1 Get into two-stream drinking This doesn’t mean having two glasses on the go at once. Rather, having cheaper bottles for those times when you just want a good, honest glass of wine, and a more interesting set to delve into when you’re paying more attention. 2 Don’t leave the buying to chance Think military levels of organisation, especially for those cheaper bottles. This isn’t just about not wanting to overpay for whatever looks least bad in the shop at the end of your street 10 minutes before you need a glass of wine, it’s also about feeling you’ve earned the better bottles because, by being organised, you’ve essentially made the upgrades free. 3 Who’s best at which price? As a rough and ready rule, at £5-6 look to Aldi and Tesco. Tesco’s Simply range is excellent, plus it is sold at a fair price all year round, eliminating the need to organise your drinking around supermarket promotion schedules; many of the Tesco *finest wines are brilliant value if you do catch them on promo;

and for everyday drinking with no waste Tesco’s innovation of putting wine that actually tastes nice – for example, their *finest picpoul – into bag-in-box is a real boon. Majestic and The Wine Society are masters of the £6-7 bottle. But don’t rule out independents either; it is hard to find better value than Haynes, Hanson & Clark’s Pontemagno Verdicchio dei Castelli Jesi 2013 (£7.25 single bottle price/£6.38 case – a brisk, refreshing white with a fragrance of lemons and a spick and span herbaceous edge); or Fabrice Durou Exception Malbec 2013 (Lea & Sandeman, £6.95 bottle/£6.75 case – a French malbec from the region around Cahors, not fat and punchy as you know it from Argentina, but restrained and slightly claretty in shape). 4 Learn from the list A friend, Iain, was recently interrupted showing me some pictures on his phone. The pictures were of bottles of wine he had bought and loved. They made me pretty piqued. “Iain, all these are brilliant; in the top one per cent of everything I taste.

I have to slog through hundreds and thousands of wines in tasting after tasting to find them. How have you got there so fast when you have to pay for every single bottle that passes your lips?” It turns out Iain has a method: restaurant wine lists. If he drinks a good wine in a restaurant he investigates the rest of the list. He also tracks the wine down to the independent merchants who source it, and explores their taste too. di marco internationalThe sommeliers and wine merchants putting in the spittoon hours don’t know it, but they are his tastemakers. glass of wine drivingHe is pretty keen on the River Café wine list, and often buys wine from Swig (if you haven’t tried the L’Appel des Sereines Syrah 2011 I recommended just before Christmas, you’re missing out). red wine good for hair loss

5 Go with Joe Speaking of tastemakers, one of mine is a great friend, Joe Wadsack, the new wine guy on the BBC’s Food and Drink with chef Tom Kerridge. I reckon that if Joe likes a wine there’s a 95 per cent chance I will too, although we disagree vehemently on sauvignon blanc – I love fierce, barbed-wire-like, green-tomato-scented styles; he can’t stand them. If you haven’t caught the first episode of the new series, watch it on iPlayer. best wine store in chicagoMore on Joe in this space next week. wine and food tumblr6 Do things by halves Many of my tactics for drinking better wine for less money revolve around reducing waste so that more can be spent on the liquid that will actually be consumed. best of april wine youtubeThe 750ml bottle is as frustrating for those of us who live alone and frequently breach a bottle at home for the pleasure of a single glass as it is for those Jack Spratt and his wife-like partners who divide over red and white.

If you want to drink well, that ends up being one expensive glass (or two glasses). One solution is the half bottle, good specimens of which are still frustratingly hard to find. Even if you are part of a high-drinking household, I’m pretty sure you’ll find a way to put half bottles of champagne to good use. 7 Invest in a decent wine preservation system Invented by a wine lover who specialises in surgical implants for his day job, the Coravin is the gadget that has made fine wine lovers happy because it allows you to remove a glassful of wine from a bottle without pulling the cork. The Coravin works by sliding a fine needle through the cork, the wine comes out, unreactive argon gas goes in to replace it, and when the needle is removed, the cork closes back around the gap. No wonder cellar enthusiasts are excited. Make sure you buy enough argon refill capsules, though (£15.95 for a two-pack). Available from Harrods at £269. An alternative is the Eurocave Wine Art (aroundwine.co.uk).

