I think one other really good, maybe close to amazing wine I had for ~20 a couple years ago was the altesino rosso di montalcino
Definitely your best chances to get good, and even sometimes (though rarely) mind-blowing, reds in the $20 range are from Italy and Spain.
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The next question is how consistent is it? Was it the 2016 vintage that was incredible? If so, I wonder how the 2017 was…
The one I had was 2015.
Amazing is relative, but occasionally I drink one of these and am amazed it’s still under 20 bucks in NY.
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That’s great John, thank you.
I 100% agree that wine shops are far more likely to guide us to very interesting wines at or below $20. I do almost all of my shopping with 4 shops that I have long term relationships with.
But while those shops can often point me to 4-5 bottles of inexpensive wine. And some like the Huguet de Can Feixes Blanco are super tasty at $15-17, these are still pretty rare in comparison to the overall number of sub-$20 wines. Probably .01% of sub-$20 volume, and requiring someone(not me) to do a fair bit of hunting to find it.
When I was in distribution(2008-2010), we had a really nice array of sub-$20 retail wines. A good selection from Portugal, though some of those were from high production wineries, quite a few from the south of France, some Bordeaux options, wines from Reuilly, other regions in the Loire, and we a ridiculously good table wine from Tuscany that we sold at $5.89 wholesale. No household names though, these were all little farmhouse producers who the owner of the company had found and developed relationships with. But still, in our single portfolio we had probably 30-50 options, some that would retail around $10 and all of which were punching above their weight.
At the same time, lots of other regions were still sub-$20 as well. Muscadet, Germany, Austria(H u M Hofer liters of Gruner Veltliner were excellent and about $14 not too long ago). Even Oregon had lots of very, very good sub-$20 white wines, and some good sub-$20 Pinot Noirs (and Michael Sterling’s Berserker Day Pinot Noir offers are still at $20, less than that if you look at the real cost of shipping).
But as Michael noted, the large majority is now on the north side of $20. So I think it’s not unfair to suggest that Otto is somewhat correct, but so is the somm in the article.
I think Briords is still < $20 in some places.
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Sorry, for clarification. Do you mean obscure or vague? Not picking an argument just making sure.
It’s, IMO, a bit of a vague statement.
But in general, once a grower commits to an organic growing process the costs of that choice require an increase in fruit costs. So it’s quite likely, as in not absolutely but considerably more often than not, that fruit grown for inexpensive bottles will contain synthesized fungicides and herbicides.
There was a study of wines to determine if they contained Round-up, and there’s a thread discussing the results here on the board. So it definitely gets used on or near enough to affect the vineyards.
And conventional grape farming utilizes synthetic fungicides to prevent mildew.
I know eastern Washington/Oregon is a very dry high desert climate, and it’s my understanding that mildew pressure there is very low. But where growing there may moderate the inputs to prevent mildew or keep weeds down, there is a higher need for nutrient to be added to vines, and the bigger producers are still, very probably, not going to be organically farmed.
Well, I didn’t really want to say the article was intentionally misleading, as I thought it was perhaps too strong, but there are plenty of wines at all price points that are conventionally farmed and/or use synthetic chemicals. So, I don’t think it’s fair to generalize that one can spend X amount of dollars to increase the chance of having a wine free of added chemicals.
Same for the sense of terroir. Plenty of wines across the board that describe a sense of place and plenty of wines made in an “international style” that obliterate any sense of it.
Maybe what I’m saying is the article was kinda pointless 
Some. Lots where it has sadly now gone over that point. Was nice while it lasted.
For an incredibly long time the Donnhoff Estate Riesling was $19.99 or lower. An amazing wine for such a low price. Pretty much always $22-$25 now.
Funny you mention that wine, as I just referred to it in another thread.
I can find some pretty good wine around 20€ here in Europe. But it is certainly becoming harder with the current inflation.
At 25-30€ i can find a ton of very good wine.
Apropos of this thread, I just bought ‘21 Clos de Roilette Fleurie Cuvée Tardive for $20/btl. That’s about as close I can think of for a really good wine for $20. But it falls in the category of something you need to search for. Unlikely to be on the shelves for that price at a local liquor store.
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That’s a below market price. Good shopping!
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Have you had the '18 yet? Local distribution stopped at '16, have been wondering about more recent vintages.
Just this morning I placed an order for a six pack of 2021 Brotte Tavel Les Églantiers at $8.99 per bottle. Heck of a deal.
Jealous of you guys in Europe for this sort of thing. We have a local guy who brings in mostly organic/biodynamic Italians (Piedmont, who also gets Falkenstein) and he always seemed to have something satisfying in that price range. But $30 is the new $20 for that stuff.
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Still able to find the OL kabi for around 28 after tax and shipping which is more than fair imo
I could imagine. Lots of good cheaper stuff in italy.
I can still find Burlotto and Fratelli Alessandria’s Pelaverga for 20€ or less as an example. They are very decent wines. Also just bought Franck Balthazar’s Crozes-Hermitage for 19€ and a very good Spätburgunder, from a producer called Carsten Saalwächter. It only cost me 16€ and i enjoyed it more than much more expensive Burgundies i have tasted. Paid around 20€ for Hermann Ludes “Monster” Kabinett 2021 which is a stunning wine!
But at around 20€ in Europe i can see the issue with finding something like that in the US.
i don’t know a lot about US winemakers, as we don’t have the best selection here, and they are very expensive. But if you can find wines like these in Europe there must be gems in the US as well?
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Here it’s like Marcus and Michael and the author of the article are saying, I don’t see so much from small, high-quality producers under $20 anymore vs. a diversity of things I am always reading about you guys drinking over there.
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