13 bottles of wine for $158 (and that includes a $30 white Burgundy)

Despite wine’s worst intentions, it’s still possible to buy quality cheap wine – and lots of it

For all the hand-wringing about the evils of premiumization (here and elsewhere), and the idea that no one makes or cares about quality cheap wine anymore, it’s still out there. Which is what this recent shopping trip demonstrated.

The average price here, including the retailer’s various discounts but not sales tax, was $12.15 a bottle for the baker’s dozen. Throw out the $30 white Burgundy, and it was just $10.67 a bottle — more or less what it has always been in the almost 16 years I’ve written the blog.

And, of course, none of the wine was crappy.

Rather, it’s about buying smart and following the guidelines that have served all of us well who want quality wine but who refuse to pay jumped up prices for it. That means staying away from California, looking for grapes and regions that aren’t as common, and to be wiling to try something different. This time, given the emerging grape glut, I was also able to find some marked down previous vintages.

My shopping cart included:

• Four bottles of vinho verde, which I would have bought even if the last eight weeks here had not seemed to average 105 degrees a day.

• One French and one Spanish white blend, staying away from the premium charged for chardonnay – even cheap chardonnay from France.

• La Vieille Ferme – three roses and one red. I didn’t buy any white because the store was sold out.

• A couple of previous vintage roses, including the one-liter Cote Mas Aurore.

More about buying cheap wine:
• Inflation? What inflation? 10 bottles of wine for $114
• Suck on this, premiumization: 14 bottles of wine for $148
• Premiumization be damned: $139.36 for 14 ½ bottles of cheap wine