Singapore Wine Newbie

Where And How To Buy Wine From Supermarkets

Firstly, let me say that I am a fellow newbie, so the usual disclaimer applies. Now on to the good stuff... Note that this deals only with supermarket wines. I'm not covering wines from wine shops.

NTUC Fairprice?

First up, let me just say that the worst place to buy wine is NTUC Fairprice.

It seems like their store managers do not know a thing about wine. Here are the problems I saw at most NTUC Fairprice branches:

Temperature is too high. Some places have temperatures hitting about 28 degrees in the day due to air-conditioning that is not cold enough. Hot weather makes wine age pre-maturely and can even cause the wine to spoil. Do you think the wine is in the supermarket for only a few days? You're not thinking.
Wine is often placed under bright fluorescent lamps. The ultra-violet affects the tannins in red wines.
I've seen wines placed next to raw food chillers. You open the next bottle of wine and it has fragrances of plums, blackberries, and wait... raw salmon??? Absolutely brilliant.
I saw a Beaujolais Noveau 2004 being sold in January 2006. Brilliant again. Beaujolais Noveau wine is meant to be consumed within days, or at the most, in a few months.
Wines are often placed vertically. This is not a problem if turnover is high, but if the wine bottle has been placed vertically for an extended period of time (more than a few months?), the cork may dry out and becomes porous. Once oxygen gets into your wine, you can start thinking about using it in your next meat dish.

I think NTUC Fairprice is just out to con people who do not know a thing about wine. Pity a lot of heartlanders fall into this category. They just drop by the nearest NTUC Fairprice before Christmas, New Year, or Chinese New Year, grab the cheapest thing they can find, and disaster strikes. Everyone hates the wine (though they pretend to like it), the host knows that you are a wine idiot, and you waste your money. Worst of all, you don't like the wine, and you swear never to try wine again.

The sad part is that one can easily get a reasonably decent wine for under S$25, or even under S$20, but there is a lot of trash in the under S$25 region. One of my first purchases (lucky I admit) was a Louis Jadot Beaujolais-Villages 2003 (Combe Aux Jacques) for $24.60 at Carrefour. I bought it because I saw that the original price was $29.80; more about this later. For a few dollars more, one can get a good solid quality wine that is accesible to most, yet complex enough for the experienced wine drinker (at least it does not taste like water to them, or bitter like Chinese Tea due to the overpowering tannins).

Giant Hypermarket?

Giant is not much better than NTUC Fairprice. They mainly import goods from Malaysia. I've visited their stores and they have the same problems as NTUC Fairprice. And their wines are not cheap anyway. Why waste your time?

Carrefour

So, where should I get wine from then?

I would strongly recommend Carrefour (Suntec City) as my number one choice. Their range is huge, and their wines are consistently the cheapest. Plus, they know how to store wines, since they are a French company. Carrefour (Plaza Singapore) is not bad too, though the range there is more limited. Look out for wine fairs by Carrefour; many good wines at amazing prices. An added bonus is that if you suddenly decide within 15 days to return the wine (with the original receipt), they will return you a full refund. You just have to say it's "customer's mistake". If you think a bit, this also protects you from any price drops within the 15 days of your purchase. If the price of your wine drops after you have bought it, buy a bottle of the same wine at the cheaper price, then return it with your original receipt showing the same higher-priced wine.

Cold Storage

My number two choice is Cold Storage, they sometimes have good deals that are cheaper than Carrefour, though Carrefour is usually the cheapest of all. And the turnover at Cold Storage is certainly higher than at NTUC Fairprice. Pity Cold Storage does not accept refunds.

Wedding Banquet Venue

If you are looking for a hotel banquet venue, try to negotiate for waiver of corkage for all wines. Many wines force you to buy their house wine at ridiculous prices (e.g. Four Seasons Hotel has house wine which costs $34 and up). For S$34, you get the lousy Tyrrell's Wines Moore's Creek Shiraz 2004, which has very strong tannins and puts most people off immediately. It costs S$20 in the supermarkets. For S$38, you get Kendall Jackson (I've seen it for around S$20 in the supermarkets, and it is slightly better than the Moore's Creek wine). I would expect better from a top-class hotel like Four Seasons. For S$34, I could easily get a superb red wine that all my wedding guests will go "ooh ahh this has gotta be the best red wine that I've tasted at any wedding". So they are doing a major ripoff.

Having said that, Conrad Centennial Singapore waived all the alcohol corkage (beer, wine, hard liquor) for our wedding, which will be held in June 2006.

Discounted Wines

What I usually do is look for wines on discount. Generally speaking, quality is reflected by price, but not always (of course). So if there is a wine that is going at S$20, and another wine that was S$26 but is now going at S$19.95, the second wine is likely to be better. Because of how the duty and tax structure works for wines (duty is a flat rate), if you go for a S$30 - S$40 wine, the quality is a lot higher because a higher proportion of the money goes into making the wine. So, a good deal is a wine that is originally S$32 but is now going at S$24, or a wine that is originally S$38 but is now going at S$29.95). Hope you get the gist.

If you really want to get good deals, you have to do your research to know the good names, chateaus, vineyards, etc. But the above is just to get you started.

Good Wine For Newbies

I would say that generally, a good red wine for a newbie to drink is any Beaujolais-Villages wine. It is not too pricey (usually between S$20 - S$30 at Carrefour), has very little tannis, is fruity, but yet not too simple, and you can feel it going down your throat with a nice finish. Get the Louis Jadot one if you can; my fiancee's sister-in-law, who doesn't drink wine regularly, loved it at the first glass, and asked for a second.

Now, if you got that Louis Jadot wine for your wedding dinner... newbies would love it, and experienced drinkers know the name of "Louis Jadot" so you would get lots of nods of approval. Now do you see why it is so important to get a wedding venue that waives corkage for wines? Rather than paying S$34 for the trashy Tyrrell's House Moore's Creek Shiraz 2004, you pay S$24.60 for a wonderful Beaujolais-Villages. And mind you, not just any Beaujolais-Villages, but a "Louis Jadot" one. You will certainly not hear any disparaging remarks about the wine you chose to serve at your wedding banquet.

Want to send me a comment? Click HERE.

Last updated: Tuesday 17 January 2006, 16:59:05 hrs