Another price increase for wine, it's getting silly now.

[Rv Hawee]

Boys... keep cool !... May I remember you Montclair and consorts ARE NOT wine ! They are at best "fruitwine" so 10 or 11 are possible.

@ Denim : was it with bleue ribbon ? Congratulations, it's a...(real) wine !

[xylophone]

12 minutes ago, Rv Hawee said:

Boys... keep cool !... May I remember you Montclair and consorts ARE NOT wine ! They are at best "fruitwine" so 10 or 11 are possible.

@ Denim : was it with bleue ribbon ? Congratulations, it's a...(real) wine !

Sorry to rain on your parade old chap, but the likes of those wines labelled "fruit wines" which do have a percentage of fruit juice added, can easily reach 13% and often do!

 

As for relying on the blue ribbon//band (tax paid/imported) well I'm afraid there are many bottles of wine with these stickers from the likes of Australia and other places, which contain grapes and fruit juice, so it's not a very reliable indication of whether it is a fruit wine or not I'm afraid.

 

I don't like it (the fruit wine/mix) but some people seem to and I think there are many out there who don't know what it really consists of so are oblivious to what they're actually drinking. Still, everyone to their own.

[sirocco]

Exactly, the blue label is a decoy.
I had doubts about "Fleur de Galetis" French wine.
And behind, it is well marked "fruit wine" and not "fruity wine" which means something else.
By putting 100b more, I have a real wine.

[Yellowtail]

I think the fruit wines taste okay, as long as they're not pretending to be real wine. 

 

It's like eating chicken, chicken is okay, but chicken bacon? Not so much...

[morrobay]

1 hour ago, xylophone said:

Sorry to rain on your parade old chap, but the likes of those wines labelled "fruit wines" which do have a percentage of fruit juice 

 

I don't like it (the fruit wine/mix) but some people seem to and I think there are many out there who don't know what it really consists of so are oblivious to what they're actually drinking. Still, everyone to their own.

OK let me ask you what the composition of these fruit wines is, say Australian. What percent of the wine is from grapes (and what kind) And what percent of the wine is from some other fruit? 

[DrTuner]

2 hours ago, xylophone said:

As for relying on the blue ribbon//band (tax paid/imported) well I'm afraid there are many bottles of wine with these stickers from the likes of Australia and other places, which contain grapes and fruit juice, so it's not a very reliable indication of whether it is a fruit wine or not I'm afraid.

Just an hour ago wife brought this from Friendship, imported so with blue ribbon.

 

 

No idea if it's drinkable, 310baht I think. She knows the difference and knew it's not real wine, bought it for MIL who likes the crappiest reds known to mankind. Isaan palate.

[DrTuner]

15 minutes ago, morrobay said:

OK let me ask you what the composition of these fruit wines is, say Australian. What percent of the wine is from grapes (and what kind) And what percent of the wine is from some other fruit? 

If I've understood right, the idea is to get lower excise taxes by importing the fruit juice "wine" base and adding alcohol and more juice locally? Which begs the question what is the source of the additional ethanol they're putting in there.

[Rv Hawee]

 

@xylophone : right you are...they can give any % they want.

For the blue ribbon, i was thinking they were serious enough about it  at it : it's there business to tax it right.

 

So I far as i can see, our friend @denim and his Spanish bottle might be lucky (even if i think the color is a little ligther), but i can't speak about spanish drink ant their quality. it's probably a 60 bahts bottle in Europe.

 

[Denim]

2 hours ago, DrTuner said:

Just an hour ago wife brought this from Friendship, imported so with blue ribbon.

 

 

No idea if it's drinkable, 310baht I think. She knows the difference and knew it's not real wine, bought it for MIL who likes the crappiest reds known to mankind. Isaan palate.

Don't risk it.

 

Send it to me and I will drink it for you and give you my Plebian opinion.

 

Might just save your MIL's life !

( ok , maybe not such  a good deal but do you really want to face a murder wrap ? )

 

No charge and no need to thank me. I consider it a duty to help other imbibers out in time of need.

