Tasting the CHEAPEST wines in the world

I taste a lot of old, special, rare, and outstanding wine, but that also means that the wine selection on my channel does not represent the wine market as a whole. The vast majority of wines is sold in supermarkets and discounters where those wines need to be one thing, first and foremost, cheap. I believe in order to understand wine, you need to know everything from the top to the bottom. That is why I'm going shopping today to buy some of the cheapest wines in the world to find out whether those cheap treats will wreck my palate or delight me. Let's go shopping. Let's taste. Aldi. Yes, that discount supermarket is actually one of the biggest wine retailers in the world, but let's be honest, the wines on their shelves don't exactly scream Grand Cru. Over the years, their wine selection has improved, and for many people, Aldi is where their wine journey starts, maybe even where they buy their first bottle. Here's the thing wine nerds like myself often forget. Not everyone wants to spend a fortune on wine. Most people have other priorities. They just can't or don't want to spend a lot of money for a bottle of fermented grape juice. In Germany, the average bottle of wine sells for three euros and six cents or $3.50. That's four euros per liter, and Aldi's wines, they hit right around that price point. When you're buying a wine at that price point, you're not just paying for the liquid inside the bottle, you're paying for the glass bottle, the cork, the capsule, the screw cap, the label, shipping, taxes, and of course, Aldi's profit margin. The wine itself, that's just costing pennies. So I just went to an Aldi store and purchased the cheapest wines available, wines that cost between one euro 99 and four euro 99. So I've never been more excited about a tasting in my whole life. Anyways, let's do this. One thing I noticed, and I don't know whether it's just that one shop, was that the selection was actually less interesting than normal. Sometimes they have some premium wines there and more interesting stuff, but this time it was just really the basics. I don't know whether that's a general thing that Aldi has stopped trying to premiumize and is kind of sticking to the core market that they are delivering wine to, but yeah, it just didn't look pretty. Talking about not pretty, I'm starting with this one here. The Stolzenfeld 0% alcohol-free sparkling wine or sparkling wine made from de-alcoholized wine. This is a trend that you can see all over the wine market. People are just drinking less and they are looking for non-alcoholic options. Yeah, that's not a bad thing, I think. As long as the product is good. I'm actually not a big fan of de-alcoholized wine. In most cases, I prefer to drink water or something else rather than drinking non-alcoholic wine. I just, I mean, I like the alcohol in wine. For me, it's a part of the drink, so I enjoy that. And if I don't want to drink alcohol, which happens frequently, I just drink something else. Anyways, this plastic stopper on a sparkling wine bottle suggests that this is going to be quite an experience. So this product cost 2.99 euros, which is obviously pretty cheap. Whoa, quite bubbly. All right, let's clean this up real quick. Let's taste. Okay, the wine is kind of pale. Some bubbles, but they disappear really quickly. Doesn't seem like they are well integrated. My understanding of this type of wine is that the bubbles are just added, so they create a base wine, and then they add some CO2 in order to give it that fizzy feeling. Oftentimes, those bubbles don't integrate really well, and they disappear really quickly. And in this case, I mean, yeah, they're just, there's not a lot going on there anymore after a couple of seconds in the glass. I don't really need to spit, but I want to. So this is actually okay. I mean, it smells a little bit of onion. You also have some apple notes, so it's definitely fruit-driven. There's no yeastiness there or anything like that. A little bit funky, you know, like this slightly garlicky tone. This might have something to do with light strike. I don't actually know whether that occurs as easily or as readily in de-alcoholized wine, but it has some of this garlicky kind of flavor, and the bottle is clear glass, so yeah, it might have something to do with sunlight. But this is obviously not expressive at all on the palate. It's kind of juicy. The acidity is pretty hard, but there's some balance there. I mean, we have 50 grams of residual sugar in this wine, which is a lot, obviously, and this is kind of in the category of sweet wine already. They need to do that with most de-alcoholized wines because without the alcohol, there's something missing on the palate, so you need something that adds kind of texture to the wine. And with sparkling wines or with this type of product, it most of the time works because there's also CO2. The acidity is quite hard, so there is some balance there. But yeah, this is kind of really simple, easygoing. I wouldn't actually, I mean, I would drink a glass if I'd have to, but it's not really something that gives me any joy. So yeah, I think this is a decent product, well-made, technically okay. There are