In both cookbooks and wine books, up to twenty or thirty years ago at least, it was repeated constantly that, if you lived in America you could get the best bang for your wine-buying buck by avoiding imports. I’ve been reading Antoine Gilly’s classic A Feast Of France, and he asserts this as well, urging the reader to seek out California or Finger Lakes wines, rather than comparably priced imports from his own country.
And that makes sense in a way. You would think that if one is going to spend ten or fifteen dollars on a bottle of wine, the local product would automatically be better, since one is presumably saving the cost of transporting the wine from Europe or Australia to the U.S. I do like California wine. I live in California. But, to be honest, I have almost always found that French and Italian wines in that price range are very often better. One rule of thumb I use is, when possible, always to choose at least a regional predicate, e.g. Sonoma or Alto Adige rather than just California or Italy. By the same token, if it’s Italian or French I look for the Appellation Controlee or the Italian equivalent, which I forget just now. This practice has always served me well–and it seems that the price point at which this becomes possible is usually lower with the imports than it is with California wines. Even the weakness of the dollar doesn’t seem to change this much. German wines have always been too expensive for me, but the French and Italian ones have managed to stay competitive.
