GREAT che-e-e-p wine

[captainvino]

If you can find it, try Carmen (chile) reserve "Grande Vidure". Base grape is Carmenere, thought to be extinct since 1900 (+/-). Growing in Chile as a Merlot until reidentified by UC-Davis about 1993. Great sm0000th red @ $12.00 (+/-)

[Botafogo]

$12 is Cheeeeeeeeeep???? We don't invoke the "C-Word" until we get under $7.99!!!!

This year at VinItaly we will be in search of the great MAGNUM of red for $6.99, no doubt from Sardegna or Puglia but Cesanese del Piglio has possibilities (made in Lazio, Mussolini is said to have adored it!)

[captainvino]

captainvino says .... "To each his own...."

[Thomas]

Another great subject. How cheap does wine have to be in order to get Americans to drink it daily?

In one of my columns I am spending each month in 1999 looking for, and writing about, wines under $8 and under $10. They are out there, and many are drinkable too.

Seems to me the $10 ceiling at retail is a valuable point to keep in mind. It is amazing how many customers move on when the price of a bottle of wine exceeds $9.99.

Chilean at $12 a bottle, I think, appeals to the upper-income people.

[Jerry D Mead]

Leon Adams always insisted that basic red and white should cost no more than milk, which is the way it used to be in Europe...especially in Italy (and sometimes they even made it from grapes!).

JDM

[captainvino]

Last year in France, we purchased a plastic bottle of 97 Margaux, poured from a huge barrel in the back of a local wine store about 500 yds from Ch. Margaux. Cost about $7 US for 1 1/2 liter. Was as good as anything we get here .... and therein lies the problem. The "ch-e-e-p wines they drink in Europe, we cannot get here, so we have to make good with what we can find.

[Bucko]

Cheap wine means different things to different folks. Not only is a cheap wine based on a person's disposable income, it is also based on experience with a class of wines. A wine that comes close to giving the pleasure of an d'Yquem and costs $60.00 is cheap compared to a $180.00 d'Yquem. A wine that is very tasty at under $25.00 has a different meaning of cheapness if your income is five figures a year versus six figures. My 2 cents worth.

Bucko

[Thomas]

Wow. All good points. Leon Adams of course got it right, but boy are we never going to see that wish come true.

In my humble yet strident opinion, we ain't never going to get a wine-drinking public in America until we can offer a daily dose at the price of coke (the cola, that is).

I am appalled by even good wine-drinking friends who refuse to buy anything better than Carlo Rossi jugs for the table, simply becasue the better stuff, to them, is too "expensive."

If some of these friends knew what I spend on wine, relative to my income, they would have me committed. But the point is, since wine is not a daily staple in the minds of Americans, it is not one they choose to spend money on. The same people who would feed gallons of cola to their kids and who would spend hundreds of dollars a year on cigarettes, find wine expensive.

So, Leon Adams had the point. of course, the price of milk is slowly rising toward the price of wine. Maybe there is hope.

[Botafogo]

Have you ever noticed that there seems to be not one vine of Montepulciano in California? Everyone is messing around with Sangiovese and Nebbiolo and charging Brunello and Barolo prices for their R&D when if they would just plant the Central Valley to Montepuciano d'Abruzzo we would all have a third spigot on our kitchen sinks with a "W" on it for WINE!

It is possible, the powers that be just don't want it to happen.

[Thomas]

Interesting concept; worth exploring. Let's hope, though, that when they do produce Montepulciano, California producers will refrain from making it taste like a Bordeaux wine, the way so many do with Sangiovese.

[Randy Caparoso]

Dudes, my favorite "cheaps":

#1 is the '97 or '98 Carchelo Monastrell from 2500 foot elevations in South-East Spain. Soft, supple, yet dense and rich stuff retailing for well under $10 most places. The '97 is 80% Garnacha and 20% Merlot. The '98 has an unbelievably wild element added -- 10 % Tempranillo. This wine has soul and class!

#2 for me is Kermit Lynch's yearly selection of Domaine de la Gautier, Provencal vin de pays. 100% organic/unfiltered as is their custom; but these days it's also 100% Syrah, with luscious peppery black fruit aromatics and soft tannins supporting round yet zesty flavors. Also under $10.

#3 for me is the '96 Heron Merlot; its lineage being of pure varietal from South-West France and carry a vin d'oc classification. For $7-$10, it's much more Merlot -- plump, juicy black cherry and rolly-polly flavors -- than absolutely anything from California in the $7-$14 range.
Put together by an enterprising young woman from San Francisco named Laely Heron.

Finally, I agree that "cheap" can also mean $12-$18 that taste like a million. For those, I think the best regions currently to mine are Irouleguy in South-West France (sturdy yet classy stuff made from Tannat and Cabernet Sauvignon), Cahors from the same region, Carmignano (rich, smooth Sangiovese based Tuscans with usually subtle Cabernet complexities -- especially Capezzana's), and some of the better Cabernets from Chile (my hands-down favorite is Patrick Campbell's Terra Rosa).

Oh, don't forget Laurel Glen's extraordinary, Zinfandel based "Reds." Nothing, I say noth-thing in the $7 and under category beats that!