some things that I don't like, but I wouldn't call it really flawed. I'm going to rate this 72 points. I think this is very average. Every time I score this type of wines, people go, why isn't he giving out 10 points for this wine? This sounded like a terrible wine. Check out the description to this video. I'm listing all of the point brackets and some information on the 100-point system in order to make sure that you understand why I'm giving those scores. Okay, I forgot to throw this plastic cork. Let's see. Well, next up, we have one of the great German classics. It's kind of shameful that this product is something that is very much associated with Germany, but this is the Rotkäppchen Halbtrocken Sekt, one of the cheapest sekts in the world. But people drink it quite apparently because it's everywhere, on every shelf, and it's very cheap. Well, actually, this is the most expensive wine in the lineup at €4.99. But in Germany, you have to pay €1.02 per bottle of sparkling wine tax. And yeah, if you remove that from the price, you see that this is pretty cheap for a sparkling wine. But they're actually calling this Sekt Feinster Komposition, a sparkling wine of the finest composition, which is really laughable. I mean, come on, guys. The history of Rotkäppchen goes back to 1856, so there is a lot of tradition there. But yeah, I mean, well, let's taste this first. Another plastic cork. I just, yeah, I just hate plastic corks. So even though this is a German brand, the wine is actually not from Germany. I mean, there might be some German wine in there, but they usually buy in base wines from all over. Many of those base wines come out of Spain because that's just a cheap production country. And then they turn that into a sparkling drink. Look at them bubbles. That's decent mousse going on there. This actually smells a little exotic, so quite interesting. It has kind of this mango, lychee kind of flavor to it, which is odd, I'd say. But yeah, we don't really know what the grape varieties are that were used for this wine. So when people hear sparkling wine, they often think of the traditional method, so a second fermentation in bottle. But the vast majority of sparkling wines is actually not made that way. Many of them are made following the Chamat method, which is a fermentation in a pressure tank where the second fermentation just takes place. It's cheaper, it's easier to handle. But the wines tend to have less of that yeasty flavor. This very much is on the fruit. It just has this kind of exotic fruit flavor, which is not bad, but also not really something that I find interesting. It's a little bit like when someone wears a perfume that smells of cotton candy. It's just, I just hate that. So on the palate, this is really sweet, sour, artificial. The CO2 is there, but it's just kind of, yeah, it doesn't do a lot of good. I think this is, this tastes, this smells and tastes like candy. It's just really, really terrible. So if I ever had to make the decision to drink this or drink water, I'd definitely go for water. I love water. This is terrible. I'm going to rate it 65 points. The thing is, this is actually not flawed, technically well-made, but it just tastes really, really bad. And it has nothing to do with wine, in my opinion. I mean, actually the de-alcoholized sparkling wine drink, that was more like wine than this. We have one more bubbly delight, and it's an Italia secco vino frizzante, dry. So there's no indication of origin apart from Italy. Let's see. At least there's no plastic cork. So this actually costs €1.99, so I'm expecting great things. It's actually quite bubbly, considering that it's just a frizzante. In many countries, there's a distinction between frizzante and spumante wines, or fizzy and sparkling wines. Frizzante wines have a lower level of pressure in the bottle, and they can be filled in bottles like that. They don't have to be sealed with a cork like this, or a mushroom-shaped cork, cork. So let's dive in. The wine smells of ripe apple, a little bit peachy, and a little bit like banana as well. It has those really pronounced fruity notes, these estuary notes that usually come from cool fermentations, and it's quite simplistic. But what do you expect at that price point, really? On the palate, it's light, crisp. The finish is just kind of, the wine disappears, like poof. It's gone. There's no finish, really. But it doesn't hurt me, at least. I mean, there's nothing really wrong with it, but it's just very bland. So I'm going to rate this 69 points. It's okay. So we are moving on to still wines, and Ali is definitely picking up on the alcohol-free movement. This is an alcohol-free Riesling 2024. That's kind of all there is. I mean, it just says alcohol-free in capital letters on the label. So let's taste this. Another screw cap. Good choice. I think for a wine like this, you definitely don't need a cork. It's absolutely okay to put that on a screw cap. So this de-alcoholized wine is pale yellow in color. Oh, no. It's kind of interesting that right now the de-alcoholized wine is in the lead. The best wine in the tasting was a de-alcoholized sparkling wine. But yeah, I don't know about this one. I don't think this smells of