 

As for that Spanish wine. Well, I posted the pictures so up to others to pick the bones out of it.

 

Tasted fine to me and the wife and contributed greatly to our having 2 ....um .....couplings in the same evening , an almost unheard of event for us long married folk.

 

Frankly...

 

If it's cheap, more than 13 degrees and tastes no worse than a fruit wine then just too bad we couldn't dawdle in Bangkok on the off chance of snatching that last bottle at 195.

 

Back in Petchabun the best deal now is 295 for a bottle of castle creek. Not much of a deal.

[Yellowtail]

Here's some top-shelf stuff for you connasewers:

 

[xylophone]

13 hours ago, morrobay said:

OK let me ask you what the composition of these fruit wines is, say Australian. What percent of the wine is from grapes (and what kind) And what percent of the wine is from some other fruit? 

That's a difficult question to answer because different producers use different grapes and different fruits, although I have seen, clearly stated on the back label of some Aussie wines, that this particular wine "is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and fruit juice using fruit from their own orchards".

 

Another one, Charles Strong wine, sold here and not very expensive, also clearly states on the label that it is a fruit wine and I believe that also states the grape variety, but having said that, I have tried it and I would say that it is probably one of the best fruit wines that I have tasted here!

 

As for the percentage, well at one time it was "allowed" that 20% of a particular wine could be from fruit juice, although I'm not sure if this was law or just something to evade taxes. And to take this a little further, some Australian wineries actually produced and promoted this type of wine, especially when the duties/tax here in Thailand were so high.

 

To get back to my original point, on the back of some Aussie imports, you will find it clearly stated that it is a mix of grapes and fruit.

 

That's be perfectly honest about this, that no producer of good grapes and fine wine would even think about adding fruit juice, so this particular type of wine is made for a market/price point. And as I have previously said, quite why Australia needs to indulge in this type of wine is beyond me, because it has taken years for Australia to build up a reputation for good to fine wines, only now, in my opinion, to damage the branding with this type of thing. Having said that, the fine wine producing areas of Australia, like the Barossa would not normally indulge in this practice, and it is often the bulk wine areas like the Riverina (for example) which would consider this.

 

Have also seen, and has also been posted here, wine from France which is labelled fruit wine and also others which state that the wine is "aromatised wine" which is almost the same.

 

To get onto another point by Dr Tuner, Montclair wine here does (or certainly did) contain a fruit additive, namely Hibiscus/Rosella (produced here in great quantities) although they were never open about it and tried to hide the fact so they had to label it a fruit wine by hiding it in small print on the back label, which by the way has now disappeared.

 

Again, Siam winery (Montclair producers) were never upfront about exactly how their wine was produced however it appears that they imported the grape juice from South Africa and added the fruit to it, before fermenting it and producing the final product at their winery here. That way they were able to import cheap fruit juice, add something to it to give it a little bit of colour/flavour and then produce it cheaply for this market.

 

A chain of wine shops and restaurants here also sell wine which is "made" in Vietnam and consists of a similar process to that above, however I do know from an insider that the red wines are bolstered with "dark fruits" whereas the white wines are bolstered with passionfruit juice and/or some pineapple juice.

 

That's the reason why they are relatively cheap in these particular stores.

 

As I have stated, I'm not a fan of them, but everyone to their own.

Edited March 11, 2019 by xylophone

[DrTuner]

27 minutes ago, xylophone said:

Again, Siam winery (Montclair producers) were never upfront about exactly how their wine was produced however it appears that they imported the grape juice from South Africa and added the fruit to it, before fermenting it and producing the final product at their winery here. That way they were able to import cheap fruit juice, add something to it to give it a little bit of colour/flavour and then produce it cheaply for this market.

Ah, I see. Well then one could just buy fruit juice from BigC and throw some yeast in it. Would have more selection than just grapes. Or go for the laukhao & ice water classic while at it. 

 

I guess Siam winery does their cooler drinks the same way. Pretty horrible IMHO.

