Any “ole stand bys”? Favorite table wine? Bad experiences taking a chance on something that looks interesting and winds up yucky?
Where do you live?
What kind of foods are you planning on pairing with the Wine?
You can never go wrong with a chablis blush… I don’t think I’ve ever had one that didn’t taste good.
Of course, you could just make your own wine…
It depends. You tell me. What’s good with what on the cheap? I live in the southern U.S.
Well, I wanted to know where you live so I could possibly recomend specific brands. However, since I don’t know what’s commonly available down there, I’ll have to just give my basic grape variaties that I like.
(whites)
Personally, I like a nice Gewurztraiminer with spicy and oriental foods. I don’t know if they’re recomended per se, but I’ve had good luck. I know of some Canadian ones that are quite good (Grey Monk, Summerhill) but I can’t speak for US variaties.
Same thing with Reisling. Quite mild flavor usually, which is good for a casual wine drinker. Goes well with Poultry and most seafoods. Once again, I don’t know about the US labels.
I had the displeasure of having a French White Merlot last week. Vile stuff. Can’t remember the label, but the bottle looked pretty fancy. Stay away.
I’m not much of a red drinker, but I’ve had some nice Pinot Noir and Merlot. Chateu Neuf depaup (sp?) is a relatively well respected French red.
If you just want a cheapo, generic table wine, La Piat Dor (sp?) is pretty safe and inexpensive. They make a both a “mild” red and white. You’re not going to impress any wine snobs with it though.
I found Charles Shaw at Trader Joe’s for $1.99 a bottle, they have Merlots & whites. I asked people on the net to get some & tell me what they think & they all loved it.
A good, sweet, red wine is Reunite Lambrusco. For a regular size bottle, ~$4.00 (~$7.00 for the large). It’s nothing very fancy - a fine “screw-top” wine though.
Also, Sutter Home Moscato. It’s a good, sweet, white wine. Same price as above. It’s quite good.
I have to second handy’s recommendation. I had a friend that was in the Bay Area a few weeks ago, and he brought back cases of Charles Shaw at $1.99 a pop. The glut of wine on the market has caused them to “dump” their wines, and for the price, it’s a very good value.
You can make your own wine for about $5/bottle (Canadian dollars). Here in Canada there are stores that handle the work for you; you just buy the kit, start the fermentation, then come back a few weeks later to bottle the wine and take it home. I don’t know if there is anything similar in the States, but if there is you should try it. Some of the wines are pretty good (about the equivalent of a $15 wine you might buy in a store), and you can’t beat the price.
I like the Chianti that comes in a 5 liter box.
I prefer dessert wines, which can be a bit hard to find and pricey when I do find them… unless I stumble across a local winery that sells 'em. (The ‘Flying J’ truck stop off of I-55, north of the Ark/MO. border for instance has fruit wines from a local winery… yum!)
As for bad experiences… what ever you do: do not, I repeat: DO NOT get a wine that comes out during the hoiday season called ‘Electric Reindeer’. There was a very good reason why it wasn’t selling and therefore marked down (which was the only reason why we got it). Uggg. shudders It was fit only for killing plants with, or maybe de-icing a windshield.
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I’m not a wine drinker, but I had to buy wine this past holiday season for friends who were, so I asked OTHER friends for recommendations - almost unanimously, they suggested Yellow Tail Shiraz from Australia (about $7 a bottle, available almost everywhere) as a nice, easy-drinking red and Mondavi Pinot Grigio as the counterpart white. All were well-received. Hope that helps!
I like a brand called Wild Vines. It’s fruit-flavored wine, cheap (like $4 a bottle), and good.
Now, as a disclaimer, I do not like very dry or aged wines. This one is sparkly and fruity and doesn’t taste much like wine. Good for a wine-wussy like me.
I thought the Wild Vines tasted a lot like Juicy Juice. Not, in my book, that that’s a bad thing. I don’t remember it sparkling, though.
Depends on what you consider cheap. Rosemont Estates (Australia) makes some good blends of varietals that sell for around $6-9 a bottle. If I recall correctly, they have blends like Cabernet/Merlot, Semillon/Chardonnay, and so on. All of them that I’ve tried are highly drinkable, and very decent table wines. They have more pricey wines from that vineyard as well, which I’ve also enjoyed.
If you can get your hands on something from Inniskillin (its a Canadian Winery from the Niagara region), buy it - whatever it is. I haven’t had them all, of course, but I have yet to be disappointed by them. Similarly, Jackson-Triggs is good. Its the sister winery to Inniskillin, but I still prefer Inniskillin.
Aussie Shirazes (sp?) are quite popular right now, and with good reason. They are an amazing change from the French version (syrrah), and go well with a lot of foods. I think the most common australian vinyards you would find might be Lindemans, Wolf Blass, Rosemont or Hardys. I had the Wolf Blass Shriaz, and found it to be quite spicy, with a dark berry flavour. It would pair well with foods that are spicy or very flavourful…no point pairing it with pork or chicken, for example, because the food flavour would just get lost in the wine. I forget what varietal it is, but the Wolf Blass Yellow Label is very good, and very popular. The Rosemont Chardonnay is also good, according to the bartender where I used to work, and it was a popular bottle, so I believe him.
The best way to get to know what are good wines, and what goes well with them, is to buy them and try them. We have a cheap, 6$ (canadian) bottle that we buy if we’re having a lot of people over (its called Sola-Nero, sola is the white, Nero is the red, they are a canadian generic wine), and tis quite good, but a slightly more expensive bottle (for example the 11$ Xanadu Shiraz) will be much better for a nice meal between my SO and I.
Go down to your local [insert place that sells wine here] and buy a couple of bottles, and try them with whatever you might normally cook. Take notes if you want, but I just tend to remember if I liked it or not, and I dont write anything down. If your grocery stores or convenience stores sell wine, some are good, but I would recommend going to a liquor/wine store and seeing the greater selection and getting a better idea of prices and of whats out there.
Have fun!
I bought some Two-Buck Chuck, but I have yet to try it.
Have to say a good word about Yellow Tail wine, which we’ve been able to pick up at $5 a bottle. Hey, that’s just $60 for a case of 12, and it’s amazingly good. I like the shiraz, and my wife the merlot, so we bought a split case. Good stuff.
Wolf Blass Unwooded Chardonnay. It’s a white, I bought it in Canada for about 15 dollars a bottle and here in Georgia for 13 dollars today (today’s purchase was Chardonnay, must check to see if the labelling is different here and it is actually the same wine)
This is fairly inexpensive and a lovely wine - I rarely drink with a meal, more often with friends and appetizers, so take this with a grain of salt.