Last updated 16:07, Wednesday, 08 October 2008

FINDING a top class bottle for a fiver these days is the exception rather than the rule, unless it happens to be half price. Even then you sometimes wonder why it was priced so highly in the first place.

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Cartlidge & Browne: This is a pinot noir from the lush Napa Valley from this Californian winery, available at the Co-op

Recently I’ve come up with two reds, neither of which cost much more than £5 – officially the price the average consumer prefers to pay – and both are gems.

One of them ranks among the three best supermarket reds I’ve tasted all year.

Cartlidge & Browne is the name: sounds like a smart Harley Street firm of medical practitioners but it’s actually an unfamiliar Californian winery enjoying a growing reputation in the States. I found it in the Cleator Moor Co-op and it certainly proved a tonic for me.

This is a pinot noir from the lush Napa Valley, only £5.49 and worth twice as much – at least.

If you want a wine that tastes of a good burgundy at a fraction of the price, then this is for you. It has the same hallmarks – finesse, elegance, and delicacy of flavour balanced with just a little bit of that burgundian backbone – velvet in the glass from Napa.

The perfumed, berry aroma is seductive enough but five years of ageing brings it to palate perfection.

Cartlidge & Brown claims to “own the hearts of consumers who appreciate premium quality wines at modest prices – fruity, pure and vibrant.”

The boast is justified – just another example of how the cool Californian climate, along with Chile, produces magnificent pinot noir, giving exalted Burgundy and New Zealand a real run for their money.

Another of my Co-op favourites, from California, is the Cycles Gladiator pinot, but if you like your reds with just a little bit more strength then go for No Bull – I raved about it a few months ago and I’m glad to say this handsome blend is back in the racks.

Congratulations on the revamped store’s classy mahogany wine shelves, including a fine wine section which contains some special bottles worth looking at for Christmas.

The difference is that, unlike before, the sections are flagged up country by country, which takes away a little bit of the surprise, but that’s progress!

The source of the other inexpensive gem is Tesco – this one is Moulin-a-Vent, a beautiful Beaujolais, smooth and delicious with a special introductory offer of just over a fiver. Normally you’d pay up to a tenner or more for what is the aristocrat of all the beaujolais.

It gets better with age: so much so that one poetic tippler was moved to write: “If any beaujolais can outlast a dog and grow in stature with the years it is the wine grown on the crusty, rust-pink sands which anchor this windmill, this Moulin-a-Vent.”