Damn good affordable wines?

[huntress]

I don't see a thrad for this, on the top page anyways, so here we go.

I'm a winebibber. I be lovin' me some wines. I prefer dry reds, medium to heavy. Over the years, I've developed a bit of a palate, which surprises me as much as anyone. At the same time, I ain't rich, so I rarely purchase high-priced wines.

I'm hoping there are enough winos here for this discussion to be fruitful.

I'll start.

My current favorites are:

Layer Cake Malbec (Mendoza, Argentina, although the vintner is American, so you're like to find it in different places in different stores).

"My old grandfather made and enjoyed wine for 80 years. He told me the soil in which the vines lived were a layer cake. He said the wine, if properly made, was like a great layer cake, fruit, mocha and chocolate, hints of spice and rich, always rich. 'Never pass up a layer cake,' he would say. I have always loved those words."

I just thought that was cool.

This is a delightfully complex wine, as advertised. Best after at least 30 minutes breathing time. When we first discovered it (in 2010), it was about $22.50/btl. Now we get it for about $15.50. Still an awesome wine.

Ravenswood Vintner's Blend Old Vine Zinfandel. One of your heavier reds, but with hints of cherries, pepper, and oak. We just tried this one a week or so ago and decided we were both in love. I think it runs around $17/btl.

So far, I've not had the opportunity to compare different years of this wine side by side. I can tell you, though, that if you can get your hands on a 2010 bottle of the malbec, it'll make your knees melt.

How about y'all? What do you love? Recommendations? (Also, food suggestions with the wines you love, if you're so inclined.)

d

[lisarea]

I prefer the kind that, like, costs $8 and is up by the registers and has pictures of feet or animals on it. But I just keep it around for cooking mostly.

But I am watching this thread and I'd appreciate anyone's recommendations for wines for pot roasts and spaghetti sauce and the occasional cheap and inoffensive option for wine babies such as myself. (I did like that Menage a Trois you recommended that one time, for example.)

[thedoc]

Depends on what you qualify as 'Good' and 'affordable'.

I usually go by cheap.

'Taylor' has a selection of port and sherry that is inexpensive.

I used to be able to buy the 'Kings' brand, but the Pa. State Wine and Spirits Shops do not carry it anymore, they had an interesting white port that I liked.

I have recently found 'Richards' Wild Irish Rose, Red, that is even less expensive in the large bottle.

'Bully Hill' of NY has a line of inexpensive wines, and if you can get to the winery they put on a very entertaining show for a wine tasteing. We like their 'Niagara' and the 'Sweet Walter Rose Wine'.

Note. These are all sweet wines, if you like dry, you'll need to ask someone else.
The Taylor is about $16.00 for a 3 Liter bottle and is 36 proof.

[LadyShea]

Louis Jadot Beaujolais
Liberty School Cabernet
Evolution 9 (blended white, OMG so good)
Chateau de le Gardine

[Qingdai]

I like wine.

If you're really cheap (like me) and have a Trader Joe's around, I suggest this blog.

Trader Joe's Wine Compendium

Seeing that you like two wines I like, may I recommend Big Fire? Around $20 and oh so good.
Big Fire | R. Stuart & Co. Winery

It's from the area I grew up in, which is Pinot Noir area. But don't let that dissuade you, it actually is a good full bodied wine.

I second the Louis Jadot Beaujolais, it's been good since I first had it in the 1990s, and readily available.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi chardonnay.

I'm drinking Aussie reds lately (Merlot & Shiraz, mainly).

[livius drusus]

Ravenswood has a solid Cabernet Sauvignon too, and I've gotten the 2009 at my local purveyor of wine and spirits for less than $8.

Now is the time when I plug Montepulciano because it's not the most famous of grapes but it makes a great low acid, smooth, berry-y but not sweet red. Stella and Masciarelli are two vintners I've snagged on the less than 10 dollars rack that make a quality Montepulciano.

[Sauron]

Ahem.

[huntress]

Sis, when I was in Italia, I tried a bottle of Schioppettino, which knocked my socks off. I've been unable to locate a bottle of it since.

d

[huntress]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Louis Jadot Beaujolais
Liberty School Cabernet
Evolution 9 (blended white, OMG so good)
Chateau de le Gardine

Will have to try it.

Today, coincidentally, I purchased a Jouis Jadot Beaujolais-Villages 2011.

I like mixes, so this looks promising. I think it was around $14.

d

[huntress]

Originally Posted by Qingdai

Seeing that you like two wines I like, may I recommend Big Fire? Around $20 and oh so good.
Big Fire | R. Stuart & Co. Winery

It's from the area I grew up in, which is Pinot Noir area. But don't let that dissuade you, it actually is a good full bodied wine.

Sounds promising! I think there's a Trader Joe's in Denver, but we may be able to find Big Fire in one of our local shops. Colorado Springs runs high on nice wine selections.

And I like pinot noirs, if they aren't too thin. I like a little spice to my wine.

d

[Dingfod]

Make your own.

[huntress]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

Ravenswood has a solid Cabernet Sauvignon too, and I've gotten the 2009 at my local purveyor of wine and spirits for less than $8.

Now is the time when I plug Montepulciano because it's not the most famous of grapes but it makes a great low acid, smooth, berry-y but not sweet red. Stella and Masciarelli are two vintners I've snagged on the less than 10 dollars rack that make a quality Montepulciano.

