During the last World Wine Awards of the Decanter magazine, members of the jury were asked their minimum spending limit when buying a wine for a dinner with friends. The figures given added up to a £ 6.99 threshold, above which the respected professionals consider that quality will always be satisfactory enough for the genuine wine amateur, if not for the wine snob.

"We asked all the judges in the awards, wine experts the world over, what would be the least they would spend to be pretty confident of getting a decent bottle, the average they came up with was £6.99, that tallies with the results of the awards. There is such a difference between £4.99 and a bottle of wine that is £7.99, but from there it is more about individual taste and preference," said Guy Woodward, the magazine's editor, quoted in the Telegraph.
 "It is still slightly disappointing that the average spend on a bottle of wine has only just nudged over £4", he added, "I personally would never buy a bottle of wine that would cost less than £5. You can get a good bottle of wine for less than a fiver but unless you know the wine and what you are doing the chances are pretty slim." 
"We are saying 'This is the price at which you can be pretty confident about getting a decent bottle of wine'.The advice is just spend an extra couple of quid if you are going to buy a bottle of wine and it is not just for yourself, you may as well for the quality difference you get between £5 and £7, it is worth the extra £2."