The 5 best wines in Waitrose you should try in 2025

I think I tasted more wines in 2024 than I have ever managed in previous years. Through a mixture of study and social occasions the tally would be in the hundreds. Quite a few of those wines I tried were sold by Waitrose.

Since I moved away from Novel Wines last year, I’ve been varying where I source wines from more widely. Supermarkets are convenient, which means popping along to pick out a bottle of two for my wine club or an evening meal has been easy to do. I still prefer an independent, where you can taste something really interesting or share in the story of the bottle that just seems to make it all taste that much better.

Given the choice of buying wines in Waitrose, M&S, Aldi, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Tesco, Asda, and so on, my two top picks would be Waitrose and Aldi, which might surprise some of you. Lidl has some outrageously good value wines, especially if they’re one-offs and from far flown places, but Aldi seems to do a better job of the weird and wonderful. One of my finest reds of the year came from Tesco and was only a tenner. But Waitrose wines, above all of them, are consistently good. It’s that consistency that leads me to go back there time and again.

These are the 5 best wines I tried in Waitrose in 2024, which you should taste in 2025.

The best white and red wines in Waitrose you should buy now

I have never been a huge fan of scoring wines, especially out of 100. What makes a wine ’89’ rather than ’87’? What does that really mean? And I decided a long time ago not to rain on anyone’s parade and write hash about wines I don’t like. Often someone has spent an entire year trying to make a wine you’ll enjoy. I don’t need to slag it off, especially when one’s taste is largely subjective.

So I settled on my ‘3 star’ system. A simple ‘Good’, ‘Great’ and ‘Outstanding’ that, if you find your tastes aligning with mine, will be a helpful guide. I award a lot of 1 and 2 stars. Winemaking gets better every year and vineyards are attended to today with so much knowledge and passion that the quality of fruit seems to subvert even the worst years’ weather. What I rarely award is 3 stars. They are the wines when I’ve felt a plume of excitement spill over inside, when I want to immediately grab the person next to me and encourage them to share a glass with me.

The only wine I gave a 3 to from Waitrose in 2024 was a Pinot Noir, and it wasn’t a Burgundy.

Louis Guntrum has two German Pinot Noirs listed in Waitrose, and the Reserve style was my winner. Aged in French barriques for at least a year, harvested from the hot and bountiful 2018 vintage, and coming in at a whopping 14.5% abv, it had the depth and character of a guest you’d love at your dinner party. It isn’t cheap (it’s £41.99) but it was so good that the price didn’t matter after that first mouthful.

2018 Pinot Noir Reserve, Louis Guntrum ★★★ Outstanding Wine “I have high expectations for German Pinot Noir – blame Iris Ellmann at The Wine Barn, probably the finest German specialist wine merchant you could ask for. Louis Guntrum’s Reserve, which I bought from Waitrose, didn’t disappoint. This viscous, satisfyingly rich Pinot Noir leads with aromas of cherry stones, almost almond, and plush berry fruit. It is intense and spicy, but lifted with a kick of acidity and a lightly smoky, clove-like character from wood ageing.“ Read the full review here.

White wine wise, there wasn’t a bottle quite to the heights of Guntrum’s Reserve in my Waitrose round-up. Nevertheless, I tasted quite a few white wines from my favourite of their Sauvignon Blancs, Jackson Estate Stich (£14.99), their very good Zenato Villa Flora Lugana (£13.99) to the excellent value Waitrose Blueprint Gruner Veltliner (£8.99).

However, the wine that pipped it to the post for me was a Chenin Blanc from Domaine Careme. Chenin Blanc has that wonderful appeal of balancing acidity with ripeness, even over-ripeness, of fruit. It still sits behind the wine, searing, and gives it plenty of appeal with food. Chenin’s apple and pear-like sweetness is an obvious delight with pork, but it also makes for a wonderful partner with spicy food. I eat a great deal of spicy food – ginger and chilli often featuring in my favourites – so I was pleased to find a wine to enjoy with it that wasn’t sweet with sugar.

2021 Vouvray Spring Sec, Domaine Careme ★★ Great Wine “Instantly interesting. The wine’s aromas start with pithy lemon and light passion fruit aromas. It’s juicy and waxy with apple, nettle and lychee notes. Almost tropical but pulled back by a fresh, herbaceous bite. It’s long and appealing in the mouth with the fruit bright from a cool ferment.“ Read the full tasting note here.

