Weekend Wine: What We'll Be Drinking

Hold on tight, kids - the weekend is almost here, and for wine geeks like us this means just one thing: let's pick up a bottle or two on our way home from work to enjoy with our various shenanigans. If (like us) you've left your wine buying to the last minute again, here are some high street corkers this week:

Taittinger Brut Reserve NV Champagne, £26 down from £36 per bottle at Majestic

There's a lot of Champers on offer at the moment, much of it past its best or from questionable quality sources. It's never fun to feel like you're getting a bargain until you open the bottle and realise you'd prefer cheap Cava.

This, on the other hand, is lovely. For most of us, £26 is still on the steep side for everyday drinking - but if you have a reason to celebrate this weekend we highly recommend splashing out on this fresh, crowd-pleasing, cut-price Taittinger while you have the chance.

Librandi Greco, £6.99 down from £8.99 at Waitrose

Greco is a much underrated Italian white, but far superior to most supermarket Pinot Grigios you can buy. A particular saviour of the dreaded tomato salads - it's one of the few wines crisp enough not to wither under the tomato's difficult flavours. We wouldn't fork out almost £9 for this, but for just under £7 it's not half bad.

Asda Extra Special New Zealand Pinot Noir, £8.98 down from £10.48.

There's a whole lot of uninspiring Pinot Noir at around the tenner mark, so it pays to explore different brands. Asda's Extra Special range gets much better than you'd think towards the higher end of it's price range, and this is a shining example. Award-winning silky-smooth red fruit flavour abounds.

Blason Montagny Vieille Vignes, £7.99 down from £11.99 at Sainsbury's (or £7.49 at Tesco until next week!)

This is another wine I'd never buy for the 'proper' (AHEM, rip-off) price, but it's hard to find a decent white Burgundy for under £8 these days so I'm snapping this one up while I can. A top-tip when buying wine from Sainsbury's: if the online description actually has some helpful information (a rarity!) and even goes into detail about the wine-making process (shocker!), you probably won't be disappointed. 

Tesco Simply Cotes-du-Rhone, £4.49

Sometimes, you just have to swallow your wine pride and give the dirt-cheap stuff a go. When we first tried this a couple of years ago it was something ridiculous like £3.80, but you really can't go wrong even for this price. It's a pleasant, drinkable, juicy red - you could pay a fiver more and be more disappointed than you would be in this easy weekend slurper.

What are you drinking this weekend? Tell us, so we can raise a glass of your recommendation to you over the next two days...