There was a time, and it’s really not all that long ago, when the finest wines available to humanity were just about within reach of ordinary mortals. Sure, Bordeaux’s first growths and the great grand crus of Burgundy have always been more expensive than other bottles. But not that much more. Not never-in-your-wildest-dreams, four-or-five-figures-a-bottle more. Indeed, for those prepared to put in a little time and research, there was even a way of buying the very best at little or no expense.

Canny wine collectors always used to count on a calculus that involved buying two cases of 12 bottles: one for drinking, and one to sell to fund your drinking. Wait long enough, and you might even turn a small profit. Over the past few years, however, that genteel practice has, in the words of wine investment guru Ella Lister of fine-wine buying and investment guide wine-lister.com, become “the stuff of myth and legend”. The problem comes down to the mechanics of a system known as en primeur – effectively a kind of futures trading where customers commit to paying up front for a wine on the strength of tasting an unfinished sample, receiving the bottled wine a couple of years later. With only a small portion of the production made available in this way, the idea is that the en primeur system brings much-needed cash flow to the producer as they wait for their wines to mature for sale, while offering the consumer a discount for paying in advance. Since the hyped Bordeaux vintages of 2009 and 2010, the gap between en primeur and post-release prices has narrowed, and many en primeur customers are, Lister says, making vanishingly small returns or, worse, ending up with a depreciating asset on their hands.

It’s still just about possible to pick a winner to pay your way: in Bordeaux Lister gives the examples of Château Canon 2014 (now trading among collectors for 42% more than its spring 2015 release price) and Château Calon-Ségur 2012 (up 55% since its release in April 2013), while Burgundy has Domaine Roulot Meursault 1er Cru Charmes 2012 (up 154%) and Domaine Marquis d’Angerville Volnay 1er Cru 2009 (up 118%). She also expresses hope that the current Bordeaux en primeur campaign will, after a fairly voluminous vintage, at least present producers with the opportunity to offer relatively competitive prices over the next couple of months.

I won’t be holding my breath. In the past 30 years, prices for top-ranked wines in Bordeaux have risen by 700%; Lister’s research says the top echelon of Burgundy has doubled in the past six years alone. There’s only so much of this stuff to go around, and wines that used to be consumed almost exclusively by connoisseurs in northern Europe and the USA have in the past decade become status markers for the world’s billionaires.

While many producers are too busy counting their cash to care, more thoughtful growers are concerned. A whole generation of wine lovers has come of age without tasting the historic châteaux and domaines of Bordeaux and Burgundy – and the best of both is in danger of becoming a gilded irrelevance. For anyone even remotely serious about wine there’s something rather sad about this: it’s like falling in love with classical music but never hearing so much as a note of Bach or Beethoven. There is some consolation in the fact that, even as the price gap has widened, differences in quality between top Bordeaux and Burgundy and the best of the rest of the world have narrowed. Indeed, serious collectors have already taken a fancy to Piedmont, Tuscany, the northern Rhône and Champagne, all of which have an increasing share of wine’s secondary market, with prices to match. Ordinary mortals, meanwhile, will find that many of the finest wines known to humanity are in fact perfectly within reach – we just have to look in new places to find them.

Six fine wine alternatives to Bordeaux and Burgundy under £20

Château Thivin, Les Sept Vignes, Côte de Brouilly, France 2015 (£17.95, bbr.com)

In a fine vintage such as 2015, the best Beaujolais producers are capable of Burgundian pinot refinement at very unBurgundian prices: this is stunning value, a keeper with gorgeous summer berries in a sappy, silky, mineral package.

Descendientes de J Palacios Pétalos, Bierzo, Spain 2015 (from £15.99, majestic.co.uk)
The fragrant, succulent mencía grape variety is the ingredient in the new classic Spanish reds of north-western Bierzo and Galicia, of which this example from the multi-talented Alvaro Palacios is a standout for both value and joyous, vivid intensity.

Luigi Maffini Kleos Aglianico, Campania, Italy 2013 (from £15.50, leaandsandeman.co.uk)
While very much retaining its own southern personality in this gloriously supple, tangy, dark berry-scented example, Campanian aglianico offers similar charms to considerably pricier Barolo or Barbaresco in its mix of haunting perfume, acidity and textured tannin.

Tabalí Talinay Chardonnay, Limarí, Chile 2014 (from £12.50, thewinesociety.com)
In the past decade Chile’s cool-climate Limarí Valley has emerged as one of the best places in the world to grow chardonnay, and this luminous, nervy, mineral, example is beautifully done, comparable in quality to white burgundy several times the price.

Vicenti Agostino Il Casale Soave Superiore, Italy 2015 (from £14.70, tannico.co.uk; philglas-swiggot.com)
Bland over-production has saddled Soave in north-east Italy with a bad reputation, but that only keeps the price down on the great single-vineyard wines of its best producers. This is a beauty: pear, nectarine, fennel and graceful acidity.

Château Bouscassé Madiran, France 2011 (from £15.50, thewinesociety.com; dbmwines.co.uk)
With its majestic depth of dark black fruit, powerful but refined tannins, and appetising freshness this dramatic tannat-based red from the Brumont clan in the Madiran region of Gascon southwest France is a highly affordable, cellar-worthy alternative to top Bordeaux.