Do you sort of loose your producer label mojo drinking in Europe?

Just back from Spain. Ate out every night and saw somethings I love and know like chablis producers. Even saw a very well priced 80E btl of 2014 Gaunoux Pommard Eponets on a list and passed. Instead I settled for albarino and rioja producers I’ve never heard of before and was challenged to break 20E/btl on any restaurant list. I even settled for some 2.50 - 4E house whites on occasion. We drank a lot of terrific cava by the glass for less than 5E. I think if I lived in Europe for more than six months I’d sell my entire cellar. At times, I likely skipped well known producers just to not confirm their image of Americans always buying the higher end stuff. I didn’t drink one alborino producer I’ve ever had before. Great fun and such a bargain!

Great post . . . and point!

If only the same were true in America with American wines. Ha. You can break 20 euro per teaspoon.

Spain is easy. In most regular restaurants, I would order the house reds and whites and was generally happy, didn’t make a fuss about the wine. Enjoyed the beer as well. We went to a couple of higher end places, and I did geek out on some mature Riojas, but even they are not expensive relative to French or CA wine costs at many restaurants.

My sense is that in North America restaurants tend to under charge for food and over charge for wine. And perhaps in Europe the average person cares more about what’s in the glass than what’s on the bottle, compared to here.

I don’t think there is anywhere in the world you can eat and drink like you can in Spain.

Spain is indeed incredibly cheap for wines compared to other European countries (UK, Netherlands, Belgium, France, etc). Italy is probably somewhere in between. I feel like people are more into food than wine over there.

And remember that it is one of the largest wine producing countries in the world, whose wines are certainly far for “sought after” at the moment…

In Italy, Spain, and Portugal we have been pleased by the house wines at most restaurants. They are almost always great and inexpensive. In the US, house wines all taste like the esteeemd Charles Shaw.

as many have already pointed out, you can drink quite well and inexpensively without drinking any brands that you ever heard of, while travelling in Italy, France, Austria…

Whenever I loose my producer label mojo, I tighten it.

My experiences are mostly limited to Italy. But it is far easier to take a shot on an unknown producer and find a good wine than here in the US. Still I mostly focus on wines that I can’t find here or botttles that are great values. Or both.

Thankfully Europe hasn’t been infected with inexpensive table wine being left slightly off dry. In the US I’ve pretty much stopped ordering wine at the lower end unless I’m somewhere that takes an active hand in their wine list.

It’s a great point. Getting 3.5 euro glasses of house red in the French countryside, enjoying the food and the companionship; those experiences are somehow just as magical in my memory as whatever $$$$ unicorn extravaganza (if not more so)

We couldn’t even read the labels in Croatia but loved it, really enjoyed the wines, amazing pairing with the local seafood.

LOVE this thread - heading to Spain with my wife next Saturday so really appreciate the feedback around drinking well/cheap over there!

Sorry for the thread drift…but if anyone has any great Barcelona restaurant recos, please feel free to PM me , as I would definitely appreciate it.

I can totally relate. I go to Amsterdam for a 3 weeks stay twice a year and have a similar experience at the wine centric restaurants there. Since I’ve gotten to know the “sommeliers” at each of my favs places, I turn over the wine selections, especially for food pairings to them and never regret it. As you state, the prices are very low and the quality is pretty high and this comes from producers completely off the familiar path.

At the top wine shops, I’ve also gotten to know many of the clerks and trust them to recommend wines, even from the Netherlands along with some from Belgium, Switzerland and Germany that I’m completely unfamiliar with. Its a lot of fun to explore and the hit on the wallet is minimal. Good post.

All the time. For me drinking the same few varieties of wine would drive me crazy. Even worse would be doing that when traveling. Very rarely have we been disappointed with our choices and often have discovered wines that we prefer with the food we enjoy.

Tom

Once spent a day driving about and tasting wine with an Italian restaurateur looking for a variety of house wines. Incredibly inexpensive wines with excellent quality. Most probably don’t travel more than a few dozen km. I seem to have overdone it since I ended up vomiting out the window of his Jag that evening.

Vomiting inside would be overdoing it, you’re cool.

Enjoyed a bunch of $13 - $15 euro wines in France that I most likely will never find again. Same could be said for Italy. Not so much for Ireland though. LOL