House Wine

Hi everyone, 1st post here.
I’m curious what is your go to house wine? As I can see from post I, like many of you are on multiple mailing list with $$$ price points. I am looking for your go to house wine in the $20ish-30ish range. When we were in Italy a few years ago we had some amazing house wines at several restaurants and I would love to find some wine of this caliber for my cellar. My wife and I are predominately red wine drinkers, but I’d like to hear about some whites for summer as well.

Thanks in advance for the suggestions! I’m looking forward to trying them.

Cheers!
Jim

I have never had or wanted a house wine. I like diversity and would hate drinking the same wine over and over. My everyday whites tend to be German Kabinetts from producers like Zilliken, Haart and Selbach and Bourgogne Blanc from producers like Dublere for whites and Bourgogne rouge from producers like Hudelot-Noellat and others and less expensive Bordeaux for reds. I really look for 1/2 bottles for reds

Jim…In this price point, hard to go wrong with Carlisle…I take down as much of the Sonoma Syrah and Zinfandel as I can and then have some vineyard designates that are my favorites.

House wine isn’t something we really pursue. I think we’d get bored, but there are brands that we buy consistently that are in the $20-$30 range that we use as midweek wines.
Jaffurs Syrah, Carlisle and Bedrock Zins, Martini Cab, more recently Princess and Peasant Carignane and Pinot.
For whites Jaffurs Grenache Blanc, Roussanne, Viognier.
Light Summer reds: Tercero Abberation and Cinsault also are good choices.
It is also hard to beat a $7-$10 Vino Verde for Summer sipping.

When you have a cellar it negates the need for house wines and affords you the ability to enjoy the variety of wines in your cellar. Before my cellar matured I would buy a case or two of moderately priced wines that I liked. Now I rarely buy more than 3 or 4 bottles of any wine. I would recommend that when you find a wine you like buy a case or two for your “house wine”. As your cellar grows and matures you will find yourself reducing your purchase size and enjoying the variety in your cellar. There are lots of very nice wines out there in your price range. Focus on strong vintages.

Thanks for the suggestions!
I agree with you that house wines can be boring 100%. However, we do a lot of entertaining and I need some crowd pleasers I can pull that are not $100/bottle.

Thanks again & keep them coming. My plan is to get a few cases to have on hand for those impromptu moments

I guess the closest thing to a house wine I have is Carlisle. Been stocking up since the 2002 vintage.
Probably the best QPR in my cellar.

In general I’d agree with this, indeed my buying is a little too butterfly-like, a little here a little there, often only a single bottle each time.
However if a really interesting wine turns up for £10 or less, I’m now more prepared to buy a case (or more). A 2011 Nebbiolo from a little known Barbaresco producer has been such a gem £10 for a genuine baby-Barbaresco.

Jim, welcome to WB. It would be helpful if you could provide some examples of wines or styles that you like. There are plenty of wines that I (or many others) could recommend, but they might not suit your palate.

Also, I assume when you say you want a house wine, you want something you can open immediately and enjoy.

I don’t tend to stock up to much on particular bottles, but I always like to have a few bottles of Bedrock OVZ, Produttori Barbaresco, Caronne Ste. Gemme, Sainte Cosme, and Calluna CVC lying around just in case people show up. I think any of these could be a “house wine”.

G.D. Vajra Langhe Rosso
G.D. Vajra Langhe Nebbiolo
Castello di Neive Barbera D’ Alba Santo Stefano

A lot of options. I pair with what I’m eating and so end up drinking a lot of differently styled wines.

Here are some that are fairly widely available:
Vietti Perbacco
Dirty and Rowdy Familiar
Ridge Geyserville
Bedrock old vine Zinfandel
Lopez de Haro Rioja
Felsina Chianti classico riserva
Produttori barbaresco
Faury St. Joseph
Chave St. Joseph offerus
Herve Souhaut Syrah (if you can find it)
Clos de la Roilette Beaujolais
Bernard Baudry Chinon Grezeaux

Alternatively, email Weygandt Wines and ask them to put together a $275-$300 mixed case and tell them what you like and you’ll get wines that are unique and undervalued.

White: Cameron Willamette Valley Chardonnay ($12.15 w/case discount)

Red: Tyrus Evan Ciel du Cheval (~$17 with the close out sales)

Jim,

For whites, I like:

Pépière (Marc Ollivier) Muscadet Vieilles Vignes Clos des Briords; the best sub-$20 wine I’ve had. I buy big in good vintages, as it ages well.

Domaine Huet Vouvray Sec (all three vineyards); recently topped the $30 mark, so I don’t buy as much as I used to. This has a little residual sweetness and good acidic cut, and pairs really well with spicy, fatty, and Asian and Indian cuisine.

For reds:

Castello di Monsanto Chianti Classico Riserva; one of the best sub-$20 reds, and I’m not afraid what would happen if I lost it in the cellar for a decade.

