The Wine Price Wars

THURSDAYS 1st & 8th MAY 2025

How much do you need to pay for a really good bottle of wine? It’s a question I am asked so often, and yet the answer is far from clear. It depends so much on what you want from the wine. In essence, with such high levels of tax and duty here in the UK, for every pound you spend above the minimum, you should be buying more interesting wines.

This tasting will show three Chardonnays and three Cabernet Sauvignons at different price points, pitting them against each other to see whether the theory holds true. What should the more expensive wines bring to the party? Complexity for sure, intensity perhaps? Maybe even a sense of terroir?

The Wines

The chart above breaks down where the money goes on each bottle, and how much of the price is made up of excise duty and VAT. As you can see, by spending less than double, the value of the actual liquid in the bottles almost triples. Our two sets of white and red wines are priced at around £9, £14 and £18 per bottle – so the most expensive approximately twice the price of the cheapest. Will the theory hold true that the extra spend is evident on tasting?

It’s definitely not essential, but for this tasting you may wish to taste blind, by deliberately not looking up the prices of the wines that are included – all will be revealed on the night!

Our three Chardonnays come from South Africa, France and Chile – though not necessarily in that order! Our Cabernets come from Italy, France and South Africa, again in no particular order. We’ll learn about the wines, how the some of price differences can be explained. But which will you prefer? And which will you declare as winners and losers, purely in terms of value for money?

The normal price of this selection is £80.00, plus £9.95 delivery. But exclusively for this tasting the price is £79 including UK delivery.

How does it work?

The tasting is split over two consecutive Thursday evenings. We’ll open three bottles per night, but they’ll drink well through the weekend  so nothing will be wasted. And remember: if you cannot join us live for any session, our ‘catch-up’ service allows you to taste along to the recordings at your leisure.

• Tasting tickets and wines are purchased separately
• The ticket price is per household, not per person
• The ticket covers both sessions
• After you purchase your ticket, you’ll see a link to buy the wines
• We’ll make a recording of each session in case you miss one
• You may attend without buying the wines.