Brava.

I walked past a bottle of Ravenswood cab about an hour ago. I used to drink cabs all the time (when I was in Cali), but I tend more toward zins and malbecs these days. Perhaps 'tis time to go back toward my original favorite, the earthy reds.

Montepulciano, huh? I'll give it a go.

d

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by huntress

Sounds promising! I think there's a Trader Joe's in Denver, but we may be able to find Big Fire in one of our local shops. Colorado Springs runs high on nice wine selections.

Colorado has some weird liquor laws, one of which is that food stores can't sell anything over 3.2% alcohol. This is the main reason that Trader Joe's hasn't opened a store in Colorado before.

They are going to open a TJ in Denver later this year, but it won't sell liquor except maybe 3.2 beer. I think it's supposed to have a separate liquor store next to it, but chain liquor stores are prohibited too (that's why all the liquor stores are mom and pops), so I don't know how they're going to work that. Like if the attached store would even have the regular TJ selection with the two buck Chucks and such, or if it'll just be a regular liquor store.

[Ensign Steve]

That's so weird because in Maryland you can't buy wine at the grocery store and ages ago I went to a Trader Joe's in Annapolis that just didn't sell wine. I was like, what is this place?!

[huntress]

wtf. they will allow us to buy booze on sundays, but they still have that stupid 3.2 thang?

backward buttlicking mouthbreathers

d

[lisarea]

WTF, TRADER JOES? MARYLAND?

The big excuse they always used for not having any in Colorado was that liquor thing!

But they have one without liquor in MARYLAND? Maryland is barely even a real place! I mean, my brother technically lives in Maryland, and do you know why? Because even if you LIVE IN MARYLAND, THE STATE IS JUST A TECHNICALITY!

FUCK YOU TRADER JOE'S. BOYCOTT TRADER JOE'S.

ETA:

Originally Posted by huntress

wtf. they will allow us to buy booze on sundays, but they still have that stupid 3.2 thang?

backward buttlicking mouthbreathers

d

The reasoning behind the law is stupid, and the law itself is ridiculous, but.

An unintended consequence of that is that there's this one little niche where small independent business owners can thrive without having some bigassed corporate concern coming in and steamrolling them, whether it's grocery stores or chain liquor stores. So like immigrants and working class families can open up a liquor store and make a decent living in Colorado without having some giant corporation coming in and undercutting them.

I am actually kind of for that backward buttlicking mouthbreathing.

[BrotherMan]

I can double check my Trader Joe's but I don't think they sell alcohol there either.

[Qingdai]

No beer or wine? That's what TJ's is known for, lots of strange snack food, that once you start to love it, gets discontinued and cheap ass wine and beer.
Silly people, calling wine liquor. Does not compute.

If you don't need a distiller to make it, a grocery store can sell it here.
Now also you can get a growler of wine to go from a small winery.
Wine in reusable growlers? Ore. Senate says cheers
Apparently that was the least classy way to serve wine Oregon could think of, so we went for it. Also now cider growlers are OK.

Hahaha. Still can't buy hard liquor very easily on Sundays here, and it's still controlled by the state.

Also Big Fire is carried at TJ's so I wouldn't bother to look for it there.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by Qingdai

Now also you can get a growler of wine to go from a small winery.
Wine in reusable growlers? Ore. Senate says cheers
Apparently that was the least classy way to serve wine Oregon could think of, so we went for it.

Oh, Oregon. You so precious.

[Qingdai]

Get me my jug o'wine and my turning stick!

Shut up! IT'S ENVIRONMENTAL!

[livius drusus]

Originally Posted by huntress

Sis, when I was in Italia, I tried a bottle of Schioppettino, which knocked my socks off. I've been unable to locate a bottle of it since.

Wow, that's a niche find right there. I've never seen a single bottle of it in the States. Hell, I never saw a bottle of it south of Bologna. Where in Italy did you come across it?

I yearn tragically for a 2007 Sandrone Barbera d'Alba that was the most amazing chameleon wine I've ever had. It does this trick where it pairs perfectly with each successive course, no matter what the level of difficulty. Bruchetta app? Too easy, drill sergeant. Penne alla gorgonzola first course? Oh god this can't possibly work HOLY SHIT IT'S FLAWLESS. Nectarine tart dessert? Okay time to switch to the liqueur... no wait! It still frikking works!

I tried to stock up on it but it didn't last. It just didn't have the stamina for it, although I'm sure it would have lasted longer had I had proper wine cellar conditions.

But I derail. My dream Sandrone was not cheap. Not crazy expensive or anything -- $35 or so, iirc -- but not cheap.

[huntress]

I found the schioppettino in a fairly large grocery store in Ferrara. I think I paid 8 euro for it, even.

I paired it with fresh fruit, weirdly enough, and it was a.maz.ing.

d

[Dingfod]

What little wine I buy, most of it is from a small local winery, Whispering Vines, which is located between my house and Tulsa. They're only open when the gates are open, which is when they are there, and not always predictable, so instead of paying them $8 a bottle, I pay the liquor store $8.95 a bottle.

[BrotherMan]

At much risk to myself I double checked my local Trader Joe's. They definitely don't have any alcohol. But that's consistent across the state here, regular stores don't sell the devil drinks.