Friday, 06 March 2009

• As Seen on TV

  This morning, as every morning, my mother was watching the Today Show. I happened to be in the process of lacing up my shoes and putting on my dirty work clothes when a wine segment began--they said something to the affect of "have chardonnay tastes but a beer budget?"
  
  Ahem.
  
  The expert they had on is someone whom I normally would pay attention to, I've read a book co written by him that I absolutely adored. And, yes it was a wine book, not some book on something entirely unrelated to wine.
  
  But I'd give his wine choices a D. You know, if I were a teacher and could grade such things. Actually if this were true, my life would be sweet.
  
  Anyhow back to what I saw: bad, bad wine--and he was quoting pricing that's really hard to find. If you live in a large city with some competitive wine prices (NY, LA, Houston), you may be able to find these deals. He also mentioned Costco--but their choices are limited and while their pricing is good they don't specialize in 'cheap' wine. They specialize in good values--wines that usually are around $50-$20 that they price between $10-$30. In other words, the wine pricing he was quoting: good luck finding such deals.
  
  His first wine was Charles Shaw--good old two buck chuck from Trader Joes. I don't have a problem with this wine and it's only $3, maybe $4 some places. But every time I've had it, it's been pretty bad. I'm picky, though, so I really would rather spend a few more dollars for something different or use my three dollars on a good bottle of Belgium beer.
  
  But I know a lot of people who love CS, and good for them. Good for you. As we used to say, it's perfect for you, not good enough for me.
  
  I thought the CS was predictable; it was the rest of the wine that he was promoting that was horrible. He mentioned magnums, then held up a really bad bottle of Chianti. He mentioned boxed wines and had this horrible vin de pays from France.  Then he ended with the statement that it's okay to splurge on wine every once in a while because it will give you pleasure: good wine delivers.
  
  Or some such bullshit.
  
  Then held up a bottle of Dom Perignon.
  
  So let me just reaffirm what I'm good at: Finding cheap vino.
  
  Also, let me say that I don't think he's an idiot, but it's obvious a distributor has his back pocket.
  
  

  1. Private label wine can be good (Trader Joes, Costco, etc), but often times not the best deal. I'm always suspicious if they won't say who's actually making the wine. One reason why it's such a good deal is that they're purchasing extra juice for sale from various wineries. Sometimes it's great. Sometimes it's absolute shit. That's why one bottle of two buck chuck won an award and the bottle I had this summer went straight down the drain (not good enough to cook with). See if you can't find out where it's coming from before you buy it.
  2. Avoid chianti if you can't spend at least $10/bottle on it. Those basket woven magnums? Most of them are quite horrible these days: Southern Italy and Sicily are where the wine deals are in that country. Just look for cheaper sangiovese from some other part of Italy in leu of that cheap chianti. Trust me.
  3. There are some really good box wines out there now, and sometimes it doesn't seem like the best deal because they are around $25/box. But that's three bottles of wine--so about $8/bottle. That's great. The other good thing is that the wine actually keeps for a while in a box, once it's been open, verses a bottle--where you're lucky to get three days of decent tasting wine. But I really would avoid vin de pays box wines. A lot of those cheap box wines from other countries are made in a very fast fermentation process. That's fine if it's drunk 'fresh'--or if it's shipped properly. But cheap wine is going to be shipped cheaply, and those box wines taste like shit in the end. Look local (american--for us americans), or for the aussies. They know how to do box wines.
  4. And finally, jesus, of course splurge on wine every once in a while if you can afford to do so. I have always done so and I've never made much money. A bottle of wine that I love that costs $50 is totally worth it, to me. This isn't the case for everyone--so if you don't fit this category, stop reading and keep on keeping on with your two buck chuck. But if you really do appreciate wine, and are willing to pay $50-$150 for wine every once in a while, great.
     
     But for fuck's sake: THINK. I've got nothing against Dom Perignon. It's quite good. But it's $110-$160 and is one of the wine's world most over charged wines: Champagne. Buy some sparkling from the US that's awesome (Schramsberg--their Mirabelle Brut Rose' just got great reviews and it retails for $25 for example), or there's a ton of non champagne european wines that are wonderful (Cava's from spain--Naveran Reserve is $19), Alsace (Lucene Albrecht Rose is $18), Loire--range in price from $10 to $20 and often awesome. But here's the real kicker for $50 (sometimes a bit less) you can get AWESOME small grower (meaning more of a hand made product) champagne--yes real champagne from France. Why not do something like that instead of spending twice as much on some name.
     
     What I'm saying is with these tough times, do a bit more research and find something cooler in that price range. You may be surprised and find something cheaper and better than what you'd normally drop $100 on.

  Anyhow, that's all I've got. Just a rant and explanation why I thought his wine choices were stupid.
  
  Perhaps tomorrow I'll give you some real tips? I'll think about it.
  
  Meanwhile: Cheers--happy drinking and happy wine hunting.
  
  
  
  

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