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TIPS

Readers’ tips: How to choose a good bottle of wine in a French supermarket

Each week The Local asks readers to share their tips about various aspects of living in France. This week we asked our readers what advice they have on finding a good bouteille de vin at le supermarché.

Readers' tips: How to choose a good bottle of wine in a French supermarket
Photos: AFP

Life in France has its dilemmas, not least choosing the right bottle of wine when there’s an everlasting aisle in the supermarket dedicated to the stuff. 

Unless you’re a sommelier or a seasoned connoisseur, sifting through the good, the bad and the downright ugly can be quite the challenge.

Regular reader MrsMacFeegle feels this pain, tweeting: “Our local supermarket has three double sided aisles of wine, around half of which is very, very local.”

Luckily The Local France’s resident readers have offered up some useful tips that should make the decision-making process a little less overwhelming.

Firstly, there’s the old trick of ‘if it sells a lot, then it must be good’.

That’s what reader Diana recommends, despite her somewhat compromising Twitter handle (@VinDeMerde): “Buy the one with the least stock left on the shelf.”

Andrew Poodle agrees, saying that “they're almost gone for a reason.” 

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For the tech-savvy, several readers recommended wine comparison app Vivino, which receives an average 25,000 wine bottle photos and recommendations from users every day. Simply snap a pic of the bottle’s label and you’re likely to be redirected to views on it from people who have already ‘sampled’ it.

For those who prefer to read wine reviews on paper, Jane Fletcher suggested: “Know your grapes and regions, then look for Guide Hachette labels.”

Guide Hachette des Vins is a French wine buying guide that’s been around since the 80s and is generally considered to be the country’s most trusted authority on les vins français.

Reviews are traditionally conducted through blind tasting panels, meaning that snobbishness isn’t usually on the menu. They also have an app.

And how about price? Does it matter?

According to Robin Kellet, it’s best to “buy one for at least 3x the price of the nastiest bottle on sale”, whereas Dominique Bellaud recommends you “don't try anything under €6.”

Philip the Book Man’s price quality threshold is slightly lower, tweeting “never pay less than €2.40 for a red. Works for me”.

French minister causes stir after claiming wine is not like other alcohols

In essence, price isn’t everything, but go too low and you might end up with vinegar rather than wine.

The only supermarkets in France that were mentioned by readers for having an overall good quality-price ratio were Aldi and Lidl.

There are benefits to reading the small print on labels too. “Choose the wine with the green sticker,” reader Sarah Schmidt recommends, in reference to the fact that these are for Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée or Appellation d’Origine Protégée wines (AOP and AOC), usually a sign of good quality.

Also keep a look out for the letter “R”, standing for récoltant (wine grower) as Richard Williams suggests, as it means that the wine was bottled by the same harvester who owns the grapes and produced the wine.

Other recommendations include the following by reader Emma Bentley: “Look for crowd pleasers like Côtes du Rhone and Languedoc-Roussillon, for reds. Sparkling: plump for a Crémant. Whites & rosé: Loire and Provence. Buy organic”.

Member comments

  1. Basically I disagree with most of this article. These are my rules for choosing my favorite wines:

    Rose – never buy anything like a Bandol unless you want a stiff hangover. Choose the light rose wines around EUR 12 – 15

    Bordeaux – drinkable starts around EUR 20 and you can find really good ones around EUR 40

    Bourgogne blanc – choose Chassagne Montrachet and Mersault. Drinkable starts around EUR 40 and the really good ones fetch EUR 70

    Always remember that life is too short to drink the house wine.

  2. Utter tosh…..This comment from a reader is totally out of step with the buying habits of the majority of expats, who undoubtedly buy wine they can afford – I dare to suggest anyone who buys rosé at more than 12 Euros is a tourist.

  3. I think ‘Pathetic’ above has missed the point of the article… You’re not likely to get much at the supermarket over €20 (he must be thinking of Nicolas, where choice is almost irrelevant as the advice is free). I’d lean towards a €6-€12 Languedoc, France’s biggest growing region and good value as it doesn’t have the ‘snob factor’ of other regions quite yet as it’s less well known.

  4. 20 euros for bottle of red? Obviously a BORIS supporter. Most of us live in the real world. I regularly buy a Brouilly at 6 euros, and enjoy every drop. Muscadets, Aligoté between 4 and 8 for whites, and I’ve found a cheap from flavoursome rose Cote du Rhône St Saveur for 3.90 at Leclerc. I lash out wildly and buy the occasional Sancerre at 13 euros. In the end it’s what you like and how much you can afford! If you regularly buy wine over 20 euros, you’ve obviously enough money not to need advice.

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HOLIDAYS

Readers’ tips: How to get the most out of a holiday in Denmark

We asked our readers for tips on how to save money when holidaying in Denmark and for some of the best things to do. This is what they said.

