Well if snark is allowed, are you rounding down to $15? Are you adjusting for nominal or real dollars? Are informative priors a valid application of Bayes Theorem to the grand quantitative challenge presented by this profound matter?
PS. Simple solution to qualify for this beauty contest- just buy from the outfits selling it for $15.
I stopped rounding down once I lost 90 pounds. Unfortunately, I am now rounding up a bit.
If you want to get serious, what do you think wine critics hope you will do? Apply Bayesian theories of probability to your wine choices. If Parker likes it and Jancis Robinson likes it, then they are asking you to assume that you will like it. So I see no reason not to crowdsource opinions about wines in various price ranges so that people new to wine can share in the wisdom of the past.
St. Urbans Hof Ockfener Bockstein Kabinett is a smoking deal in the mid teens.
I actually didn’t realize in the prior thread that Can Blau can make it under the $10 mark, at least on a handful of shops on WSPro, but anyway, that’s a great bottle in that price range. Lots of ripe purple berry fruit, good acid, nice graphite type dimension, good as a cocktail or with meat.
This wine is 50% carinena, 25% syrah and 25% garnacha from Montsant, Spain. Easy to find, sometimes available at Costco.
Another good modern Spanish red at $10-13 is Bodegas Castano Solanera Vinas Viejas, Yecla, Spain. 70% Monastrell, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15 % Grenache.
In addition to overdelivering on value, those are both something which civilians can get but which are different and exotic enough to add some interest, as compared to drinking a cab or merlot from Columbia Crest or Chateau Ste. Michelle.
Chapoutier Bila-Haut. I think it’s pretty solid for $11. Especially if you can give it a couple of years. I’m drinking my 2010’s right now and they are fun and lively!
Another wine worth a try in this range is Juan Gil, which is easily obtainable and often a crowd pleaser. I have had bottles where the oak was too strong, even for me, and I think it does better with age, but the excess oak seems to be vintage or bottling lot dependent.
I’d say Marcel Lapierre’s Raisins Gaulois, Beaujolais is also pretty tasty. It’s also consistently sub-$15.
A delicious Nebbiolo blend that ages well – Antonio Vallana E Figlio Spanna (11.99ish)
And a solid Chenin from an underrated producer --Pascal Janvier Coteaux du Loir (14.99)
And any number of muscadets, of course.
$15? We pay more than that in taxes and transportation!
The Ravenswood Appelation Zins can be found under $15. Lodi, Amador, etc. All are well made.
Tom
Domaine de la Pepiere Muscadet Sevre-et-Maine Sur Lie
drop the mike. done
impossible to top at that price
Good call on Lapierre’s Raisins Gaulois.
I’ll add: Cameron Giovanni, Guion prestige, Vajra rosso, Pepiere sur lie, Landron Amphibolite, also Lanessan and Senejac futures. Sixteen (I know it’s not fifteen but let’s do it anyway) gets you Monsanto, Foucher Lebrun Sancerre, maybe Briords.
Well, If you can get rid of Zika, maybe we’ll come back again and bring you a case or two.
Old Vine Lodi Zin 2013 and 2012. Their 2014 is not very good.
Yep, and you can probably guess that it comes in boxes straight to my door step. No extra points for guessing what it is.
Another vote for the Marietta Old Vine Red. Pretty much impossible to beat for $12.
I have two approaches to finding “less expensive” wines. The first is pretty simple and has been discussed. Thanks for the tips! Just look for and get recommendations for producers who make a consistent product that is always available at a low cost. Pretty simple and not much risk.
The second is, for me, where the real fun is. That is to look for the odd wine that falls into “bargain” the price range. In my experience, these can most often found in offerings from bulk producers or in the second labels from better wineries (ex. Liberty School back in the days when they were an outlet of leftover Caymus juice). In either case, for me anyway, the strategy is to buy a single bottle of something that either looks attractive or that I have had luck with in past. If that bottle proves to be a good value, then buy the rest of the stock on the shelf. If that first bottle is not so good, then little damage has been done and one can just wait for the next shipment or opportunity.
Couple of examples. Back in the day (for me anyway) the price point under discussion here was $5.00. Fred Franzia used to market his Cabernet Sauvignon at around this price point. Best I can tell, old Fred would bottle anything he could get his hands on as soon as it arrived. No discrimination, no blending to make the bad stuff better or to stretch the better stuff. He filled up bottles with what came in that week and shipped it out. Every week or so, I would go to the local wine store, buy a bottle of Fred’s latest offering and taste it. If it was good, I would go back and buy every bottle on the shelf with the same date code (as stamped on the bottom of bottles). Needless to say, there were many bad bottles. Even so, I bought and drank, over the years, a lot of wine worth much more (2x, sometimes even 3x more) than the selling price.
A more recent example (now that the price point has changed) was finding a 2007 Hawk Crest Cabernet (second label for Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars) at the NH State Liquor store a week ago. If I had bought this young, it would have been long gone by now and I would have missed what it has become. However, at $15.00 each, I decided that it was worthwhile buying a bottle for evaluation. This was/is, for me, as good as this wine is going to get. In fact, I would rate it at just a notch below the “Artemis” bottling from Stag’s Leap. I went back and cleared the shelves.
It is important to stress the “buy one and taste” selection process because the bulk producers generally don’t care so much for consistency and, as has been pointed out (perhaps it was in the $10.00 thread), that the second label guys may be just looking to unload odd and end lots of extra juice, and not necessarily aiming to make a consistent product. In both cases it is just possible that something better than usual gets through. When that happens, it pays to grab as much as possible and not look back.
For me the key to finding drinkable wine for cheap has been to limit my liability as best I can and to be willing to kiss a few toads.
That’s to cover the PR debt!
Yes to the Marietta Old Vine Red, Columbia Crest H3, and the Can Blau for previously mentioned red wines. The Pepiere is a great white.
L’Ecole 41 Semillon and the Chenin Blanc are good.
The Louis Latour Ardeche Chardonnay used to be a big seller in my retail days, as was Mont-Redon Côtes du Rhone red. We also moved plenty of Concha y Toro “Casillero del Diablo” Cab Sauv, Vinum “Pets” Petite Sirah, and Picpoul de Pinet (when it got outside).
Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz/Cabernet was a good little red that you could tuck away for ten years and it would still drink well.