by Max Crus Supermarkets serve it up to the super lazy.

as evidenced by our position in the top 20 heaviest nations (for blokes anyway) – and are happy to make us pay.

Since the one-stop-shop became essential last century, Australians have paid through the nose for tissues and nasal sprays and the privilege of not having to use our legs to get a leg of lamb from further down the street, notwithstanding that supermarkets are so big now that it’s the same distance from the toilet they’d been to Geraldton?

A worthy alternative to posh chardonnay. 9.5/10.

Mr Mick Clare Valley (by Tim Adams) Rosé 2023, $18. The tall bottle is a giveaway, it’s much closer to a savoury riesling than a light red, yet you still get a bunch of smart, tart, red things too. How good is paper to the meat section as it is to the independent butchers. that? 9.4/10.

With all but token smaller retailers having been weeded out without anyone noticing, we’re placated now by rewards cards to get a new milkfrother every two years and don’t even look at our supermarket dockets let alone the fne print on the shelves and suddenly we fnd ourselves without choice…except between Brad and Leah.

Tim Adams Clare Valley Riesling 2023, $24. If we lived in Russia and only had one wine to ‘choose’ from and this was it, you would still think communism wasn’t so bad, apart from the Putin bit. 9.2/10.

Winesmiths The Billie

Consumer advocates ranted for supermarkets to unit-price everything instead of self-regulating and obfuscating the truth, and now we’ve got it, apparently we don’t even use it!

Although that could just be the supermarket’s research aimed at getting rid of it.

Ditto the fact that most wine today is sold through the big supermarket outlets who, as ABCs Four Corners pointed out, have

Justice Thomson Edition Pinot Grigio 2022, $16. Probably a new edition out by now, so if you haven’t have used up the whole two litre cask yet, get cracking. Or start using it in your stir fries too. 8.9/10.

Yalumba South Australia Y Series Lighter stealthily infltrated the shelves with their own stuff in the image of God-fearing Barossan wine labels smothered in churches, and we don’t care that it’s a ruse to look like a Lutheran because we’re too lazy to read the fne print or to pop over to the last remaining little wine shop and get a real one.

Soon there will be an inquiry, the big wine players will say they don’t need more government regulation and will offer to

Chardonnay 2023, $15. 7% alcohol and still tasting like wine is the goal here and it nearly kicks it. Indeed it’s probably the closest thing to wine we have tasted at this alco level. But alas it’s still not quite right. 8.8/10.

Yarrawood Yarra Valley Tall Tales Rosé 2023, wipe out this unscrupulous practice themselves. The big players will employ KPMG to draw up the new plan, then ignore it because there’s an awful lot of excess wine out there and a new wave of Lutheranism is calling.

However, no-one will notice because we are lazy. Then there will be another inquiry in 2030.

Can someone please pass the bottle, and the buck while you’re at it, I don’t think I can get up.

$26. It’s not uncommon in our household for a bottle of rosé to disappear in one sitting, particularly on a summer twilight, however this one seemed to achieve that more quickly than most, not entirely attributable to the heat. Deliciously inviting. 9.6/10.