[xylophone]

3 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

Ah, I see. Well then one could just buy fruit juice from BigC and throw some yeast in it. Would have more selection than just grapes. Or go for the laukhao & ice water classic while at it. 

 

I guess Siam winery does their cooler drinks the same way. Pretty horrible IMHO.

LOL, well there are people who make their own wine from fruit juice and yeast, and I even tried it when I was working in the Sahara desert many years ago.

 

I know you are only kidding, but I think the only possible problem with buying fruit juice and the like from Big C is that one never knows what type of "preservative" is being used in the fruit juice, although some people seem to think the finished product is okay – – as I said, everyone to their own.

[xylophone]

On 3/10/2019 at 8:11 PM, Yellowtail said:

I think the fruit wines taste okay, as long as they're not pretending to be real wine. 

 

It's like eating chicken, chicken is okay, but chicken bacon? Not so much...

I couldn't find the Montclair thread despite how many words I put into the various search functions and I had to look back some way on my activity to find this thread, so that's where I'll post this...........

 

I was in Tesco Lotus the other day and I noticed a box of "Bushman's Gully" red wine, and at one time this was an unadulterated wine from 100% grapes, however I looked on the side of this box and sure enough it stated it was a fruit wine product!

 

Having said that it was not exactly in large/bold letters, and could have easily been missed and as I recall it was a 2 L box, with the alcohol at 12% and was 639 baht or thereabouts.

[Denim]

I was recently in Mae Sot and in the Tops there I once again found a bottle of this apparently real wine for 195 baht

Bought it....took it back to the hotel, was already to drink it when I found again that it had a cork not a screw top.

 

Gutted But not daunted,  I got dressed again and went pounding the pavement looking to buy a corkscrew. ( not easy at 8.00 pm ) 30 minutes later I returned hot and bothered with a cheap as I could find 85 baht corkscrew.

 

Sods laws , as I approached the hotel carpark and saw our car I remembered that on my spare swiss army knife that I keep in the dashboard there is of course a corkscrew.

 

As unlucky Alf would say ....oh bugger.

Edited April 13, 2019 by Denim

[xylophone]

13 minutes ago, Denim said:

I was recently in Mae Sot and in the Tops there I once again found a bottle of this apparently real wine for 195 baht

Bought it....took it back to the hotel, was already to drink it when I found again that it had a cork not a screw top.

 

Gutted But not daunted,  I got dressed again and went pounding the pavement looking to buy a corkscrew. ( not easy at 8.00 pm ) 30 minutes later I returned hot and bothered with a cheap as I could find 85 baht corkscrew.

 

Sods laws , as I approached the hotel carpark and saw our car I remembered that on my spare swiss army knife that I keep in the dashboard there is of course a corkscrew.

 

As unlucky Alf would say ....oh bugger.

Liked your post and this looks like a Rosé wine..........anything on the back label to suggest it is a fruit wine?

 

Could be that they are getting rid of old stock as Rosé wines are for early drinking as a rule.........how did it taste? Chilled of course!

[Denim]

50 minutes ago, xylophone said:

Liked your post and this looks like a Rosé wine..........anything on the back label to suggest it is a fruit wine?

 

Could be that they are getting rid of old stock as Rosé wines are for early drinking as a rule.........how did it taste? Chilled of course!

Here is the label. The pictures are already in the thread But this will save you looking. 13.5 degrees and Looks like real grapes used. Got the first bottle in a Bangkok branch of Tops. Only seen it there.

 

Also the openers mentioned.

 

Oh...And tasted fine. And it was chilled by the time I got back.

Edited April 13, 2019 by Denim

[marcusarelus]

Every place I go I'm seeing Jacob's Creek.  All different kinds and prices from 300 to 900.  Not bad.  I'm enjoying the Cabernet Sauvignon 2016 CoonaWarra now. 

[Yellowtail]

1 hour ago, Denim said:

I was recently in Mae Sot and in the Tops there I once again found a bottle of this apparently real wine for 195 baht

Bought it....took it back to the hotel, was already to drink it when I found again that it had a cork not a screw top.

