Great red wines under £35

Now best wines under £35 is certainly easy.
Envinate Lousas for me stands out as tremendous value and a very good wine.
You can get very good if not great Bordeaux for that value.
As already mentioned Italy and Spain have some decent candidates. Could there be a decent Rhône option.?
It’s certainly making me think and a thread I’ll keep an eye on.
 
This thread was doomed to failure on the definition of 'great'. Is there any way of quantifying that? Some sort of checklist that the wine must have for consideration?

That's probably just as controversial and impossible to get agreement on too though...
 
‘Great’ is a serially overused and abused word, which is subjective and often down to personal opinion as well as becoming conventional wisdom; e.g., as in 1982 is a ‘great’ vintage in Bordeaux.

The bar here is being set where it surely means that for the purposes of this thread that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it is down to personal opinion, because if it was conventional wisdom the market probably would have taken it over the bar.

In my opinion Ch Cantemerle 2010 is a ‘great’ wine - the best this Medoc fifth growth estate has ever produced, which just comes under the £35 bar. I am struggling to think of many other wines below £35 which are great in my opinion.

I do agree on reflection that the Chave Selection CdR, while outstanding value for money does not qualify as a great wine, merely a very good one.
 
Agree that "great" is much harder than "best value." Some best values in my book:

Lots of Côtes due Rhône well under £35, some already mentioned. I’ll add St. Cosme Les Deux Albion.

In Bordeaux, I’ll add Sociando, Cantemerle, and Meyney to those already mentioned. Lanessan before it got modern.

Raffault Les Picasses in Chinon.

German Rieslings too numerous to count, with Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr kabinett and spatlese heading the list. (Edited to add that these cross into "great" territory for my palate.)
 
As well as needing to satisfy the ‘do I taste it the next day’ test, the other feature of wines I consider great is ‘the giggles’. The biggest reaction comes with sweeter wines, but generally there is a sense of elation and a noticeable feel good feeling when I first sip such a wine. A smile breaks out. I talk faster, if I’m standing I start to move up and down on the spot and life is great. And yes, a fit of the giggles is not out of the question. I believe in the old days Tokaij and other sweet wines were thought to have special properties, and I get it.

It’s not just sweet wines though, Plenty of dry white and red bring the same elation, and they are not always expensive.
 
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As well as needing to satisfy the ‘do I taste it the next day’ test, the other feature of wines I consider great is ‘the giggles’. The biggest reaction comes with sweeter wines, but generally there is a sense of elation and a noticeable feel good feeling when I first sip such a wine. A smile breaks out. I talk faster, if I’m standing I start to move up and down on the spot and life is great. And yes, a fit of the giggles is not out of the question. I believe in the old days Tokaij and other sweet wines were thought to have special properties, and I get it.

It’s not just sweet wines though, Plenty of dry white and red bring the same elation, and they are not always expensive.

I get the same occasionally with food - the basil risotto in Il Cavenago (Ghemme) the most extreme example.

It's often the surprises that give such a smile, perhaps the really grand wines are too serious ? (only partially ;) )
 
Surely ‘great wines’ should be prohibitively expensive, by definition? Just ask Penfolds.

I would suggest that prohibitive expense has never guaranteed greatness, something widely evidenced elsewhere by many fashion designers, most Kensington restaurants and ALL political parties once in power – the wines that made Penfolds great are now merely aspirational. ;)

To me not only should great wines firmly express their merits in the context of their peers, but also raise an inquisitive eyebrow at wines of ostensibly far superior breeding – at which point price is no longer the deciding factor. They are wines where I immediately consider buying every bottle I can (or wish I had when I could), wines where I would shamelessly top up my glass from those of close family members and (most indicative of all) wines whose existence I might forget to mention on this forum... :D
 
Musar is probably the only one I've come across. Takes a while, but almost always seems to get within touching distance. I reckon Ridge Zins are pretty close, and certainly the best Zins anywhere, consistently. Might just sneak under 35 a bottle.
 
Possibly La Ca' Nova Barbaresco crus which on release are at £125/6 IB so under £30 OTT. IIRC Antonio Galloni gave the 2016s Montefico and Montestefano 95 points and 96 points (forget which way around). I think these are decent every year and well priced and good availability initially.
 
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Agreed about the CDRs, got carried away there! I am not sure about the definition about great but for standard bearers for their regions I think it's still possible to get Loire (Baudry, Amirault) and Beaujolais (Foillard, Thivin) for under 35 quid.

Other wines that I have been bowled over at a similar price point - not sure about the exchange rate these days so some of them might be slightly over the limit!

Clos du Jaugueyron Haut-Medoc
Langhe Nebbiolos from good producers (Elio Sandri, Bartolo Mascarello): for some reason I think Langhe Nebbiolos tend to punch above their weight more than Bourgognes.
LdH Tondonia
Rhones: Xavier Gerard Cote-Rotie, Graillot Crozes-Hermitage, St Joseph has many options
 
I don't know much about red so I will just name my old friend: Contino rioja vina del oliva. The price can be under £35 *before tax (I assume that's what people mean).
 
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