Cheers! We’ve found the £6 wine bottles worth drinking

What price a bottle with your Friday-night takeaway? A recent survey found that more than half of us refuse to pay more than £6 for a bottle of wine; only seven per cent will part with more than a tenner. The average is lower still: just £5.03.

If your £6 bottle tastes rough, that’s partly because 50 per cent of the price is tax. Meanwhile, packaging, transport and the supermarkets’ cut leaves perhaps 50p to pay for the actual wine.

And what’s more, a bottle “reduced” from, say, £10 to £6 was almost never worth more than £6 in the first place. But supermarkets’ own-brand ranges can be better value on offer — like the wines featured here.

To be frank, you’d need to be a hardened drinker to get through some of this bilge — a Fleet Street journalist, for example. I gathered half a dozen colleagues to save readers from the real horrors.

How horrific is that? Even for a couple of dozen of the more-promising-looking current bargains, comments ranged from “not very nice”, “chemical” and “like Schloer” to, as one particularly delightful female colleague commented, “smells like a child who’s wet the bed” and “rough as a badger’s arse”.

“Once when I was on the Telegraph someone did a comparative tasting of tinned dog food,” mused one hack. “Then he was sick.” “Can we get him in?” pleaded another. You see? We suffered for your takeaway drinking enjoyment.

Six drinkable supermarket wines under £6

Tesco Finest Picpoul de Pinet 2013, Languedoc (reduced to £5.99 until May 20): a surprisingly decent example of this gentle Languedoc white. Er, that’s it.

Asda Extra Special Falanghina 2012, Puglia (reduced to £5.50 until April 22): fresh, crisp, just about recognisable as this southern Italian grape. Meh.

Tesco Finest Grenache/Marsanne 2013, Pays d’Oc (reduced to £5.99 until April 29): drinkable white. Though personally I’d prefer lager with curry if pushed.

Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Marzemino 2012, Veneto (reduced to £4.99 until April 29): a simple but tasty example of this northern Italian grape. Actually the first drinkable £5 red I’ve had in a long time.

Asda Extra Special Old Vine Garnacha 2012, Cariñena (reduced to £5 until April 22): big northern Spanish red: bright, rich fruit. The majority favourite.

Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Primitivo del Salento 2012, Puglia (reduced to £5.61 until April 29): fruity southern Italian red, screams for pizza (though frankly not much else).

Twitter: @hernehillandy