Recommend a red - up to £40 and easily available in London

[Zippee]

I need to get a decent Red, up to a max of £40 for a present for one of my staff. I'm 10 minutes away from Vimopolis and many other square mile off licenses so can anyone recommend anything special within this distance and budget? Alternatively would 2 bottles of decent £20 red suffice?

[LooneyTunes]

You want them to be drunk straight away or for the recipient to cellar?

[Zippee]

LooneyTunes said:

You want them to be drunk straight away or for the recipient to cellar?

I doubt it will be cellared TBH, something decent that can be drunk from any point would be good.

[LooneyTunes]

Quite a bit of choice at that price level... but the problem is that the stock varies so much to be able to suggest anything too specific.

At the £40 level, would probably look to something like a Chateauneuf, Hermitage, or Cote Rotie - you could look at Bordeaux but you'll probably be into the lesser known wines (not sure if this is important to you). However, if you don't think they'll be cellared, might be better off looking at new world - couple of £20 Aussie shiraz should be pretty reliable but some interesting things coming out of latin america as well.

If you've got time to get over to either Canary Wharf or St James, Waitrose have a decent fine wine room at the former, or Berry Bros & Rudd at the latter. Failing that, is there a Nicolas around your way? They used to have some decent wines in but not been in recently. Staff at Berrys/Nicolas would certainly be able to offer advice on specifics.

[Davey S2]

Go somewhere decent and ask their advice.

[Zippee]

Thankyou for your advice. Theres a Nicolas on both Fleet St and at Smithfields, both of which are pretty close to me. I'll pop in over lunch and have a chat with them.