Well, what can you expect for your £3.98 when you buy this wine at Waitrose. It certainly tastes like a typical low price Sauvignon Blanc, but our descriptive language can only stretch to the same neutral adjectives that the supermarket themselves use: bright, crisp, fresh, versatile. Its OK but nothing special.

When Jane MacQuitty reviewed this wine 2 years ago (the 2007 vintage) she called it easy-swigging with sufficient varietal flavour – hardly a blushing endorsement but the fact that it featured in her top 100 summer wines under £6 and given that very low price – it is certainly worth a punt this summer.

Not knowing anything about its price beforehand, we went in without any preconceived expectations, in fact we were hopeful of tasty, well selected M&S wine that should satisfy easily.

As it turned out we were just a little disappointed, with the wine lacking on the true Australian Shiraz characteristcs you’d expect to find from some of the more established Shiraz wineries. As we discover later, this wine sits at the very bottom (or cheap end) of the M&S Shiraz range, costing just £4.49/bottle when purchased as a case online (we’re not sure of the in-store price, but its unlikely to be much more).

Perhaps this is the M&S wine buyers 2010 attempt to fill the “occasional wine purchaser looking for a bargain” category, and perhaps it delivers against that criteria, but not much more. We missed the full Shiraz feeling in the mouth, the soft but mature fruitiness and the alcohol by volume, although 13.5%, doesn’t show on the palate. Perhaps a 2009 Shiraz is just too young anyway.

Australian Shiraz - Snapper Cove

Next time perhaps we’ll take a look at the store’s better rated offerings like the Red Block Shiraz 2008 (14%) at around £6,  the Rockbare Tinder Box Shiraz 2007 at £9.89 (15%) or the promising Old Gentleman Shiraz 2005 (14.5%) at £14.40 which M&S describe as full bodied, possessing soft tannins and a long finish, with a velvety texture – now that sounds more like a Shiraz we’d enjoy!

Santa Rita Chilean Merlot

On opening, the nose of this wine is quite appealing and promises plenty of fruit (in the fact the producers use the terms “structured”, “fruity” and “youthful” to describe it)

All good so far, but for us, that was as far as the enjoyment went as on drinking our familiar disappointment returned. The wine has no softness really, just a little harshness, which some would try to describe as “spicy” if they were being kind.

Not wanting to write it off completely, especially as we have 2 bottles to get through, we re-corked and left overnight – perhaps a slight improvement but no great shakes unfortunately. This wine has been aged in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th-use barrels for just 8 months – perhaps it needed longer.

The producer must be a big concern as they have an ample list of wines detailed on their website that includes products from a huge range of grape varieties. Maybe a more specialist Merlot winery would deliver on our hopes next time?

All four of these Riojas are great value wines and are now to be found occasionally at Majestic, Sainsburys and other mainstream wine retailers. Pay as low as £4.19 at Sainsburys for the Crianza, around £9.99 (£5.99 on offer) for the Reserva when Majestic have some and  £13.99 (£9.99 on offer) for the Gran Reserva. Seek out a case of Reserva and give it a try or stock a few bottles of the Gran Reserva to impress your house guests.

At the time the wineries in Rioja had not gone through a modernisation process which saw them trying to make fresher, fruiter wines to keep up with the markets being driven by the new world producers. Bodegas Muriel was perhaps fortunate in that it only starting producing in 1986 after the owner revitalised the Bodegas that his parents had apparently neglected.

As well as the four wines pictured here the winery also produce four others, a white, a rose, an everyday red and their showcase JME, named after the owner Julián Murúa.

Majestic’s current prices are as follows:

Dragon Tempranillo 2007 Berberana – £5.99 (or £4.49 with offer)

Rioja Crianza 2006/2007 Berberana – £7.99 (or £5.99 with offer)

Rioja Reserva 2005 Berberana – £10.99 (or £6.99 with offer)

Rioja Gran Reserva 2002 Berberana – £13.99 (or £8.99 with offer)

We’d suggest the Reserva as the best all round value at the moment (May 2010), although Majestic rate it less favourably (only 2.5 stars compared to the others which have 4 and 5 stars) ; it’s probably on a sell-out run given the discount. Also £8.99 for a Rioja Gran Reserva is pretty rare, so worth a try too.

It’s fairly full-bodied so will stand up to most red meat dishes yet has a wide range of berry notes from cherry and raspberry fruitiness to blueberry, plum and blackberry too.

The winery also produces other blended wines for example a Syrah-Viognier blend and a sparkling rosé too. The producer also has single grape wines including a Syrah, a Sauvignon Blanc and what they must regards as their best wine, a Cabernet Sauvignon entitled The Elegant Frog.

You can also follow their blog on http://www.arrogantfrog.fr/blog/

A real discovery this and usually on some kind of offer at Majestic. The price is low enough to make it affordable for any occasion but the wine itself will impress even the most selective drinkers at dinner parties and the like.

Try a couple of bottles the next time you’re browsing round your local branch of Majestic or ask the staff there for their opinion – it’s a gem!

But if £18 is a bit much for you, then Majestic currently offer a bargain in the form of the Waimea Estate SB. Perhaps not as classy as the Cloudy Bay but, when served well, it still has that special something and retails for £7.99 if you buy at Majestic’s discounted rate, which is surpisingly cheap I feel when you put it up against the myriad of mass-produced SB’s within the NZ section of your wine store. Oyster Bay, Montana, Villa Maria and Jackson Estate all provide pretenders at this price point but none come close to the Waimea for style and quality. There are very few New Zealand SB wines retailing at less than £6, so to pay the extra 2 pounds is a small sacrifice for something a step above the ordinary.