What's your favorite cheap wine?
cecilia_md7a
18 years ago
Featured Answer
Sort by:Oldest
Comments (121)
alisande
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agopablo_nh
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
What other reds should I try?
Comments (6)You should try a lot. CA doesn't do very good cabs or merlots in your price range, so I'm not surprised that you didn't like them. I suppose there are a few around now that there is such a grape glut, but you're better off looking elsewhere at that range. CA has nice whites in that range and a few different varieties that may be of interest. There are 2 other threads you can look at. "Cheap wine, or wine snobs (long)" in which I tried to address that question, and then there's another called "what's your favorite cheap wine". Lots of responses in those. You might want to keep in mind the difference between making wine on an industrial or a smaller scale. One way to think about it is to imagine that things like Yellow Tail or Two Buck Chuck or many of the Gallo or Kendall Jackson wines are made like Wonder Bread as opposed to the guy in the bakery down the street who rolls out his dough by hand. I suppose it can be consumed, but I'm not sure why. There's a lot of good wine out and you don't need to pay a lot of money for it. For reds, CA seems to do a lot better once you pass the $15 mark. It's unfortunate, because I'd like to support the home team, but perhaps part of it is that in Europe a lot of families have owned vineyards for many generations so they don't have to amortize recent expenditures. Cheers!...See MoreCheap wine, or wine snobs (long)
Comments (7)Allison - wine mentor? What a cool job that would be. I don't know. I've been drinking wine for years and ask questions all the time. Now that I'm selling it I end up answering a few questions too, but my suggestion is to read and taste. And if you ever get out to NYC, call me. That's serious incidentally. Anyway, I can offer a few suggestions for people. First, don't overlook Beaujolais. It's been producing wine for centuries, mostly for cafes around Lyon, where there were a number of silk merchants. They make a young wine for drinking within a few months and back in the 80s a couple British guys were drinking and made a bet with each other about which one could get the wine to London fastest. That set off a trend for about 10 - 20 years and increased sales of that young Beaujolais. Production shot up and a lot of second rate wine was made to cash in. Then the fad faded, the market crashed, and the area is suffering today. BUT - in the hills around Beaujolais they also have what are called "cru" sites and those are very much worth investigating. For education, bypass the young stuff and look for the crus - they will have a name like Fleurie, Julianas, Morgon, Moulon au Vent, Regnie, or something like that. This area is just south of Burgundy, and some of the winemakers in Burgundy work in both places and you can learn a lot and have fun. Find a producer, say Chermette, or Brun, for example, and sample the wine of the same producer from Fleurie, Morgon and Julianas. Even buy George Dubeouf wines from those places - they are great values and will show you the differences in the soils and environment and microclimates, which the French call "terroir". Because it is the same winemaking, you take that variable out of the equation and presumably taste only the differences that result from the terroir. It's a good lesson and the wine is wonderful, inexpensive, and not high in alcohol. And even try the young Beaujolais just to compare. As a rule it will be simpler, but quite nice. If you can start to understand those, you start to understand what people get excited about when they talk of Burgundy or Piedmont. You can do it with riesling too - they pretty much never use oak barrels in Germany for the rieslings, so you only taste the winemaker and the vineyard. For example, find some Prum - J.J. Prum, S.A. Prum, Weins Prum. They are related family and they make wine from the same vineyard. You can learn about the differences in winemaking. Or or St Urbans Hof and Zillikin who both use the Ockfener Bockstein vineyard and who are probably cheaper than the Prums. Or find a producer who uses multiple vineyards, like St Urbans Hof again, and try their Ockfener Bockstein vs their wine from Piesporter Goldtropfchen, looking at the same winemaker but different vineyards. Try to find Kabinett wines and don't mix Kabinett and Spatlese, etc., for this study, because the sugar will through you off. Write down the differences between the wines that you observe. You can do it in CA too - Andy Beckstoffer owns vineyards that produce really great wines, but those are going to be much more costly than those rieslings are. Schrader for example, is one of many people making wine from the Tokalon property, but you're talking $100 a bottle. The Prums have had their vineyards for years, maybe centuries. Beckstoffer moved to CA from Virginia, bought property, and sells his grapes at a price based on what the winery is going to charge for the wine! So those CA wineries, being pretty new and only recently opened by guys who became millionaires somewhere else and who paid $200,000 and acre, or else whatever Beckstoffer wants per ton, charge a lot of money for