Readers' tips: How to get the most out of a holiday in Denmark
The ferry to Anholt, the far-flung island in the middle of the Kattegat Sea is free for foot passengers and cyclists. Photo: Visit Anholt
HOW TO SAVE MONEY
 
Take advantage of the cheap train tickets
 
Fabrizio, from Italy, recommends the Rejsepas (travel pass) from the Danish train company DSB, which gives holders a week's totally free public transport across the whole of Denmark from June 27th until August 9th, and only costs 299 kroner. It's an incredible deal, so incredible in fact that all 50,000 tickets were quickly snapped up this year. If you missed it, you'll have to wait until next year. 
 
But you can still get so-called 'orange tickets', which are on sale for a maximum of 99 Danish kroner, which is also a pretty good deal. 
 
Nadine Morgan says it's important to book train tickets in advance, as they are then much cheaper than on the day. 
 
Take advantage of the free ferries 
 
As part of the government's “summer package”, pedestrians and cyclists travelling to Denmark's smaller islands, as well as to Fanø, Læsø, Ærø and Samsø in August and September can travel for free, points out Martin, a Danish reader.
 
There are also reduced prices on all ferries for cars, and reduced prices on the ferry to Bornholm. 
 
 
Go camping 
 
Vanessa Lima, from Brazil, recommends camping wild on some of Denmark's less frequented beaches. “Just find a place to camp there and spend few days with nature,” she says. 
 
Don't eat in restaurants too much 
 
Denmark's restaurants are some of the most expensive in the world, so a great way to save costs is to buy food in supermarkets and cook it yourself. “You don't necessarily need to eat out at every restaurant for every meal, so consider packing or making your own meals. Food costs go a long way,” Morgan says. 
 
Marta, from Poland, agrees, adding that you can save a lot of money by having barbecues while camping. 
 
Take advantage of the summer freebies in cities. 
 
“There are plenty of free things to do in Copenhagen. And until the middle of August a lot of museums are half price,” says the British travel blogger Karen Smedley. “The harbour bus is great for sightseeing, as is walking around the capital and admiring the architecture. There are plenty of lovely parks, especially the deer park, which are all free.”
 
Use student discounts
 
One Hungarian international student recommends take advantage of the thousands of student discounts on offer in Denmark, many of which relate to things you'd like to do on holiday. The train company DSB offers 25 percent discounts for students, and the student website Studenterguiden, has a whole section devoted to them, with discounts to most museums, and many theatres. 
 
 
WHERE TO GO
 
The smaller islands
 
Morgan thinks Rømø Strand is Denmark's best beach. It's such a unique beach where you can drive for a few kilometres on the beach itself and enjoy the low tide of the water, and then when high tide comes, you have to hurry out. It's great because you can stay there for hours, it's family friendly, and its really beautiful with soft sand and seashells and few crabs walking around.” 
 
Allegra De María, from Italy, also recommends Denmark's “smaller islands”, as the best places to get away from it all. You can check out a list here at the Visit Denmark website.  
 
Beaches between Aarhus and Skagen 
 
Lima recommends travelling a little south down the coast towards Aarhus from the most popular areas around Skagen. “Not too close to Skagen or Aarhus, [the beaches are] usually good places to enjoy nature.
 
Enjoy the parks around Copenhagen 
 
Morgan is a big fan of the Dyrehaven, or Deer Park in Klampenborg north of Copenhagen.
 
“Dyrehaven is really beautiful and its my favourite park in Denmark that I have visited so far. I arrived there the first time on a fall [autumn] morning and they sky was clear blue and the air was brisk, and the colour of the leaves were a perfect beautiful orange and brown and there were deers roaming all over the park. It's a beautiful walk in the park and you can bring a picnic and sit there and enjoy nature.” 
 
Megan Miller, from Scotland, recommends bicycling around Copenhagen's Amager island to Dragør, the prosperous 19th century sea-faring town south of Copenhagen. 
 
Day trips to sea near Copenhagen 
 
Maria Andrianova, a tour guide from Russia, recommends the chalk cliffs at Stevns Klint, a UNESCO site with a great sea view. “I was quite impressed to learn that a part of the church fell down onto the seashore in 1928. The island of Møn has a very similar breathtaking landscape, but Stevns Klint is closer to Copenhagen”.
 
“I am also a big fan of Bellevue Beach near Klampenborg station – especially because of all the history and architecture behind it,” she says. “The small lifeguard towers on the beach were designed in the 1930s by famous Arne Jacobsen, and there are a whole bunch of great buildings also designed by him just next to the beach (like the Bellevue Theatre, Bellavista Housing Estate, and Skovshoved Petrol Station).
 
 
Visit Denmark's excellent open air museums
 
Morgan is also a fan of Den Gamle By [the old city] in Aarhus and the Frilandsmuseet in Lyngby, both of which showcase Danish architecture of different periods and try to recreate how life has changed across the centuries. 
 
“In Den Gamle By, you get to go inside a pretty big area where it feels more like a city or small town, and you get to go into all of the houses that were imported from different parts of denmark and placed there and rebuilt to their original state, and also travel through time the further you progress into the open-air museum.” 
 
 
 
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