This domestic-sized preservation system does not function as well as the impeccable Coravin but it is less fussy – and you don’t have to keep buying new gas canisters. It has temperature-controlled space for two bottles, which can be kept at 8C for white or 16C for red, and operates by holding the wine under vacuum, which helps it to stay fresh for around a week. A couple of my wine friends have these and say that they are very happy with them. A more effective alternative is a baby enomatic – a domestic version of the systems you find in bars – but at £1,595 for a two-bottle version I figure you might be better off financially just opening bottles and throwing the rest away. Buy Wine from Telegraph Wine >Do you have a wine box in your fridge? I don't personally — rightly or wrongly, wine boxes don't have the best of reputations for quality, and since I am lucky enough to work in the wine business, I have no shortage of bottled wine to taste.Until now, that is. Because the wine box — that staple of the Seventies, which fell from grace after it came to be regarded as a vessel for cheap and nasty, mass-produced party alcohol — is back.

Repackaged, improved and in a wider variety of formats, 'bag-in-a-box' wines are being sold as an eco-friendly alternative to bottled wines, and it's claimed that they are of better quality than in the days of old.The first indication of this clumsy wine container's renaissance came a few years ago when one of London's top wine-bar chains, Vinoteca, introduced a range of top-end, five-litre wine boxes. Daily Mail's wine expert Matthew Jukes (pictured) sampled a number of bottles and boxesI tasted the wines and asked the pertinent questions. The replies flowed along with the wine: this is the most efficient form of packaging with the lowest carbon footprint; yes, it brings an economy of scale to the purchase, making it cheaper; and, yes, they only sell delicious wine whatever the format.The wine wasn't bad, although even back then it worked out at around £9 for 75cl, the size of a typical bottle of wine.But it's also claimed that the wine box stays fresh for between four and six weeks.

Now you're talking — this really is like having a bar in your own kitchen! Perhaps the revival in buying wine boxes is justified.Well, up to a point, because most would balk at paying £9 for an everyday wine — you are never going to get a really great quality offering in a wine box — since that's nearly twice the price of an average bottle sold in the UK. Mr Jukes (pictured) found that boxed wines is the most efficient form of packaging with the lowest carbon footprintThe technology behind bag-in-a-box wines is certainly much improved. As oxygen is the enemy of any wine over a prolonged period, the wine box is a clever device, shrinking as it dispenses its contents and minimising any contact of the wine with air. I can certainly vouch for a huge leap forward in the science of both bottling and bagging wine, and this all but eliminates spoilage in wine boxes as long as you finish the wine well within its drinking lifetime — often labelled on the packaging.My advice is to try to empty the box, or 'pouch' — the even more stripped down, 'naked' version of a wine box — within a fortnight or three weeks rather than the four to six weeks claimed for safe drinking.

If you enjoy a small glass of wine each evening with dinner, a 1.5 litre box will ideally last you 12 days and a 2.25 litre box will stretch to 18.So, with advances in technology leading to ease of use and decent longevity, and with eye-catching designs making wine boxes more attractive than before, what else do you need to look out for?The obvious two factors are value for money and taste.While wine across the board has become cleaner, fresher, fruitier and more palatable over the past decade, particularly at lower prices, I refuse to recommend boring, lacklustre, characterless plonk.Sadly, however, because people instinctively don't want to pay a lot for a wine box, there are far too many dreary examples out there.I conducted a huge tasting of boxes and pouches for you, and here are my top ten.Gone are the days when you had to bring your calculator with you to convert the price of the box into an equivalent bottle size in order to see if you were being ripped off, because virtually all wine boxes these days have images on the side showing you 'how many bottles are inside'.

