This is my top ten: the wines I would buy if going out to stock up an empty kitchen today. The best value wine is found in the £6-10 price bracket but I know how valuable that drinkable bottle of wine for under a fiver can be to a housekeeping budget so I have created a special list of sub-£5 wines which you will find under the 'themed top 10s' link. Both lists are updated whenever I find a wine good enough to knock another bottle off the list, when a particularly keen special offer comes up and as the seasons change what you want to put in your glass. I make no apologies for bottles so delicious and such good value that they hold their place on this top ten for several weeks, or longer. These are gold-dust wines. Last updated: 17 January

Click here for themed top 10s

01

Dona Dominga Cabernet Sauvignon-Carmenere 2008 Chile

Dona Dominga Old Vines Cabernet Sauvignon-Carmenere 2008. What a gorgeous wine. These two grapes blend very well together. The carmenere (30%) roughs-up the too-neat edges and too-blocky flavours of the cabernet (70%), and adds a tea-like scent. The wine's not quite unoaked - 15% of it has four months in French oak barrels, which rounds off the corners but leaves it fresh and relatively light. I opened this along with half a dozen wines and it was one of two (see below for the other) I went back to not just that evening but also for a sip glass with a mouhtful of not-quite-finished ragu the next day. In a nutshell: Great value, handy, easy to drink, refreshing red from Chile. 13.5% £5.99 Oddbins PS And here are two recommendations for the price of one, because the wine hiding behind is from the same producer and good too. Casa Silva Reserva Carmenere 2007 Chile is more concentrated and intense and sees some oak. It smells of blueberries and unsmoked tobacco, and dried tea. Delicious. It costs around £8.95, has an abv of 13.5% and you can find it at the following places: Bayley & Sage, Fine Wines Direct, D. Byrne & Co, Frank Stainton WInes, Michael Jobling Wines, Arthur Rackham, Peckhams & Rye, Andrew Darwin.

02

The Society's Rioja Crianza 2006 Spain

Made for the WIne Society by Bodegas Palacio, this combines the best of the old-fashioned rioja style - gentle ageing in American oak - with a modern freshness. It's savoury and bright, with hints of the classic tobacco and leather combining to give easy drinkability. I took this bottle home from a tasting at the Wine Society, drank it with pork chops marinaded in smoked paprika with chick peas cooked in a hot spinach, tomato, chilli and paprika salsa and decided it was the sort of red you'd like to have half a dozen bottles of underneath the stairs. Rioja isn't somewhere I'd usually look for good value. Here's an exception. 13% £7.50 The Wine Society

03

Fontaine du Roy 2008 Costieres de Nimes, France

Another day, another Costieres de Nimes? No, this one stands out. £6 is a threshold price for wine. Below this, anything you'd want to drink tends to be 'good for the price.' In other words, you can see where the sacrifices have been made. What you all too often get at £6, even in the decent wines is something that's been made like a cheaper wine, but without the penny-pinching. That doesn't work, you just end up with a series of ticked boxes - 'Not too tannic, smooth, perhaps a touch of oak influence.' Equally common are those £6 wines that try to make up for their simplicity by simpering at you - 'Look, didn't think I could taste so fruity for so little money, did you?' My ideal £6 bottle does neither of those things. I want character and fearlessness, a real wine that knows what it's about and doesn't care who likes it. That's exactly what this is. Technical details so you know what you're drinking: 40% syrah, 25% carignan, 20% grenache, 10% marselan (this was new to me - it's a cabernet sauvignon-grenache cross born in 1961) and 5% mourvedre from the south of France. There's a breath of oak on it - just 15% of the blend goes into big, three-year old barrels. In short: A great value everyday red with some spice, a touch of licorice root on the finish and a lick of hot-breathed grenache. 14% £5.99 Waitrose, 141 branches

04

Les Quatre Clochers Chardonnay Reserve 2007 Limoux, France

This may not only be the best value wine in Tesco it may be the best value wine I know. A measured chardonnay with subtle oak, it manages to glow, while also remaining calm. Its gentle scent of mushrooms and mealyness echoes the style of burgundy but it's actually made by a co-op in Limoux. It was perfect with the dish you can see in the picture - chicken casseroled in a creamy sauce with mushrooms, oregano and a little thyme. 13.5% £7.49 Tesco

05

Barbera d'Alba Poderi Colla 2007 Italy

Here's another I tried at the Wine Society and asked to take home for a longer look. I sometimes think that it's harder to spot good reds than it is to find good whites in a long tasting line-up because the ones that leap out tend not just to be good quality but also a little, how shall I put it - forward. This wasn't obvious in that sense, but it did have the great structure, and neat, controlled shape in the mouth, that I'd expect of a more expensive barbera. Definitely an operator. At home it looked just as good - firm but scented, and redolent of sour cherries. It would be lovely with pasta, or lamb cooked with parmesan, or cold, second-day, roasts eaten with salads and new potatoes. A great wine at a great price. 14% £7.95 The Wine Society

06

Flagstone Noon Gun Dry White 2009 South Africa

A glossy white blend of chenin blanc (45%), viognier (35%) and sauvignon blanc (20%) that has much refreshing zing and is far more than the sum of its parts. Made by feted winemaker Bruce Jack, it's named after the cannon that was fired in Cape Town at midday so that captains on nearby ships could keep good time. Good to drink on its own as a 'first glass of the evening' and also works well with food. 14% £6.99 Tesco

07

Cruz de Piedra Garnacha 2008 Calatayud, Spain

Italian reds often have a slight astringency and prickle; Spanish reds tend to be more sweetly ripe and velvet-textured. This one, made from old-vine garnacha grown in the mountains to the south of Rioja, is sumptuous, plump and fat - juicy without being jammy. The richness is very impressive for the price. If you're thinking about tweaking the food to match, then for sausage and mash, say, rather than going for angry pepper and savoury herbs, you'd want to be caramelising the onions for the gravy to bring out their sweetness, or making a rich, porty sauce to go with them, or adding a spoonful of redcurrant jelly to gravy or the side of the plate...but this wine doesn't need to be balanced out with food. It would make a very good glass whenever you opened it. 14% £5.99 Adnams, £5.25 Wine Society

08

Domaine Ventenac Chenin/Colombard 2008 France

I really love chenin blanc for everyday whites. This is because simple chenin has eyebrow-twitching acidity and citric zest, and often also a bit of glossy bounce. This one is very juicy, and so peachy it reminded me of slicing pieces of fresh white peach, and pulling the flesh off the stone. It's also just off-dry (6.3g/l of residual sugar for those who like their figures) which adds to the lusciousness. And don't scream at the idea of off-dry - wines like [yellow tail] cabernet sauvignon have TWICE that amount of rs, and that's in a red. In short: A vivid, peachy white Vin de Pays des Cotes de Lastours that's easy to drink and makes you smile. 12% £6.99 Waitrose

09

D'Angelo Sacravite Aglianico 2007 Italy

Ah, this southern Italian red reeks of feral aglianico. Reminiscent of saddle leather and ripe fruit, with a tinge of sourness on the finish. Lovely. 13% £7.99 down from £9.99 when you buy two Majestic

10

Vina Leyda Costero Riesling 2009 Chile

From one of Chile's cooler-climate vine-growing areas, a remarkably bright, tangy, fresh riesling. Delicious. 13.5% £6.95 down from £8.69 when you buy two Chilean wines Majestic