These five excellent wines at the LCBO all taste much more expensive than they are

You don’t have to understand the technicalities though. Quality is something you can taste, smell, feel. You know it the moment is slips across your palate. Just like you don’t need to know how Jennifer Aniston gets such great hair — but you can appreciate it.

Great wine, of course, usually comes with a hefty price tag. But not always. Here are five excellent bottles at the LCBO that are priced lower than they should be. Just don’t tell the LCBO.

The NV 13th Street Winery Blanc de Blanc VQA Niagara Peninsula Ontario (LCBO 28420, $29.95) is a shockingly good wine for less than $30. It’s a “brut nature” style, which is to say it clocks a mere 3g/L of sugar — so it’s bone dry but still well-balanced, so doesn’t taste too tart. Each sip opens with delicate citrus and limestone aromas laced with a touch of almond. The attack is crystalline, tinglingly crisp and immediately refreshing with glossy, sunlit flavours of lemon, salt, slate and a light biscuity note. Tiny bubbles lead to creamy fizz and the long, saline, citrus and stone finish lasts. Certainly comparable blanc de blancs that cost much more. Score: 93

This bubbly pairs beautifully with puff pastry cheese straws.

For an undervalued sparkling pink wine, reach for the NV Montguéret Crémant de Loire Brut Rosé from France (LCBO 16439, $22.95). It’s relatively dry with just 8g/L of sugar and still tastes beautifully balanced thanks to ample fruit. The upper threshold for sparkling wine labelled “brut” is 12g/L with most clocking closer to that number. 

This crémant dances with sheer, wispy aromas of raspberry and rose petals, grapefruit and seashell before beaming in and flooding the senses with luminosity. The flavours echo the aromas while layering in a touch of oven-fresh bread before tapering to a textured and persistent finish. Score: 93

Take the Montguéret Crémant de Loire Brut Rosé up a notch by serving it with smoked salmon blinis.

For proof Pinot Grigio can be serious wine, pick up the 2023 Attems Pinot Grigio Friuli DOC from Italy (Vintages 707, $19.95). Tightly spooled with a lovely chalky underpinning, each swirl of the glass emits an intricate tapestry of aromas. Lanolin and lemon, beeswax and white flower, white cherry and yellow plum — it’s all there with chiselled definition on the nose. Then, it slips in seamlessly with considerable concentration and clearly articulated complexity. Long, too. Classic, elevated Pinot Grigio. Score: 94

Pinot Noir can cost a pretty penny. After all, it’s a notoriously finicky grape variety and expensive to produce well. But the 2022 Leyda Reserva Pinot Noir D. O. Leyda Valley from Chile (LCBO 36816, $16) is just outstanding and delivers shockingly good value for money.

The colour is deep for a Pinot Noir but not opaque, and the wine releases the heady fragrance of earth and black fruit as well as eloquent allusions of iodine, smoked violet and graphite. The entry is smooth and mouth-filling with ample mid-palate stuffing, so it tastes round and ripe, yet only has 3g/L of sugar. The lamplit fruit is threaded with floral, spicy, earthy notes with a quietly oceanic note, too. Lingers for ages on the finish. Score: 94

A versatile food wine that can be poured with meat, mushroom dishes or just cheese and charcuterie for easy entertaining.

Orange wine, which is a white wine fermented with the skins to impart colour and texture, can be quite intriguing when done well. So here’s news: An exciting expression just hit shelves at the LCBO that’s worth your attention.

The 2022 Gérard Bertrand Orange Gold from the south of France (Vintages 23729, $24.95) gleams a gorgeous, golden hue with floaty scents of spiced peach and yellow plum, honey and white grapefruit. You’ll find considerable texture and viscosity on the palate with each sip cascading with all the elements found on the nose along with white pepper, briny olive pit and orange pith. The bone dry, gently grippy-bitter twist makes this both a gastronomic and cerebral wine. Score: 91

Pour Orange Gold with salted Marcona almonds for an amazing match.

One of these wines may become your new house wine or at least a bottle to slip into your regular rotation.