Most have a sell-by date of a year or so, but do look for this if you are worried, and then clear a space in your fridge or on your kitchen counter, because there's no question that wine boxes are a coming trend.2015 Fairtrade Chardonnay Semillon, South Africa(£16.99, 3 l box, £4.25 75cl bottle equivalent, Co-op)With the added benefit of being a Fairtrade wine, this is a decent, raspy, dry white, with fresh pineapple notes among the citrus theme and an admirably long finish. The 2015 Fairtrade Chardonnay Semillon, from South Africa, costs £16.99 for a 3L box. Mr Jukes scored it 3/52015 Ca'Mutti Garganega Pinot Grigio delle Venezie, Italy(£15.99, 2.25 l box, £5.33 75cl bottle equivalent, Waitrose)This is a superb wine, which cunningly blends the Soave grape Garganega with the world-famous Pinot Grigio to make a crisp, dry, classic Italian white wine. No more, no less, but this is really great value and it passes my deliciousness test with flying colours. The 2015 Ca'Mutti Garganega Pinot Grigio delle Venezie, Italy (pictured) costs £15.99 for a 2.25L box Non-vintage Garganega Pinot Grigio, Veneto, Italy(£9.50, 1.5 l pouch, £4.75 75cl bottle equivalent, Asda)To all intents and purposes this is a similar wine to the Ca'Mutti Garganega, but it is less expensive and lacks a little character.

But it is still spot on flavour-wise, is refreshing, and one of the best picnic wines here because it will chill quickly, since it is a pouch made of plastic and not a box. Mr Jukes gave the Non-vintage Garganega Pinot Grigio, Veneto, Italy, a score of three out of five2015 Pheasant Gully Semillon Chardonnay, South Eastern Australia(£13, 1.5 l pouch, £6.50 75cl bottle equivalent, Marks & Spencer)This is one of the mid-priced pouch wines available, but unlike most of the light styles this one has more weight and intensity. It's nice to see a main-course, dry white in this format and the touches of wild honey and nut on the nose add allure and complexity of flavour. The 2015 Pheasant Gully Semillon Chardonnay, South Eastern Australia, was given a score of four out of five 2015 Mud House Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand(£15, 1.5 l box, £7.50 75cl bottle equivalent, Waitrose).You very rarely see big name brands in boxes, but the eagle-eyed among you will fall over this wine because you will have spotted that it is fine enough to have been featured (in a bottle) in my regular Weekend magazine column on Saturdays!

Not cheap, but worth every penny, this is the epitome of NZ Sauvignon and it seems to lose none of its pizzazz in this format. Nice box design, too! And the 1.5L box of 2015 Mud House Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand, was given the best score of five out of five (£12, 2.25 l box, £4, 75cl bottle equivalent, Morrisons)Every now and then a 'chalk board' wine steps up and amazes me. This is my name for the Morrisons house wines with their chalky, white lettering and they put as much effort into sourcing these as they do the dearer bottles. This is a typically fruit-driven, no-nonsense Merlot and it is a cracking price, so if you need a red no-brainer, this is it. The 2015 Merlot, from Chile, costs £12 for a 2.25L box and was given an impressive four out of five Non-vintage Malbec, Central Valley, Chile(£9.50, 1.5 l pouch, £4.75, 75cl bottle equivalent, Asda)A little rough around the edges, but Malbec is not a polished grape variety, preferring to parade earthiness and spice over glossiness and sheen.

I like this wine's attitude — and you will enjoy it with hearty fare. The Non-vintage Malbec, from Central Valley, Chile, was awarded a three out of five by wine expert Matthew Jukes 2015 Ca'Mutti Cabernet Corvina delle Venezie, Italy(£15.99, 2.25 l box, £5.33, 75cl bottle equivalent, Waitrose)The red partner to my cheeky white is an even more impressive beast. Made from the Bordeaux grape Cabernet Sauvignon and blended with the Valpolicella grape Corvina, this wine packs cherry and cranberry notes into a lithe, smooth, medium-weight chassis and this makes it one of the more refreshing and fruit-driven wines in this top-ten line-up. The 2015 Ca'Mutti Cabernet Corvina delle Venezie, from Italy, costs £15.99 for a 2.2L box(£12, 1.5 l pouch, £6, 75cl bottle equivalent, Marks & Spencer)Made from a blend of the hearty red grape trio Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre, hence the name, this is one of the most exciting and well-made of all of the reds available in this format. Juicy, rewarding and with mulberry notes and a dusting of cinnamon spice, this is a star wine.