Thank you all for your comments on this one. It is good to see that I have not done this in vain.
Ben raises an important issue. As I can see from our logs, previous posts on Blue Nun, Back Tower etc. are consistently the most popular items on the Wine Rambler (with the exception of the pages on the main menu). Other articles peak in the month or so they are published, but even a year later search engines lead many visitors to pages like this one. I would assume that most of these later visitors are not associated to the wine trade, so I would say that our access logs confirm what you can see in ASDA, Sainsburys etc.: many consumers want these wines.
Now, I do believe that once you give them a good Riesling Kabinett or similar most would agree that it is better - at least that happened whenever I tried it out - but we also should keep the price difference in mind. Black Tower charge almost twice as much as the Liebfraumilch and the cheapest Dr. L. Riesling at Sainsburys comes close to £7. If you are related to the wine trade, it is sometimes easy to forget that three quid more on a bottle of wine can be hard to stomach for many people, especially in the current climate. I would rather drink a lot less wine and invest in better quality, but that is both personal preference and due to exposure to higher quality wines. I actively care about wine and I know what else is out there.
Also, I can see the appeal of a wine that is light, both on the tongue and in alcohol, vaguely fruity, sweet enough to go down easily and yet not too complex to put people off. So maybe I should in the future try to write in a more friendly way about those wines and remind myself to keep in mind that there are limits to what you can expect from a very cheap wine. I have to admit I find this a little easier said than done. In Germany I could also easily point to Riesling that retails at €5 or less per bottle, sometimes even litre bottles, that are much better than those wines, but with duties and taxes in the UK I am not so sure. If you honestly only can spend four quid on a wine, can you get better? Maybe I should explore...
Thank you all for your
Thank you all for your comments on this one. It is good to see that I have not done this in vain.
Ben raises an important issue. As I can see from our logs, previous posts on Blue Nun, Back Tower etc. are consistently the most popular items on the Wine Rambler (with the exception of the pages on the main menu). Other articles peak in the month or so they are published, but even a year later search engines lead many visitors to pages like this one. I would assume that most of these later visitors are not associated to the wine trade, so I would say that our access logs confirm what you can see in ASDA, Sainsburys etc.: many consumers want these wines.
Now, I do believe that once you give them a good Riesling Kabinett or similar most would agree that it is better - at least that happened whenever I tried it out - but we also should keep the price difference in mind. Black Tower charge almost twice as much as the Liebfraumilch and the cheapest Dr. L. Riesling at Sainsburys comes close to £7. If you are related to the wine trade, it is sometimes easy to forget that three quid more on a bottle of wine can be hard to stomach for many people, especially in the current climate. I would rather drink a lot less wine and invest in better quality, but that is both personal preference and due to exposure to higher quality wines. I actively care about wine and I know what else is out there.
Also, I can see the appeal of a wine that is light, both on the tongue and in alcohol, vaguely fruity, sweet enough to go down easily and yet not too complex to put people off. So maybe I should in the future try to write in a more friendly way about those wines and remind myself to keep in mind that there are limits to what you can expect from a very cheap wine. I have to admit I find this a little easier said than done. In Germany I could also easily point to Riesling that retails at €5 or less per bottle, sometimes even litre bottles, that are much better than those wines, but with duties and taxes in the UK I am not so sure. If you honestly only can spend four quid on a wine, can you get better? Maybe I should explore...