Good Wines, Cheap!

Any one can spend $50 and get an exceptional wine - usually - but the thrill is finding an equivalent bottle at a lesser price.

How fun!

Wine values compared to price, in ascending order:

If I have $20 on Friday afternoon to buy a bottle of wine in Phoenix, Arizona for dinner that night, it will not be Italian (could be crappy), it will not be French (too few available here), unlikely to be Californian (might be good, might not be), but will probably be Australian. For $20 the wine might even be great!

I am now enjoying a lip-smacking Chilean Merlot "120" by Santa Rita,

2001 vintage, which I purchased from my local Safeway in their close-out bin for $2.99!

I drink good wines for cheap, and will guide others to do so, if asked.

Any one else with advice?

Reply to
D T
Loading thread data ...

Well,

Then I could add also Chapel Hill wines from Hungary, maybe Pinot Noir from the Winemaker Selection series. This one might go quite well with food, or on the othet hand, just for drinking...

-- Taavi Sepp

+3725117323 snipped-for-privacy@gran.ee

Reply to
Taavi Sepp

Hmm, I've had quite a few unexceptional $50 ones!

- but the

Agreed.

Well, that goes into stylistic choices. I buy a load of $20 & under wines, and few are Aussie. The fat lush fruit-forward reds we get here are not my personal favorite style. I like some (Kaesler Stonehorse GSM), but not something I drink regularly.

I am a believer in the theory that 85% of wine produced ANYWHERE is crap - and

2/3s of remainder is not to my tastes. The fun (to me) is finding the values in the remaining 5% of wines. And those could be from almost any country: Italy- Felsina CC, Caparzo Rosso France- Lafarge Bourgogne, Coufran, Lanessan, Clair St Aubin, Baumard Savenierres, Frick Gew. CA- Ridge 3 Valleys, Mason or St Supery SBs

best, Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

Reply to
Dale Williams

I think Dale is off by about 5%. Roughly 90% of the wine I taste is junk.

Curious to know what your estimate is.

-- ================================================Do you like wine? Do you live in South Florida? Visit the MIAMI WINE TASTERS group at

formatting link
================================================

Reply to
Leo Bueno

And there are quite a few at $50 (or more) that are not exceptional

Hmmm.... we are possibly relocating to Phoenix, so it is interesting to hear that the wine selection may not be what we are accustomed to, even in Alabama :(

If you can find it, look for Las Rocas de San Alejandro 2002 Granacha from the Calatayud region of Spain. At $8.99 retail in Alabama it is a still. Robert Parker gave it 91 points (Issue 147, 6/30/03, Page 35) and proclaims that "this may be the greatest discovery of my 25-year career" and "may be the greatest wine value I have ever tasted." All I can say is that he is absolutely right! I have sold 30 cases in 2 days, and if I can get another

100 could sell those to.
Reply to
CabFan

I guess it depends on what you define as "junk". Everyones tastes are different, and there are enough styles out there to make anyone think that a large percentage is "junk" when in fact it just isn't a style that they personally like.

Being in the retail trade, I have learned over the years to think about each wine for what it is and not what you think it should be. True, there are some really awful wines out there but I don't think that 85% or 90% is even close to being accurate. My opinion is that less than 10% of all wines made are "junk", but probably 70-80% of the wines that I taste are not ones that I particularly "like".

Reply to
CabFan

Wow - what stuff are you tasting?

I think most wine I have tried has been at least palatable - some has been rather uninspiring but drinkable enough to finish the serving or bottle - and some is basically undrinkable.

I think the breakdowns for me are:

Truly Amazing 1% (If I could afford it, I would have a case of it, I would travel 100 miles to get if it wasn't locally available) Good-Excellent 19% (like it a lot, would buy again, would even go to some effort to get, make phone calls, etc.) Decent-Palatable 50% (good wine, might buy if the price was right and it was right with food, but won't go to any trouble to get) Uninspiring 20% (near-crap, wouldn't buy knowingly, but won't be distraught) Undrinkable 10% (Guess this would qualify as 'crap' to me)

Reply to
Bromo

Very true. What I meant when throwing out my 85% figure is wines that hold basically zero interest to me. Certainly the percentage of technically flawed wines is far lower than that. But my definition of junk encompasses the likes of producers like Vendange, most bulk wines ala Gallo's low-end wines, DuBoueuf VdPs, etc. I'm not saying they are undrinkable as alcoholic beverages made from grapes, just that they are totally uninteresting to me. Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

Reply to
Dale Williams

CabFan wrote:

True.

I think it's important here to distinguish between the percentage of what one tries vs. the percentage of wine produced. In my case, I rarely dip into the ocean of cheap wine that my local retailers carry. However, when I visit the wine aisles of my local grocery store, I see that most of the shelf space is taken up by "Vendange," "Turning Leaf," "Almaden" and "Paul Masson" wines; the shelves devoted to Europe and Oz offer similarly inspiring choices. Though I don't have extensive experience drinking these wines, I've had enough to say that the majority, if not the entirety, are thin and unbalanced with little fruit and no varietal character. To me, these wines are not merely dull, but rather unpleasant to drink. That is junk in my book, and we have not even touched the likes of Arbor Mist, Night Train or Sparkling Pink Catawba. So, what percentage of US production is devoted to such wines? I don't know, but it's a rather high number, I suspect. From my travels in France, Germany and Italy, I know that they too produce an ocean of cheap plonk, though whether it's in the same proportion to the US I have no way of knowing. Perhaps the only country I've visited where this was not the case was New Zealand, where the biggest producer of wine (Montana) offers comptently made, if usually uninspiring, wines across the board. And the second largest operation (Villa Maria) makes damn good wine at the top level, and very good wine at the lowest level. So, perhaps, rather than debating what number is accurate, we should instead see whether we can agree that the majority of wine is uninteresting, with only a small percentage being wines of character and even less being truly memorable.

Just my $0.02, Mark Lipton

Reply to
Mark Lipton

Night Train? That can not be bad, Mark: in 1986 Appetite for Destruction, the Guns n' Roses band dedicated a song to it! :)

Vilco

Reply to
Vilco [out]

See

formatting link

Reply to
Calatayud.org

DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.