Olga Raffault Chinon Les Picasses; a $20 wine that drinks very nicely on release, and for thirty years.

Great first post!

Cheers,

Warren

We also find it very useful to have a good stock of house wines/daily drinkers, or whatever you want to call them. It’s useful for entertaining, bringing to holidays with family, or opening for a glass when you aren’t sure you’ll finish the bottle.

There are some great suggestions above. I second Gary’s vote for Vajra Langhe Rosso, or any good langhe rosso, actually. It’s a great choice for a soft, food friendly red. Another light bodied red we find extremely useful is Corte Gardoni Corvina Becco Rosso Veronese IGT. It works well in hot weather when you want a red, but most reds are too heavy. For something with a little more grip and austerity, you might try Vallana Gattinara which is a screaming value at $27.
Warren’s suggestion of Clos des Briords is spot on. Another option in that crisp white slot is Almonodo’s Arneis Bricco delle Cieliegie, which punches way above its price tag. For a full bodied, but still totally un-oaked aromatic white, Királyudvar Furmint Sec is favorite - so versatile with food. And of course you want to have stocks of Riesling, both a dry and an off-dry, and a light Provencal style rose (we like Dme de Triennes) which get slurped up very quickly.

Enjoy.

Of course, most of us really love variety, so we’re not drinking the same thing multiple times a week. Taking the question as “what do you drink most often?”, it’s interesting to see the responses so far, and I will definitely keep an eye on the thread. I have a few things that I keep going back to.

Wittmann 100 Hills Riesling 2014 – This is way too good for the price. It has a level of ripeness and concentration rarely found in Riesling Trockens below $20, while maintaining the high acidity and refreshment that I want in Riesling.

Weinbach Riesling Reserve Personnelle – For when I’m in the mood for something a little more powerful than the Wittmann. Really delicious stuff, and exactly the style I want from Alsace (more powerful than Germany but still very pretty).

Abbazia di Novacella Kerner – This is a $20 wine that tastes like a $50 wine. It’s so complex, floral, and suave, with a great undercurrent of minerality, and the typical Alto Adige combination of ripeness and tension. I love Kerner in general, and this one’s my favorite.

In the summer, Gobelsburg Rose. This has higher acidity than pretty much anything from Southern France, making it more refreshing, which is really why I drink so much Rose in the summer. It also has a lot more minerality than pretty much anything from Southern France, which really makes it fit with my preferences. Plus, it’s just an unbelievable value.

L’Argenteyre Medoc – Solid Bordeaux Rouge at a great price. Period.

another vote for Vajra Langhe Rosso – Year after year, this is one of the great values in Old World red wine. Extremely true to place, it shows a lot of the Nebbiolo character that I often want more of in Langhe Rosso.

Rioja Bordon Reserva – This is a really elegant style of Rioja, and one that I never get sick of drinking. It has an almost Pinot Noir-like sensibility to it, while still displaying classic Rioja aromas.

Felsina Riserva will soon have a deserving place on this list as a recent bottle reminded me that it’s outstanding, traditionally styled Chianti at a very reasonable price, and I haven’t been drinking enough of it.

For sparkling, my go-to (when I can’t get the estate-grown Montlouis Brut Nature from Chidaine, which I wish were more plentiful in my home state) is Roederer Estate. This is a dead ringer for a solid, entry-level NV Champagne at twice the price. Also Tissot Indigene, but I usually can’t get it.

When I saw this thread, I immediately thought of the Loire. Muscadet offers great value for money and Pépière is widely available. It gives me everything I look for in a dry white wine and is priced like a bargain bin Chardonnay.

Similarly, if you like Cab Franc you can find a lot to like for under $20. In addition to Olga Raffault, Bernard Baudry is another name to look out for.

For me, a house wine is what I find in my eternal search for the $15-$20 wine that tastes like a million bucks. And then, when I like something, buy a half case, or maybe a case, to drink on nights I do not want to hit the more pricey stuff. For the last year, my go to white has been the 2014 Sbragia home ranch chardonnay at $20. Reds fluctuating more, but right now I am kind of liking the 2012,13,14 run of Mondavi Napa Caberney, $20-25.

If you gave me $360 to buy you a case I’d go to the Winebid.com Wines Under $29 tab and get a mixed case of older wines, some quite good. I wouldn’t buy you any reds that were newly released knowing you would drink them soon. If I weren’t on my phone I’d suggest 12 now.

I work as a somm so my tastes change every 6 weeks it seems. Here are my latest go to house wines:

Sparkling- Raventos i Blanc $20 or Duval Leroy $30

White- Willi Schaefer/JJ Prum/Donnhoff Kabinett or Spatlese Riesling $20-$30

Red- Rivers Marie Sonoma Coast Pinot $30, Miura AntiqV2s Pisoni Vineyard Syrah $35, Emplacement Syrah $20, Qupe Sawyer Lindquist Syrah $32, K Vintners Milbrandt Syrah $32

In a few weeks this could change dependent on my mood.