bought some for a friend back home, from a UK wine merchant, and before choosing it I read the tasting notes, and customer reviews... so fingers crossed.
So apart from wine intended for special occasions, here in SG I find I stick with beer. Of course it's still not cheap, but at least I know that it will be drinkable. Give me a glass of something like Becks and I'll be ok. And if you shop around there are usually enough new lines being brought in to keep things interesting.
I came upon this website recently but hadn't time to read it. I still intend to try their 'How to choose a bottle of wine' decision-tree. Might be interesting trying to get a bottom-up analysis of what wines suit your palette/budget.
http://winefolly.com/tutorial/the-9-major-wine-styles/
Recently my nearest CS decided to sell off its Santa Digna Sauvignon Blanc stock at $14, an absolute steal. I would have preferred the red, but at this price I wasn't going to pass up anyway...
