Anything less than a fiver and the liquid is basically vinegar.

But this isn’t always the case – as this £4.37 bottle of Malbec proves.

Sold by Asda, La Moneda Reserva Malbec beat 16,000 rivals in a blind taste test last year to win the prestigious Decanter World Wine Awards competition.

Decanter gave it 95 points (out of 100 – a huge feat, especially for a cheap wine) when it won the best ‘single-variety red costing under £15’ category.

And such was the demand for the wallet-friendly wine, that Walmart had to start selling it over in the states for $6.96.

So, how did one of the world’s best-rated wines end up on the shelves of Asda and Walmart – rather than somewhere like Harrods?

Well, the answer lies in its not-so-romantic production.

According to The Washington Post, the Malbec is produced by Chile’s largest wine exporter Ranco Wines, which ships more than 80 million litres of wine a year to over 25 countries. That works out at about 107 million bottles.

Far from being a product of rustic barrels, it’s mass produced in large stainless steel ‘tank farms’ which can hold umpteen gallons – and that scale means that it’s cheap to produce in bulk.

And in the case of La Moneda, it’s shipped to the UK where it’s then bottled. The fact it’s packaged in Britain dramatically reduces the overall cost.

Read more at source: METRO