After a hard day's shopping in the sales my dad would always ask: "So, what have you spent today?" to which my mum would always reply: "Today, I've saved you . . ."

We are a family of sale lovers and bargain-hunters. I don't think we're alone in the pleasure of feeling as though we have secured a good deal.

But wine bargains are less easy to come by. My nose twitches nervously at the sight of dusty bottles in baskets being bin-ended' at reduced prices. It can mean tired old vintages that are heading to vinegar and so I tend to err on the side of caution.

I'm equally cautious of those incredible offers that the supermarkets and other large outlets are bombarding us with on an almost daily basis. Buy one, get one free' or other such tantalising deals have, I suspect, numbed us to the true cost of wine as well as making us forget that somebody, somewhere has to pay for these offers.

A Spanish winemaking friend of mine has been selling one of his wines to supermarkets. He has recently received an email informing him that they had decided to discontinue the wine and asking that he contribute £3 for every six bottles remaining to enable the supermarket to shift the stock quickly.

This might not sound like a lot of money but for a small, family-owned estate to consider supporting the sale of some 20,000 bottles in such a way is almost inconceivable. The consumer may get their bargain, but at what cost to the winemaker?

The temptation of snapping up a deal or two is inarguably tempting but how much wine are we actually getting for our money?

Without getting overly nerdy about it all, here's a quick summary for you.

A wine merchant buys a 75cl bottle of southern French red (sealed, labelled and bottled) from the winemaker at 1.50 euros (c£1.15). To that he needs to add shipping costs, duty and VAT. Duty stands at £1.33 a bottle (£1.71 sparkling) and assuming shipping costs of about 20p a bottle, the total cost is £3.15 (VAT included).

Bear in mind that I've not included any administration or marketing costs and there's not a scrap of profit in those sums for the seller.

It won't take you long to realise that the more you spend, the more of your hard-earned cash is actually being spent on the wine itself rather than on bottling, shipping, duty, vat and the like. If ever you needed a reason to up your spend per bottle, this has to be it.

I would love to tell you that there's light at the end of the tunnel. I'm afraid not. The euro exchange rate isn't helping and, if that wasn't enough, there are dirty rumours about a hefty increase in duty in the forthcoming budget. I overheard someone mentioning a rise of 15 per cent.

I fear my mother's and my bargain-hunting days are numbered but I can only offer you two pieces of advice.

The first is to focus on quality and not quantity. No matter how cheap, if the wine's rubbish, it's not a bargain.

With that in mind, prepare yourself to spend a little more and enjoy the taste of the wine rather than the sound of your pennies lining the government's purse.

Secondly, acquire squirrel-like hoarding skills. Think about stocking up for the months ahead. Duty increases generally come into effect within days of the budget and, if the rumours are founded, we're only weeks away from some significant price rises.

You can't say that the Oxford Times Wine Club doesn't have your very best interests at heart.

This week's case is an exceedingly good value range of a dozen wines that might just see you to the budget. Might be an idea to stock up on two cases!

Click here for The Oxford Times Wine Club offers.