Value in wine is a genuinely interesting subject, partly because the relationship between price and quality is less predictable than it is in most things you buy. The wine industry is full of famous names, prestigious appellations, and marketing budgets that cost more than the wine inside the bottle - and full also of small producers in overlooked regions who make extraordinary things at prices that make no sense until you open them.
These three bottles sit in the second category. All of them regularly surprise people who taste them without knowing the price.
Bodegas Alto Moncayo, Veraton, Campo de Borja 2019 - around £18
Campo de Borja sits in Aragon in northern Spain, in the shadow of the Iberian mountain range. It is not a name that appears on many wine lists or in many conversations, which is precisely the kind of situation that produces wines like this. Veraton is made from old-vine Garnacha - some of the vines are over 70 years old - grown at altitude on rocky soils that force the vines to work hard for their fruit. The result is a wine of real concentration and depth: dark fruit, a hint of chocolate, a warm spiciness, and a finish that goes on long enough to make you double-check the price. At £18 it sits in the same bracket as a decent house red. It drinks like a serious Cotes du Rhone at £35. If you regularly pour Grenache-based wine for guests and have not tried this, you are missing an opportunity.
Finca Allende, Rioja 2020 - around £22
Miguel Angel de Gregorio has been making wine at Finca Allende since the early 1990s, when he left a career in enology to focus on a small estate of old-vine Tempranillo in Briones. The village-level Rioja he makes is a benchmark for what the region can produce at an honest price: earthy and structured, with the characteristic leather and red fruit of good Tempranillo, and enough freshness to age gracefully rather than fading quickly. It is built on the old Rioja model rather than the modern, oak-heavy style that swept through the region in the 1990s, which means it is also considerably better with food. With roast lamb or braised beef it is exceptional. With a plate of Manchego and good bread it is just right.
Chateau Musar Jeune Rouge, Bekaa Valley 2021 - around £16
Chateau Musar's main red is one of the world's more extraordinary wines - complex, aged for seven years before release, and priced accordingly. The Musar Jeune Rouge is made for earlier drinking but shares the same DNA: a blend of Cinsault, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon grown in the Bekaa Valley at altitude, it has a freshness and a wild quality that marks it as distinctly Lebanese rather than imitating any other wine region. Aromatic and medium-bodied, with red fruit and a gentle herbal quality, it works across a wide range of food and situations. People who taste it blind often guess a Burgundy or a northern Rhone at considerably higher prices. At £16 it is one of the best-value red wines available in this country, and it consistently prompts the question of where it came from.
A note on buying
All three of these wines are made in relatively small quantities and are not always available in every merchant. When you find them, buy more than one bottle. Value wines at this level of quality tend to have a way of running out before you expected them to.