For middle priced whites:

Dog Point New Zealand sauvignon blancs - the standard one is typical NZ, all grapefruit and citrus. The Section 94 is lightly oaked, more expensive and much nicer - if you are happy to move away from the typical. Expect around £13 for the standard, £17 for the Section 94.

http://www.dogpoint.co.nz/

All wines from the Rustenberg vineyard in SA are pretty good, but the Brampton branded ones are very good value for money compared to the Rustenberg labelled ones. That said, the "5 Soldiers" chardonnay (named after 5 trees lining the road to the winery) is well worth the extra cash.

http://www.rustenberg.co.za/

Chateau Musar. A Lebanese wine which in a good year is magnificent, and in a bad year simply very good.

The head honcho used to de-mine his vineyards as he tended his vines! Nails vintner deserving of wider recognition. 1986 was a glorious year.

http://www.chateaumusar.com.lb/english/home.aspx

Laithwaites

Do a search for

Bomberosa
The Full Fifteen
Pilastro
Black Stump
and
The Waxed Bat

all red all bloody brilliant

Zippy483

Originally Posted by bluntslane

I'm a bit of a wine lightweight, but I've found a few wines that suit my palate.

Reds: Californian merlots (Gallo Family), Spanish Tempranillo. These, to me, are a bit less harsh than Cabernet Sauvignons. All less than a tenner.

Rose's: Californian Grenache (again Gallo), Portuguese Lancers and Mateus are also nice and easy. Again all less than a tenner (the last 2, much!).

Champers: Moet, Lansons, Mumm. All lovely, probably my favourite wine but left for celebrations in the Bluntslane household.

I think the Yanks do nice wines because they make them for a more naive culture.

Someone once recommended to me a "lovely" Chateau Neuf du Pape. I could barely drink it. Probably nothing wrong with the wine, just not to my palate, but it cost about 13 quid. Just cos it costs a lot, doesn't mean you'll like it.
Good luck, have fun trying, don't rip the arrse out!!!

And probably the only thing in your post that I would agree with, which demonstrates your point perfectly. I wouldn't clean my drains with the wines you recommended, but you enjoy them so they are good wines for your palate :D

The best wine in the world is the one that YOU enjoy the most.

Marquese di Villamarina, Sardinian from Alghero.
Very round (reminiscent of a Margaux) and sunny. Heartily recommended. Alghero is worth a visit as well.

Went to this place this weekend: http://www.castellomeleto.it/azienda...ezione=azienda

You can stay there and tour the castle also.

They make some fantastic Supertuscans. One called Grazioso is new this year and so they are selling it at about half the price it should be. I bought 12 bottles and that night had it with a 1.1kg Fiorentina Steak cooked over charcoal. Heaven.

For those based in Germany, I thoroughly recommend this weingut:

Walter J Oster

Consistent across the board and I would advise first timers to try the Reisling Auslese HalbTrockene and the Reisling Spatlese Trockene.

Mrs M and I used buy cases of the stuff to serve at dinner parties when we were in Germany and the amount of wine snobs that said they would never drink German had their minds changed.

Originally Posted by mysteron

For those based in Germany, I thoroughly recommend this weingut:

Walter J Oster

Consistent across the board and I would advise first timers to try the Reisling Auslese HalbTrockene and the Reisling Spatlese Trockene.

Mrs M and I used buy cases of the stuff to serve at dinner parties when we were in Germany and the amount of wine snobs that said they would never drink German had their minds changed.

The usual criticism of German wines is that they're too sweet, I see you've gone for dry wines so this, presumably, overcomes that argument. How does the Reisling compare to Pinot Grigiot for instance?

Originally Posted by Ventress

Any info graftefully recieved.

I had a bottle of MadFish 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot on a recent Emirates flight which wasnt a bad drop. Mind you it could have been goats piss and I would still have drunk it as I was on my out of Iran.

Many of the cheaper Ffrench wines that are about today taste "thin" and astringent to me. The Ffrench have worked hard to recover their wine growing ability after the disastrous outbeaks of vine virus, but their good wines are now expensive

Australia does some very good red wines and one of my favourites is Jacobs Creek, although the price has gone up a bit since I used to buy it at 4 quid a bottle.
Here is a nifty resource which is worth looking at: http://www.mamashealth.com/wine/austred.asp
And another here: http://www.wolfblass.com/Default.aspx

I drank so much white wine in the 4 years of my second tour of Germany I went off it, however I still do like an occasional bottle of well chilled Sancerre with lobster or those giant prawn things whatever they are called.

When looking at the label of a wine bottle, have a look at the alcohol content. Anything less than 12% you should use for cleaning urinals. Anything more than 14% and the fine flavours can get marred by the alcohol. Here in Vietnam I recently bought a couple of bottles of Van Dalat "black" wine at 16% - wife beater!

All the above are my opinions of course and, like many things, people have diverse opinions on whats good and what aint. The key thing is to try a selection and then buy what you like.

Cheers

Originally Posted by dropshortjock

Argentine Concha - Toro - not too 'spen and very drinkable.
Sangre del Toro - ditto. I STR it's about £6 a bottle.

OOOOOOHHHHH. Concha y Toro are Chilean (bit like calling us french).

The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon was amazing, and usually for under £10 here. The 2008 is still about and for around £7-8, probably the best cheap wine.

Chilean Reds and Argentinian Whites....can't go wrong.

(Incidentally the French exported many vines out to Chile to be able to restock should disaster strike French vinyards, but the Chileans have been capitalising on this for a few years which is why the wine is mega. Plus French plonk tends to be vastly overpriced).