Nine a bottle

August 30, 2011, 8:13 PM GMT+0

When it comes to wine, British people aged between 18 and 24 and Londoners would expect to pay over £9 for a ‘decent’ bottle of wine, our poll has revealed. Those in the ‘North’ region, however, would say that a ‘decent’ bottle of wine is likely to come with an average price tag of just over £7. British people over 60 years of age would also expect to part with just £7 for what they'd deem to be a 'decent' bottle.

  • Thinking about price in an off-licence, supermarket or wine merchant, rather than in a restaurant or bar, those aged between 18 and 24 would expect a ‘decent’ bottle of wine to cost £9.59 ‒ far above the overall national average of £7.61
  • Those aged over 60 suggested an average price per bottle of £7.02
  • People from London expect to have to spend an average of £8.87 for a ‘decent’ bottle
  • Compared to £7.14 on average for those in the North, who expect the lowest regional average price of wine
  • The highest percentage of people, 22%, think between £6 and £7.99 is the cost of a ‘decent’ bottle of wine
  • While 20% set the cost between £5 and £5.99, and 18% would say between £8 and £9.99
  • Men expect a decent bottle to cost more, with on average of £7.76, compared to women who on average think that such a bottle would cost £7.57

'Greatest wine in history'

While 18 to 24 year olds would expect to pay almost £2 more than the overall average, this amount pales into insignificance compared to Frenchman, wine connoisseur and private collector Christian Vanneque (pictured, left), who paid a record £75,000 for an 1811 Château d’Yquem white wine last month. Praised as one of the greatest wines in history and awarded the ultimate ‘100 points’ by wine critic Robert Parker, it comes in way over budget for every single one of our poll’s respondents, none of whom thought that a decent bottle of wine should cost over £50.

Bullet-proof

The wine will be displayed in a bullet-proof, temperature-controlled showcase for six years at Vanneque's restaurant, the SIP Sunset Grill in Bali, Indonesia.

‘I will open it in six years to mark the 50th anniversary of when I began work in Paris and share it with my wife, brothers and friends ‒ I already know what the menu will be,’ Vanneque said.

At about £100 a millilitre, we hope he doesn’t spill any.