Set up in 1993 by Graham Chidgey, the only wine merchant I know to have scored a century in first class cricket, The Bunch (www.bunchwines.co.uk) is a like-minded coming together of six of Britain’s top independent wine merchants. If you like wine but find the term wine merchant off-putting because you only ever buy your wine in a supermarket, The Bunch make it worth a re-think.

A good independent scores every time over a supermarket in the quality and range of what it has to offer. With case discounts , tastings, advice and often free delivery, it provides a service that supermarkets can only dream of. Like all the best independent merchants in the UK, The Bunch espouses wines of quality and personality. Not nationwide so less accessible, I hear you say? Not so. Since the link of mail order to internet shopping, anyone with a laptop has instant access to an independent’s range.

Since Laytons and Armit dropped out, the Bunch has been bolstered by two of the country’s most pukka wine merchants, Berry Bros. & Rudd and, this year, Lea & Sandeman. Behind the retro St.James’ façade, Berry Bros, established 1697, now boasts one of the broadest wine ranges and it’s become an innovator too with its nationwide mail order list, dynamic website and a packed wine tasting and dinners programme.

At the annual Bunch press tasting last month, BBR showed, among others, a deliciously spicy, refreshingly cherryish 2008 Langhe Nebbiolo, Coste, Ferdinando Principiano, £16.50, a floral, cherry-laden mini-Barolo, and a bright, aromatically peppery, almost northern Rhône-like 2008 Blaufränkisch from Weingut Moric, £19.95, in Austria’s Burgenland.

Although a generalist, Lea & Sandeman is strongest in France and Italy. Its Egly-Ouriet champagnes are outstanding, but for sheer value, the expansive, silky mousse of the Barnaut Champagne, Grande Réserve Brut Grand Cru Bouzy, £23.95, £22.95/case, is a winner. Despite traditional appearances, owners Charles Lea and Patrick Sandeman have embraced the New World too with wines like the 2007 Rippon Central Otago Pinot Noir, £27.95, £25.50/case, a good example of fragrantly loganberry-like, spicy pinot noir to give red Burgundy a run for its money.

You could hardly get more traditional or posh than Corney & Barrow, and it has the wines to prove it: Vincent Dampt’s magnificently intense, mineral dry 2008 Chablis 1er cru Les Lys, Domaine Dampt, £18.59, and from Louis Mitjavile, son of the brilliant François Mitjavile of Tertre Rôteboeuf fame, the impressively modern, spicily oaked and succulent merlot-based claret 2007 Domaine de l’Aurage, Côtes de Castillon, £21.57.

The three London merchants are matched in professionalism by three country cousins: the general independents Tanners of Shrewsbury, Southwold’s Adnams and Rhône and Loire specialist Yapp Bros. from Mere in Wiltshire. Yapp this year showed a typically leafy, green pepper-laden Loire cabernet franc in the fine, fresh 2009 Saumur, Domaine Filliatreau Château Fouquet, £10.95, and a spicy, opulent, yet unusually elegant (for Châteauneuf) 2006 Le Vieux Donjon, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, £26.50.

Adnams of Southwold, always innovative, often quirky, came up with an exotically rich gooseberry and guava-like 2009 El Transistor, Rueda, £17.99, from Telmo Rodriguez, and a distinctively full-flavoured sweet and sour cherryish 2008 Valpolicella Classico Corte del Pozzo, Fasoli Gino, £10.99. Last but by no means least, Tanners offered a gloriously grassy, lemony, textured rich Graves-like 2006 Château Doisy-Daëne, £14.35, and showing that value isn’t the exclusive preserve of supermarkets, a bright, berryish 2009 Cépage Mourvèdre, £7.20, from Domaine La Condamine L’Evêque.

Something For the Weekend 2 October 2010

Under a Fiver

2009 La Poda Sauvignon Blanc Verdejo, Vino de la Terra de Castilla y Léon.

25% off most Spanish wines currently makes this refreshingly aromatic and zingy, grapefruity dry white Spanish blend of sauvignon blanc with Rueda’s local verdejo irresistible. £6.65, buy 2 = £4.99, Majestic.

Under a Tenner

2009 AA Badenhorst Secateurs Chenin Blanc, Swartland

Impressively rich Cape chenin blanc from ex-Rustenburg winemaker, there’s deliciously opulent yet fresh peachy fruit here rounded out by a touch of honey. £8.50 - £9, Stone, Vine & Sun (01962712351), Handford (7589 6113), Luvians, Fyfe (01344 477752).

Splash Out

Joseph Drouhin 2008 Rully, Premier Cru, France

This Côte Chalonnaise white burgundy from one of the greatest exponents of the art is as stylish as it gets at the price: fresh, fragrant, richly textured stonefruits with buttery oak and a cleansing, minerally feel. £13.99, Waitrose.

n.b. This is shown as a red Burgundy in the picture of the bottle in the Independent Magazine, but hopefully anyone interested in buying this delicious wine will have cottoned on to the fact that it is, in fact, the white Burgundy we're talking about here.