their wines, whereas Prum can sell a wine for $26 or less. I love the idea of Two Buck Chuck, but the wine isn't so great IMO. I'd rather pay another dollar and get a better wine and I think they could do it. What you won't have however, is the distinction you get from the other wines I suggested. That's because it is designed specifically NOT to have it. The idea is to create consistency, not personality. Again, no problem here and more power to him, but for me it would be boring to drink the same thing all the time, and I collect wine specifically to have variety. In 2005, the cabernet sauvignon harvest in Napa was pretty big and pretty good. People thinned the crop several times in some vineyards but the grape clusters were large so they still got more tonnage per acre than they normally do, although the wines are top notch anyhow. Prices? Not going anywhere good as far as I can see. As long as wines are selling for $100 and up, the prices aren't coming down. And about that thinning - in France and other regions, there are often regulations regarding yield per acre. They think that if you cut some young grape bunches off, called "green harvesting", the remaining ones will be more concentrated. That's becoming a basic tenet of winemaking. But there is some evidence and some opinion that this is BS. The concept was developed before there were adequate ways to measure. So a long time ago in France they thought they could improve quality by limiting yield. But maybe that's artificial, as illustrated by the 2005 vintage in CA. In a nice warm year, with adequate rain and no heat and healthy vines, the plants just might want to produce a little more with no drop in quality. In 1997 and 2005, that happened in Napa. If one were only to go by yield, we would have less wine but in fact, there was no reason to reduce production since the quality is fine. But as long as people are willing to pay, others will produce wine at $100 and up. In much of France today, they are trying to reduce production to keep prices high. You can figure out the economics of that, but IMO the idea is flawed because the competition is not simply air, it is wine from elsewhere. So if I can't buy or afford French wine, I'll buy Australian wine or Spanish or Chilean. It's a huge generalization and not 100% true, but you might say that in Napa the high prices are the result of extraordinary entry costs while in Bordeaux or Burgundy or Champagne, they are the result of production decisions designed to keep prices high. Again, that's not entirely true but its a shorthand explanation. So you look for areas like Beaujolais, Cotes du Ventoux, Cotes du Rhone, Languedoc in France, or the Rhine in Germany, or Umbira and Puglia in Italy, or Paso Robles or Mendocino in CA, or Walla Walla or Columbia Valley in WA and you can find much better deals. Or look at Argentina - some nice stuff coming out of there. And in the Texas Hill Country, they're working and in Arizona and in other states as well. Some people disparage those wines, but the people have to start somewhere. I used to disparage the wines from Michigan. Then I tried some. Taught me a lesson. I only knew the cheap sugary stuff but there are now some serious producers making good whites on the west of the state. Also in Ohio there are one or two - Kincaid makes really nice cabs down near Kentucky. I would never have believed it if I hadn't tried them. And in fact, they were in some pretty stiff competition - I had them at a dinner with people who brought some serious wine to the table and brought these just to educate us. So if someone is open minded, there is no reason to listen to wine snobs and you can find some great values out there, that are interesting, complex, and even educational if you care to go that way. Cheers all....See MoreWhat do you think about buying a cheap wine fridge?
Comments (8)Boy, I've been waiting for someone to ask about this. We found the best deal - a 50 bottle wine cooler by Magic Chef for $299 at Home Depot. Before you laugh, understand that we spent a lot of money renovating our kitchen, and have a SubZero fridge and a Viking stove. Quality matters to me. But after researching all these wine coolers, and being shocked by sticker prices of upwards of $1,000 for a nice brand, I decided that I really did not want to spend that just to cool a beverage that means more to me than anyone else in our family of five (including our three teenagers). I love white wine, drink it often, but I really don't want to spend that much on a cooler. The Magic Chef does the trick. I do have to say, however, that we had a problem with it right after it went off warranty -- a beeping sound every two minutes that wasn't mentioned as a possible problem in the manual's troubleshooting, guide, and no one else seemed to have (I searched GW and the Internet). We called the company, and they said it was probably the thermostat. They offered to send a new one, at no charge to us, that they assured us we could replace ourselves. They were right; my husband put it in, no problem, and the cooler works like a charm again. It is cheap cooler overall, but it keeps the wine at the temperature I want it to, and we even keep sodas and juices in there for the kids. I love it and have no regrets....See MoreWhat are your favorite dollar store purchases?
