It can also be a lot of hassle. ...

So put your feet up, and let the winescout.co.uk help, because buying wine is one of life’s little pleasures...if you have the time that is.

Supermarkets in the UK are currently engaged in something of a bidding war, promoting wines discounted from £7.99 to £3.99 for weeks at a time.

For the wine lover this has its ups and downs, because we are now expected to find out which supermarket is offering the wines we like at good prices.

Rather than visiting several supermakets on your wine buying mission, one stop at the winescout.co.uk will show what we consider to be the best wine deals out there in any given week.

Easy, no?

As well as centralising the best deals, wine buying from the winescout.co.uk is easier than from other retailers, because we actually recommend all the wines on these pages.

Often, wines which are labled ’half price’ are really being sold at the price which they are worth, and may be no better than a wine which is comparable in price but not on offer.

Without knowing, there is simply no way to tell.

Once the Wine Buying is done, the Wine Tasting Can Begin...here’s how to savour a tipple like a pro

1)Check the colour and opacity of the wine.
To do this, place the wine on a white tablecloth or paper napkin. Something of an artist’s eye is required here, but pretty soon you will be able to distinguish far more than ’red’ ’white’ or ’pink’.
Give the wine a gentle stir and check the opacity of the wine. Is it clear or cloudy? Is there sediment floating in the wine, or cork? More mature red wines will be far more translucent that their younger variants.

2)Check the Aroma.
Buying a good bottle of wine does not just leave the palette sated, but the nose too.
Stir the wine and take a sniff – what flavours are there? Normally, the better the wine the more distinct and original the scents.

3)Check the Taste.
Take a sip and allow the wine to roll over the tongue – this is how to savour the tastes of a good bottle.

Wine experts can talk for hours on the taste, though the stage of taste which we find to be the easiest for beginners to get a handle on is the final phase – known as the wine’s finish.

This is simply the after taste. Ask yourself, how long did the flavour of the wine last? Was it a sweet or bitter finish? What flavours did you detect, and where these as expected from the aroma?
Of course, the most important question is: does this small sip make me want a glass?

All of the wines we recommend here have been duly tested by the winescout.co.uk team, and we aim to make wine buying easy with discount vouchers and special offers, and enjoyable, so you can concentrate on what matters: loving the wines themselves.