As my penance for being a New Yorker all the way, let’s start a useful thread on good wines for the neophyte to try that are under $10. In addition to naming a wine, you must explain why it is on the list.
My nominee is Borsao Campo de Borja Garnacha. The base level wine. Available for $6 all over the place. It’s a red wine that is what other call varietally correct in that it has the classic flavor of Grenache - Raspberry. In my opinion, it delivers well balanced flavor throughout the palate. My guess it that they ferment and age in steel or giant old oak barrels (how else could they sell it so cheap), so there is no wood intruding into the fruit. I once held onto a bottle for 6 years and it was outstanding. Here’s my tasting note on that bottle.
2002 Bodegas Borsao Campo de Borja Borsao- Spain, Aragón, Campo de Borja (2/19/2008)
Hey! This stuff really ages. I was making beef stew tonight so this morning, after getting the other ingredients together in a pot, I pulled a bottle of 2002 Borsao and set it on the counter. At 5:00, I called my son, told him to uncork the wine, pour it into the pot, and put it in the oven. I asked him to leave a few ounces in the bottles for later. At 7:30, I uncorked the left over in the bottle on the counter and unceremoniously took a swig from the bottle, expecting to quench my curiosity more than my thirst. Intense and complex cherry and raspberry flavors with some pepper and spice. I poured the rest into a glass so I could write a proper note. Moderate red color but not opaque, a little like a dark ruby. Cherry on the nose. still the same palate. Tannins softened and sweet. No oak or vanilla. This is a bona fide very good to excellent wine, 88 pts without the QPR factor. I bought a case of this 4 years ago at Zachy’s on sale for $4.59 per bottle. Best bargain since the $6 Le Montrachet I got in 1978. (88 pts.)
I used to drink tons of that Borsao when I was a poor starving over-worked young associate. Tres Pico was for the weekend! Good Reco!
These days, the only wine I am buying the comes close to touching the $10 mark is domaine Guion, a Loire Cabernet Franc. This is not a cheap daily drinker by any stretch of the imagination, it is a true, representative wind of the region with an impressive level of depth and complexity. It also ages extremely well. I have recently had bottles from 1997 and 2000, and was absolutely thrilled. generally priced around $12.
I’ve mentioned this many times before but the La Vieille Ferme white wine (not the red) is delicious and cheap. I put it into one of my blind wine dinners and everyone loved it. About $7 a bottle.
I considered that but I thought it was over $10. I have a couple of half bottles that I probably over paid for at $7 because it looks like I can get the 750 for $9.99 at PJs.
I think $10 is tough unless you find a closeout, but at very near that price the Pepiere Sur Lie is a really good wine, and I’ll second Alfert’s Guion recommendation; with case discount the base level bottling comes in at just under $11. Setzer Gruner Veltliner is also a good summer wine, and at $12 a liter I think it qualifies.
Edited to add that the Garnacha Fuego and Las Rocas used to be wines I’d recommend for non-geeks, similar to the Borsao. However, having tried them again more recently they all seem very generic tasting. Could be that my tastes have changed, but I worry that the wines also became worse as the brands grew. Not that I wouldn’t suggest them, just that I hesitate a bit compared to what they used to represent.
As mentioned in the other thread, I found the Clean Slate Riesling decent for $9. I find more value in the $12-$20 range though. I don’t see many $10 and under wines I care to drink. I have never seen Jay’s Borsao Campo de Borja Garnacha here, but the Tres Pico is $13 and not bad. The cheapest wine I drink occasionally is the Gallo Twin Valley Sauvignon Blanc for about $9 for 1.5L. Good party wine for those who like whites and don’t really care about wine that much. Oh, and the Costco Prosecco is $10 and another good party wine. (La Marca and Ruffino aren’t bad either but they’re $11 here.)
Threads like this always run into a contradiction of sorts: finding high-quality wine under $10 takes knowledge and effort; something that most people who are new to wine don’t have and aren’t willing to put in, respectively.
For example, one thing I always recommend to budget drinkers this time of year is last year’s rosé, meaning, as of this writing, the 2014s. Back vintage rosés - with the exception of certain age-worthy wines like Simone, Lopez, Musar, etc - are tough to move in the retail world and will frequently get marked down to the cost the store paid for them. All but the crappiest 2014s are still going to be drinking well, so these wines can be great bargains. But the budget drinker has to know enough to look for them and have the confidence to buy something that nobody else seems interested in. Easier said than done.
A better tactic - and one that has been discussed hundreds if not thousands of times in this forum - is for the newbie to find a store with a good selection and some people working in it who seem to care about wine. He or she should let the store clerk know their per bottle budget and request the clerk put together a case of wine. Drink all twelve wines; write down the ones he or she really liked and really hated, return to the store and have the same clerk put together another case based on these likes and dislikes. Rinse and repeat.
My fav used to be another Spanish Grenache: Las Rocas
The old vine version is even better. Fwiw these are less internationally styled than Tres Picos.
That was a co-op wine that Eric Solomon put together for the US market. They had some quality problems as they ramped up production once Parker gave it 90 points. Eric sold it to Gallo, who knows how to make a consistent wine, but recent versions of it just aren’t all that good.
However, if you’re in a store and you’re looking for a cheap wine and you don’t know many, you could do worse than look at the back of the bottle and see if a wine says “European Cellars” or “An Eric Solomon Selection”. He brings in a lot of wines in the $10-15 range. Chateau Pesquié, for example, can sometimes be found around $10, although generally it’s a bit more.
Regarding the suggestion about last years rosado - that’s sometimes true but I would be careful making it make it a blanket statement. I used to keep a few every year when we’d get a new vintage just to see how they would age. Some that were fruity and fresh originally turned orange and oxidized within a year. Others showed no change. Part of it has to do with the closure - plastic cork vs cheap cork vs good cork vs screwcap. It can also have to do with how the wine was made - for example, whether the grapes were always intended for that purpose or whether the wine is just a bleed from a larger tank to get more extraction out of the rest of the juice.
Unrelated, here are some other wines:
Arca Nova Vinho Verde
Cline Zinfandel (although I haven’t had it for a few years)
Sobon Zinfandel
Bodegas Muga rosado