Top picks from Morrisons: A guide to its best wines

While Bodega Eguía makes Morrisons’ good-value Marqués de los Ríos Rioja and Reserva Rioja, the retailer hands the responsibility for its Gran Reserva to the meticulous Hacienda López de Haro, and the bodega doesn’t disappoint, making a gloriously polished and modern style with plenty of ripe, still-lively dark fruit, buffed and sheened with French and American oak, and just starting to take on a savoury tone.

Rich, pronounced aromas of red and dark berries alongside cocoa. Velvety and plush in texture, the wine boasts notes of cedary oak, dark cherry, prunes, and dried cranberry well-balanced by bright acidity. Two years of oak ageing impart toasty depth, leading to a woody finish. The 2020 vintage was produced by the Cadis 1898 group.

Morrisons has a very drinkable The Best Douro Red on its books for £9.50 (88 points), but this Douro Superior justifies the extra £2 on the price tag with its effortless, silky glide and immaculate ripe fruits-of-the-forest concentration.

A new-wave Rioja that gives the full spotlight to perennial supporting-cast player Graciano, it shines with deliciously ripe, fragrant, vividly coloured, darkly juicy blackberry and mulberry fruit, the tannins supple and softened by well-managed oak, and the finish fresh.

Great to see Morrisons giving its customers the chance to get to know the joys of Georgia’s very own Saperavi. This is a lively, varietally pure example that offers all the inky colour of this red-fleshed (teinturier) variety, with just enough edge to the clean-cut, deep, dark blackberry fruit in its fresh acidity and tannic bite.

Made for Morrisons from fruit sourced in the original Chilean cool-climate region of Casablanca by Viña Ventisquero, this is one of the best-value Pinots on the high street, with a convincingly raspberry-juicy, fruit-driven palate, a hint of earthy beetroot and citrussy bergamot, and fine, feathery tannins.

A no-holds-barred hit of rich and spicy, southern sun-fuelled Grenache leads the way, with a wiry brush of gnarly Syrah in this intensely powerful Southern Rhône blend. There’s a robust and warming wildness here, with chewy tannin and boozy alcohol to spare, and just enough herb-and-spice freshness to keep it upright.

Classically fresh and fragrant, light and gently crunchy, this 100% unoaked Cabernet Franc is a chillable pleasure, with its graphite-shaded blackcurrant and raspberry fruit and a refreshing hint of green leafiness. Simple but fun, it makes direct company for tuna steaks.

Opening with a nose of sweet baking spices – vanilla, cinnamon, a hint of ginger – and bright, ripe red plum with darker blackberry and peppery tones, this is a really attractive, brambly blend led by southern Portuguese varieties Castelão and Syrah.

The most expensive of Morrisons’ latest tranche of Block Series wines, the Napa Cab from Delicato is nonetheless pretty good value in the context of this often-pricey genre of red wine, and it certainly delivers on the sweetly ripe dark fruit (Ribena-esque blackcurrant and black cherry jam), with a careful dose of mocha oak and polished tannins.

Unoaked and youthfully vibrant claret from the generous 2023 vintage, the near-50/50 Cabernet/Merlot blend produces a wine of clean lines and appetising Atlantic freshness, with a sappy quality to the tannins and delightful clarity to the succulent blackcurrant, red plum and subtle mint leafiness.

Toro’s take on Tempranillo (aka Tinta de Toro) has a not-unjustified reputation for going heavy on concentration and oak, but this is a relatively restrained example that is not shy with its ripe mulberry fruit, presenting it in a highly drinkable, clean-cut style with just a kiss of oak.

As so often in contemporary supermarket wine ranges, it’s the stocks of old Garnacha vines in north-eastern Spain that provide the fruit for one of the best-value reds on the list, with Navarra’s Bodegas Aroa producing a wine in which de-luxe cherry juiciness meets plum-skin and blood-orange tang.

There’s a softening 14% of Grenache here, which gives a little jammy generosity, perhaps, to the keen, dark and wiry intensity of the old-vine Carignan in a red that is winter-ready and warming, with liquorice-edged blackberry, elderberry, and pleasingly grippy, ripe tannins.