Comments (27)I haven't shopped in dollar stores for a few years now. Simply because it is imported items of a low value, which reflects in the price. Some items are counterfit to look like brand names (even if they aren't brands WE recognize). Others may have quality issues - such as toothpaste that contains antifreeze. Some of the decorative items are cast offs from factories (where workers are paid pennies per day and there are no standards for safety for worker nor consumer) or the makers are paid almost nothing as piece work. Again, there is no way to know what materials are being used and how the items are being made. I don't want to support the exploitation of a cheap workforce that is being abused, simply to get a little vase with a crooked hand painted design for a dollar. Local companies cannot compete with these cheap products so they undermine our economy. They also underscore the idea that it is cheapness and quantity and not QUALITY workmanship that should be a priority. We are a disposable society. Go ahead and throw it out, you can get a new one at the dollar store. With rising prices and sinking wages I know that there are many who feel they cannot afford NOT to shop in the dollar store, and I commiserate. But for me, it was a choice I made for myself, my family, and my community. And I am sticking with it ROFL....See Moreilovepoco
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agobuilderbabe
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agoyellowlablover
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agotomato_man_grower
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agonaturegurl
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agobud_wi
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agojoanr
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agodragontek
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agolinda214
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agojleek
15 years agolast modified: 9 years agomikeinmo
15 years agolast modified: 9 years agoscaldude
15 years agolast modified: 9 years agowild_rose_of_texas
15 years agolast modified: 9 years agomandarinmint
15 years agolast modified: 9 years agochristy2828
15 years agolast modified: 9 years agocoffeehaus
15 years agolast modified: 9 years agochristy2828
15 years agolast modified: 9 years agosfhc21
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agosilversword
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agoorganic_leopold
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agorosesinny
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agolindac
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agoJonathan
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agocecilia_md7a
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agocecilia_md7a
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agocecilia_md7a
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agorosesinny
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoafeisty1
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoclaire44
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoqdwag
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agotami_nutley_yahoo_com
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agolindawisconsin
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agoChilipepper29
10 years agolast modified: 9 years agomusicgale
8 years agolookintomyeyes83
8 years agomusicgale
8 years agosushipup1
8 years agoWaverly
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoWaverly
8 years agoPistachios (Zone 7)
8 years agoartemis_ma
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agospartanapples
7 years agoMargaret Schultz
7 years agofuzzy wuzzy
6 years agosandycfrd
6 years agofuzzy wuzzy
6 years agolindac92
6 years agofuzzy wuzzy
6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago
Related Stories
BATHROOM DESIGN15 Cheap and Easy Ways to Makeover Your Bathroom
Makeover Magic Can Happen When You Think Outside the Bathroom Box
Full StoryBUDGET DECORATINGBudget Decorator: 12 Cheap and Chic Fall Centerpieces
Some of the best things in fall are free (or nearly so) and make for beautiful, meaningful displays to brighten a table
Full StorySHOP HOUZZShop Houzz: Serve Wine Like a Pro
Serve wine and cheese in style with a sommelier’s favorite picks
Full StoryDIY PROJECTSMake a Gorgeous (Cheap!) Pillow Using Vintage Clothes
With secondhand fabric and a steady hand on the sewing machine, your pillow choices are endless
Full StoryBUDGET DECORATING15 Ways to Ready a Summer Home on the Cheap
Set up a comfy getaway where stress goes down the drain, without sending wads of cash along with it
Full StoryBUDGET DECORATING10 Beautiful, Decorative Gifts to Make on the Cheap
Save money while spreading the love with these personal DIY projects (pssst ... you can even keep them for yourself)
Full StoryDECORATING GUIDESEasy Living: 10 Cheap and Chic Decorating Ideas
Celebrate the simplicity and style of everyday objects in your décor
Full StoryWINE CELLARS8 Tips to Transform Your Basement Into a Wine Cellar
Enjoy a "very good year" as often as you like when you curate favorite vintages in your own basement wine cellar
Full StorySponsored
christophersprks