With the cost of living on the rise, wouldn’t it be nice to find a brilliant bottle of wine for less than you’d pay for a sandwich? Now you can. Here are six of the most deeply undervalued wines on shelf now — in a range of styles. The first three could probably sell for twice the price.
2024 Chemin des Papes Côtes-du-Rhône AOP, France
Score 94
(LCBO 36056, $12.20)
This Grenache- and Syrah-based blend from the sun-drenched Rhône offers ripe, round, open-handed satisfaction — for a song. It starts with the fragrance of height-of-summer black cherries and dark toast. On the palate, the fruit is much darker — macerated blackberries threaded with tapenade, leather and grilled meat with a long, briny black olive finish. If you like savoury styles of red wine, this bold, brooding bottle is tough to beat for the money. Excellent with braised beef short rib and mashed potatoes. (14.5% alc., 3 g/L sugar)
2025 Orso Bruno Old Vine Zinfandel, Puglia IGT, Italy
Score 94
(LCBO 31808, $11)
This Italian red tastes like a jammy Californian Zinfandel for a fraction of the price. It’s a dark, saturated expression from 25-year-old vines that pools inky dark in the glass and teems with black forest fruit aromas laced with coffee and graphite. Then, it floods in with rich, rolling waves of dark fruit with dark chocolaty undertones. Long, too. After launching in Ontario three years ago, it quickly earned listings in provinces coast to coast and is now one of the bestselling Italian reds in British Columbia. (13.5% alc., 12 g/L sugar)
Pale onion-skin-pink with a warm apricot cast, this pure Pinot Noir opens with a beautiful perfume — orange cream first, followed by a whisper of red berries and touch of rose petal. Soft and fluttery, it’s a scent that slows you down. Then, the silky entry tastes sheer, cool and just crisp enough for elegant refreshment while a delicate complexity sets in, quietly mirroring the aromas. Expect a long strawberry-rhubarb finish, too. Pour it with poached trout with a lemon-caper sauce, or just a sunset. (13% alc., 4 g/L sugar)
If you like Prosecco, you need to know about this exciting new listing. Each glassful exudes the airy fragrance of sliced pear and almond paste, grapefruit and elderflower — quite complex for an inexpensive Prosecco. The attack is brisk and refreshing — a sheer beam of luminosity that tastes pristine and gently effervescent. The flavours feel lifted and articulate, alluding to white peach, white flowers and grapefruit, before leaving a long, dry, salted almond finish. A jewel of a wine — especially with baked eggs and Prosciutto. (11% alc., 12 g/L sugar)
Open Smooth Red VQA Ontario
Score 91
(LCBO 492249, $43.95/3L)
If you like your reds jammy-sweet and juicy, this box is for you. Each sip slips in like a fragrant, satiny sweep of ripe summer berries, delivering easy, reliable refreshment. Serve it with everything from sticky ribs or hamburgers to lentil loaf or stuffed mushroom caps. A small glass with a square of dark chocolate makes a satisfying treat, too. Since it’s bag in box, the wine stays fresh for weeks after opening because the serving spout prevents air from being introduced. Versatile, economical and local find. (12.7% alc., 25 g/L sugar)
CAROLYN’S PICK OF THE WEEK: 2025 Boschendal The Pavillion Chenin Blanc, Western Cape, South Africa
Score 95
(LCBO 281311, $12.95)
This crisp, bone dry white from one of South Africa’s oldest wine estates offers more concentration, complexity and length than most wines at its price point. The fragrance is pure and delightful: soft scents of sliced pear, as well as beeswax, hay, lanolin, lemon oil. Lovely. The attack is full but upright, dry but neither shrill or austere, with a seamless texture that nods toward kiwi, citrus, honeycomb before leaving the palate seasoned with sea salt. Stock up. This vintage is fabulous. (13% alc., 2 g/L sugar)