Riesling. It smells of old apple, bruised apple, a little bit rotten even. So I don't think this is really clean. On the palate, it's juicy. There's, again, quite a lot of sugar. The acidity is fairly well managed, but it just lacks anything appealing. Yeah, I'm going to rate this 68 points. I think it just isn't clean. So yeah, don't like this. Moving on to the first real still wine, which is, again, a Riesling. The 2024 Riesling from Raimund Prüm from the Mosel. So it actually has a designation of origin smaller than just the country. It's from the Mosel region. And Prüm is actually a really well-known name in the Mosel, producing some fairly high-end wines. This, however, isn't high-end. The wine currently sells at €3.59. It's discounted. So if your product is being discounted at a discounter, I mean, that would be a problem for me at least. This is a line developed by S.R. Prüm, a pretty highly regarded producer from the Mosel. This is not J.J. Prüm, but also a really highly esteemed producer. And I just don't... I mean, obviously you make money selling lots of wine in Aldi shops, but I don't necessarily think that it's a good brand-building exercise. But that's just my opinion. If it works for them, I mean, they've been working with Aldi for a long time, so maybe it's a good partnership. I don't know. So let's see whether it's a good wine, which is even more important for me. The wine is actually at 11% alcohol, which would suggest to me that it has some residual sugar, but it is marked as dry. So maybe it's just a very low-alcohol, dry wine. Let's explore. So it's definitely quite pale, which is fairly normal for Mosel Riesling. On the nose, I'm getting some ripe apple, some peach aroma as well. It's actually pretty clean, a little muted. So there's not a lot of flavor there. On the palate, this is definitely dry, quite dry. I don't mind dry wine, obviously, but it has some astringency. It's a little green, a little harsh. I think it is missing something. This might actually be better as an off-dry kind of wine because the sweetness would buffer some of that acidity, that harshness. And without the sugar, it just tastes a little rough. It's a little grassy, strawy as well, a little vegetal. It feels a little unripe, but it's still the best wine I've tasted so far. So I'm going to rate this 77 points. So next up, we have the 2024 Mädchentraube Szekely Lieblich Off-Dry. Sounds delicious. So this is actually from Hungary, and I've been tasting quite a lot of Hungarian wines recently, and there are some extraordinary wines there. I don't think this is at the extraordinary level. I think Mädchentraube is also called Feteasca Regala, and it's a grape variety that is pretty widespread in Central and Eastern Europe. And oftentimes, it's used for the production of pretty cheap and cheerful wines. This one cost €1.99. I mean, just think of that. Deduct the 19% VAT in Germany, the cost for that glass bottle, the capsule or the screw cap, the labels. What is left? What is left for the wine? Just pretty much nothing. The wine is pale yellow. A wine like that is probably just going to be fermented in stainless steel, so there's no time for aging it or putting it into a barrel. There's no budget for that, that's for sure. Stainless steel tanks are the cheapest and easiest vessels for fermenting wine. And then it's just, yeah, bottled right away, shipped to the market, and that's it. It's actually, it has a fairly nice nose. It has kind of pineapple flavors, a little bit ripe pear notes. Really fruit-driven, really simple, but good. On the pad, it's sweet. I mean, it's off-dry, Lieblich, but it has quite a lot of sugar and there's not a lot of acidity, so it's kind of cloying. It's not a long finish. It just, yeah, it's an easygoing wine. It just goes down quite quickly, but definitely not something where you get anything more than just juicy wine. But that said, I mean, it's okay. I'm going to rate this 72 points. We're moving into red wine territory with the 2024 BioQV Rote Red from the Pfalz in Germany. The Pfalz is the second biggest wine production region in Germany, and there's some outstanding wines coming out of the Pfalz. Is this going to be one? I don't think so. It was retailing for 2.59 euros. There's no mentioning of grapes. It's just saying, it says QV, so it's a mix of different grapes. It's dry, and it goes well with finger food and salad. What is obviously noteworthy is that it's bio-organic, so organic wine production normally is more expensive, more labor-intensive, so it is quite a feat to sell a wine that is organic at that price point, but it also doesn't do the brand organic any good if wines at that price point are being sold as organic, because it just doesn't, it dilutes the importance, the work that people put into producing really good organic wines, I think. This is very pale. I mean, this is kind of like a dark rosé color. It's definitely see-through, so you can see your fingers. It also says that it's vegan on the back label, which basically just means that no animal products were used in the finding of the wine. That's where animal products like milk protein or fish protein are being used in order to get all of the small little