 

Gutted But not daunted,  I got dressed again and went pounding the pavement looking to buy a corkscrew. ( not easy at 8.00 pm ) 30 minutes later I returned hot and bothered with a cheap as I could find 85 baht corkscrew.

 

Sods laws , as I approached the hotel carpark and saw our car I remembered that on my spare swiss army knife that I keep in the dashboard there is of course a corkscrew.

 

As unlucky Alf would say ....oh bugger.

If I were in a hotel needing a corkscrew, I would just call the front desk...

[Denim]

11 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

If I were in a hotel needing a corkscrew, I would just call the front desk...

I did and they only had a soft drink bottle opener. Apparently corkscrews are not in much demand.

[xylophone]

20 hours ago, Denim said:

Here is the label. The pictures are already in the thread But this will save you looking. 13.5 degrees and Looks like real grapes used. Got the first bottle in a Bangkok branch of Tops. Only seen it there.

Well I have done a little bit of research on it, and it would appear to be the real deal, made from Tempranillo and Garnacha grapes (Grenache in France) and this is the grape which probably gives it its "fruity" (I think they describe it as strawberry notes) taste, because it is renowned for this attribute, amongst others.

 

Perhaps it's just that they are clearing out some slow-moving/old stock, and if it is, you have been a recipient of some good luck!

 

I've had similar luck here at Tesco Lotus and a couple of other small stores, so it's worthwhile keeping an eye open for these.............. ????

[Denim]

Slightly off topic but I ran into this at my local mom and pop store last week.

 

 

 

Now, it's not wine but only Sato. But the best Sato I have ever tasted. Used to occasionally drink Siam Sato from 7/11 but way too sweet and only 7 degrees. 

 

This ICY stuff is quite pleasant and is a good 12 degrees. Best part....only 35 baht a bottle, 2 glasses worth.

 

Yes .....I know it's not wine so for those posters who wouldn't dream of trying anything new or ersatz , calm down . But for bargain basement blokes this is probably the best substitute for wine out there. I don't like beer and refuse to pay silly prices for fruit wine so this fills the gap. Find it slightly better with a tenth part water. Wife prefers it to Leo and one bottle gets her tipsy and frisky.

Edited May 5, 2019 by Denim

[xylophone]

1 hour ago, Denim said:

Slightly off topic but I ran into this at my local mom and pop store last week.

 

 

 

Now, it's not wine but only Sato. But the best Sato I have ever tasted. Used to occasionally drink Siam Sato from 7/11 but way too sweet and only 7 degrees. 

 

This ICY stuff is quite pleasant and is a good 12 degrees. Best part....only 35 baht a bottle, 2 glasses worth.

 

Yes .....I know it's not wine so for those posters who wouldn't dream of trying anything new or ersatz , calm down . But for bargain basement blokes this is probably the best substitute for wine out there. I don't like beer and refuse to pay silly prices for fruit wine so this fills the gap. Find it slightly better with a tenth part water. Wife prefers it to Leo and one bottle gets her tipsy and frisky.

Thanks for that post, very interesting and may I ask if it is sweet??

 

I say this because I am having one hell of a job trying to get hold of something akin to a sweet wine to have after-dinner, but resent paying about 900 baht for a late harvest type wine if indeed one can be found.

 

I don't mind if it's not a wine, because it doesn't purport to be anything other than what it is!

 

And I did post somewhere that I saw your El Coto rosé wine in Tops (Phuket) the other day for 199 baht, so there is still some around by all accounts. 

[Denim]

24 minutes ago, xylophone said:

Thanks for that post, very interesting and may I ask if it is sweet??

 

I say this because I am having one hell of a job trying to get hold of something akin to a sweet wine to have after-dinner, but resent paying about 900 baht for a late harvest type wine if indeed one can be found.

 

I don't mind if it's not a wine, because it doesn't purport to be anything other than what it is!

 

And I did post somewhere that I saw your El Coto rosé wine in Tops (Phuket) the other day for 199 baht, so there is still some around by all accounts. 

