So how good is this wine?

Today wine is big business. Our appetite for wine seemingly insatiable

A little more goes a long way. You get what you pay for, or sometimes less.

Today wine is big business. Our appetite for wine seemingly insatiable. And so too is the competition to win your wine pounds. Three for £10 or £4.99 is common.

So how good is this wine?

Here's a little food for thought. Every bottle of wine that is imported into the country has a number of costs associated with it.

So let's go buy a £4.99 bottle of plonk. How much wine am I actually getting?

• Duty (charges by HMRC on each bottle of wine under 15% alcohol) £1.96. This charge applies no matter how much the value of the bottle. 
• VAT on our bottle £0.98.
• Winery labour and shipping costs £0.60. 
• Margin for the seller £1.30. 
• Wine quality £0.15!

Pretty scary. Very inexpensive wine has been found to have more sulphites which can cause headaches and even migranes.

Here's the good news though. Spend £6.99 and you get £1.27 worth of actual wine. That's over eight times the value of wine you are getting for just £2 more! Treat yourself to a £9.99 bottle and almost one third of the cost is for the wine itself.

Does this mean any wine is better if I pay more?

Unfortunately not. It's a good place to start though. There are some terrific wines that are still underpriced because they are not as popular as others and you can grab yourself a real bargain if you know what you are looking for.

So that's next week' s column sorted then.

Food & Wine by Paul Sheerin
Pshearse@gmail.com