substances, the floating particles out of the wine, but it's not more expensive. It's not more labor-intensive to find without any animal products, but yeah, people still put it on the back label, and some people seem to care when purchasing wine. It is very light in flavor. It smells of cherries and strawberries, but there's not a lot of flavor coming through. I mean, you can see the color. I think this is probably harvested at very high yields, so a lot of grapes on each wine. The more grapes you have, the more diluted the flavors get, the less concentration you have, and this looks like a pretty diluted wine. Wow. This is terrible on the palate. Coming after the sweet wine, it is obviously a little bit challenging, but there's very little tannin, but the tannins that I get are quite green and harsh. It's really diluted, but the acidity is also really green, so it just, yeah, no. So I'm going to rate this 69 points. I think you shouldn't drink that. Don't. I just realized that this is the first bottle where I need to get my corkscrew out. The other ones were all plastic corks or screw caps, but this is from Spain, so obviously there's a cork inside the bottle. This is the 2022 Alcantar Monastrell Cabernet Sauvignon and Tampanillo from Alicante in Spain, and it actually won a gold medal, and the cork is also made from plastic. It got grand gold at the Frankfurt International Trophy. I don't really know much about that wine challenge, but yeah, this still doesn't inspire confidence. So at 3.49 Euro, it's actually a little above the average price of a bottle of wine. In Germany, it definitely does have some color and some flavor, too. It smells of blackberries, pepper, a little rough and harsh, but there's also a little bit of vinegary kind of flavor coming through, but it's definitely better than the previous red. On the palate, this also shows a little bit more concentration, juiciness, grippy tannins. Yeah, this is kind of easygoing. The finish is quite short. It just doesn't quite have... Yeah, it doesn't have much, but it's better than the previous wines. In order to be the most handsome person at the party, you can either work out, eat the right stuff, and be well-groomed, or you can just go to a party with lots of ugly people. And that's kind of what this guy did. Yeah, but still, I mean, I'm going to rate this 75 points. It's all right. Last but not least, we have another German speciality, a Dornfelder Lieblich from the Pfalz again. So Dornfelder is a great variety. That is quite popular in Germany. Lieblich, again, off-dry wine. So this style of wine is actually consumed in extraordinary amounts. I never drink anything like that ever, but yeah, many people do like this. So Dornfelder is one of those grape varieties that produces a lot of yields, but if you manage it well, you can actually produce some decent wines with it. But in most cases, it's just cropped very, very high, and then you produce a very simple red wine. So the color here is actually fairly dark. That's something Dornfelder does. It has quite a lot of color. The flavor profile is so Dornfelder. Mm, it smells of plums, cherries, and it's very fruit-driven, quite simplistic. It also has a little bit of cooked aroma there, and yeah, it just doesn't smell good. On the palate, it has some sugar. It's not super sweet. It's actually not cloying. There's some fresh acidity there. The tannins are well-rounded, so it's kind of juicy on the palate. But yeah, I don't really understand off-dry reds. I mean, I love port wine, but I don't really understand this category. But yeah, at two euros 49, this is an okay wine, I guess. I just realized something. So this wine, the bottle, the liquid inside and all that, actually cost 10 times what I paid for the paper bag that I purchased in order to carry those wines home. So the paper bag, which is just a paper bag, costs a 10th of the price of this product that is sold in a glass bottle with a screw cap label and all that. That's just crazy. I'm going to rate this 74 points. I think it's all right. I don't want to drink this, but it's okay. All right, this was an amazing tasting. No, it wasn't. I can't do this. It was just not amazing. It was terrible. There's not one wine here that I would drink, not one. All of them are kind of terrible. And we're hearing quite a lot of news about people drinking less. And I think if people drink less of this, I'm totally fine with that. I wouldn't mind those wines disappearing from the shelves because they're just not interesting at all. That said, even at this price point, you can find wines that are not flawed, wines that have a little bit of identity, that showcase a grape variety or even a region, which is kind of nice. But yeah, I just, I'm going to drink water tonight. So thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video more than I enjoyed tasting those wines. If you did, then please like it down here, subscribe to my channel if you haven't done so already. My question of the day is, what do you think about Aldi's wines? Have you ever tasted any of those super cheap wines? Let me know down in the comments. But whatever you do, stay thirsty. And sometimes you just got to drink sparkling water.