 

Sweet enough but not mad sweet like Siam Sato. 

 

If you try this ICY stuff and ask yourself what alcoholic drink does it most resemble you would say a dirt cheap white wine. Adding a little water I think improves it. Assuming of course you can find somewhere that sells it. Yes, would work well with a meal.

[xylophone]

This could be a cheap little number............read the label fully.

 

[Dumbastheycome]

6 minutes ago, xylophone said:

This could be a cheap little number............read the label fully.

 

Obviously not seriously intended  for the  gourmet palate.????

[DrTuner]

18 minutes ago, xylophone said:

This could be a cheap little number............read the label fully.

I'm going to buy that one in support of their easy to read description, they should all be like that. None of that satin coated leather shoe sole <deleted>.

[Dumbastheycome]

I am usually reasonably well stocked on an Australian rough red via Cambodia but recently I  ran short.

In minor desperation I chose to buy a  Bottle of  "Laughing Bird"  from a Tesco store. I  have  done  so in the past despite it  being a  "fruit" wine. But  for 1.5 litre at under 400Bht never  mind. Or should I say "it was"  that price. Now it is considerably more as I discovered when about to  question  my  change.

But there is a  but to my tale. On tasting it that evening I was surprised that it was quite an improvement from previous experience. For no reason other than curiosity I  checked the  label against an old empty bottle. The  "fruit" wine on the old label has been removed from the new. The  alcohol level  has also dropped from 13.5 to 13.0.

I have  not  been following this thread so maybe others are already aware of this change.

Although the price increase is significant at  least it does taste like the real thing so I am presuming it is which explains the taxed  increase.

I do intend to keep purchasing my customary wine from across the border but felt I needed to make favourable  comment on the "Bird".

 

[xylophone]

4 hours ago, Dumbastheycome said:

I am usually reasonably well stocked on an Australian rough red via Cambodia but recently I  ran short.

In minor desperation I chose to buy a  Bottle of  "Laughing Bird"  from a Tesco store. I  have  done  so in the past despite it  being a  "fruit" wine. But  for 1.5 litre at under 400Bht never  mind. Or should I say "it was"  that price. Now it is considerably more as I discovered when about to  question  my  change.

But there is a  but to my tale. On tasting it that evening I was surprised that it was quite an improvement from previous experience. For no reason other than curiosity I  checked the  label against an old empty bottle. The  "fruit" wine on the old label has been removed from the new. The  alcohol level  has also dropped from 13.5 to 13.0.

I have  not  been following this thread so maybe others are already aware of this change.

Although the price increase is significant at  least it does taste like the real thing so I am presuming it is which explains the taxed  increase.

I do intend to keep purchasing my customary wine from across the border but felt I needed to make favourable  comment on the "Bird".

 

That's interesting, however it should also be noted that the percentage alcohol has decreased on several wines available here, mostly those with added fruit juice, and they are the likes of Montclair, Peter Vella, Mar Y Sol and so on, so quite what's going on I'm not sure.

 

Not only that, they have conveniently left off the "fruit wine" mention on a few of them, although they seem to be getting through a loophole by quoting something along the lines of, "fruity red" or similar.

It may well be that Laughing Bird wine has changed from that which had fruit juice added to now not having it, and I have been on a couple of websites that supply the UK and spoken to a representative there, as well as reading a couple of write-ups, and it appears no fruit juice is added to those?? 

 

Now whether we are getting something different here remains to be seen, however a quick look around the back label on the bottle should have some hint/mention of "added fruit juice".

 

Of course it could always be that there is still some fruit juice added but the particular vintage of the grapes used was a good vintage and the quality was high, thereby overcoming any possible shortcomings that the introduction of fruit juice might bring.

 

Something to look out for on one of my many treks through wine stores!

 

Feedback is always good.

[keemapoot]

Maybe off-topic a bit, but I will be driving to Laos (Suvannakhet) in my own car and wondering if anyone has experience bringing wines across the border back to Thailand? I am thinking maybe a couple of cases of French wine, but wondering if anybody has done this and what to expect at customs?