There’s some exceptional value to be had with Waitrose’s wines

While you might expect Waitrose’s wine selection to be more expensive than its discounter rivals, there’s still bargains to be had. I tasted two wines in particular last year that you’d struggle to beat in a quality to value taste test.

The first was rosé. No longer a drink resigned to sunny days, rosé is every bit as tasty as a white or red wine. Winemakers have been taking it seriously in the face of massive commercial success stories like Chateau d’Esclans’ Whispering Angel brand and the anglo-French Mirabeau. While Provence still produces some of the world’s finest rosés, you can find much better value elsewhere if you know what you’re looking for.

My rosé wine win was found with the grape variety Susumaniello, which originates from Salento in southern Italy. It’s typically used to create red wines, like with Pinot Noir, Grenache and Cinsault, but it makes a wonderful rosé. Waitrose’s Loved and Found range has one for £7.99 – in my opinion that’s a steal.

2023 Loved & Found Susumaniello Rosato Organic Puglia Rosé, Waitrose ★★ Great Wine “Every good rosé should start off proceedings with the pleasant aroma of summer berries, mandarin orange and blossom that Waitrose’s Loved and Found Susumaniello delivers. If you can manage that word salad of a grape variety, it’ll become your new favourite for pink wines. This is so much more interesting than most of the Provence wines I’ve tasted all year. Juicy, textured and tangy with a bittersweet pink grapefruit note on the finish. Don’t even get me started on how much of a steal it is for the price!“ Read the full tasting note here.

My other bargain of the year from Waitrose was unexpected. I have had some excellent Bordeaux blends (by which I generalise and mean a red wine made from Merlot and/or Cabernet Sauvignon). But while some have been world-class, most have been dull. I rarely get excited about trying one, unless it has a story to tell or I’m sharing it with friends, especially those into their wines.

So when I tasted this next wine, blind, it was a sweet surprise to find it was a Bordeaux blend, albeit from South Africa. The producer, Reyneke, is organic certified and produces wines with a ‘hands off’ philosophy. The selection of fruit speaks for itself, as this fruity wine is very easy to love.

2021 Organic Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot, Reyneke ★★ Great Wine “Deeply coloured with a ruby lip, this red wine has beautifully balanced aromas of blackcurrant, mint, blackberry, tinderbox and cedar with a lick of sweet vanilla and pomegranate seeds. What a wonderful medley of fruit on the nose. It’s full and yet surprisingly sprightly at first, before folding into a deep, pepperminty whirl of dark fruits, liquorice and spice. It’s very soft and a winner to drink. I was gobsmacked at the price (£10.99).“ Read the full tasting note here.

Waitrose’s stand-out fizz

The sparkling wine selection at Waitrose is rather good.

The classics are there, as you might expect – Bollinger, Moet, Roederer (my favourite of the house champagnes), and so on – but there’s also lots to explore from outside Champagne, from England’s crisp and zingy Chapel Down and South Africa’s toasty Graham Beck to the nutty depths of Australia’s Jansz and the sweet glee of Martini Asti.

But for me the Waitrose wine of the year and the one you should try in 2025 is from Gusbourne. Kent’s premier producer, Gusbourne, has seized a reputation for quality that has almost made it synonymous with Nyetimber as England’s best known fizz. For Waitrose, Gusbourne release a special label and this one is from the challenging year 2019, which followed 2018’s bumper harvest. While conditions in 2019 didn’t produce the same exceptional English still wines, it did have all the ingredients for a very fine sparkling wine year.

Normally £41.99, this was on offer for £28.99 – an attractive price for a vintage sparkling wine, and if it’s on offer again any time soon you should definitely plumb for a bottle.

2019 Exclusive Release Brut, Gusbourne ★★ Great Wine “Lemon cake and oats are the primary aromas of this immediately-recognisable English sparkling wine. Chardonnay dominant character (green apples, lemons) is balanced with a dosage of sugar that softens it out in a satisfyingly Brut style. This is a consistently good English sparkling, which – while it’s on offer – can be great value for money.” Read the full tasting note here.

While that’s my pick of the bunch from Waitrose wines in 2024, there’s been a whole host of good wines I’ve tried from this supermarket in the years past. Having worked on the wine department a decade ago, firm favourites have stayed, even while styles have changed, but there’s also been a consistent introduction of new and exciting labels to try. Perhaps most exciting of all is their spin-off website, Waitrose Cellar. It reminds me of The Wine Society, with a plethora of choice but a consistency for reliability that is often overlooked by other supermarkets. Waitrose Cellar is well worth a browse!