2022 $10 Wine Hall of Fame

Good news again this year – eight wines entered the 2022 $10 Hall of Fame

Call it luck. Call it the WC turning over every wine rock in the world in the search for quality and value. Or, maybe, call it a resurgence in cheap wine quality, as welcome as it was unexpected.

Somehow, despite the second year of the pandemic, the continued curse of premiumization, and supply shortages and all that inflation, eight wines entered the 2022 $10 Hall of Fame. Perhaps even more impressive: I could have added four or five more, but decided to err on the side of caution. And perhaps even more impressive than that: only three wines dropped out, all for availability.

That’s the good news. The bad? Only a couple of dozen wines merited consideration, and I typically get twice that many in a good year. And availability remains the biggest problem facing those of us want more than the plonk cluttering up supermarket wine shelves. There just aren’t enough wholesalers left who are big enough or nimble enough so that they can forgo mass market profits to distribute the most interesting and well-made cheap wines.

So let’s enjoy the good news. The inductees include:

• Four whites: the Spanish Condesa albarino; a South African blend, from MAN’s Essay label; an Austrian gruner veltliner, Wachau Loess; and the French Guilhem blend.

• Two roses: the French Les Dauphins Reserve Rose and a Portuguese vinho verde from Faisao.

• A pair of South African blends – the red and white from Boekenhoutskloof’s The Wolftrap.

The dropouts were Argentina’s Argento malbec, plus two Italian reds, the Tenuta Carpazo sangiovese and the La Valentina Montelpuciano.

The complete 2022 $10 Wine Hall of Fame is here. The Hall’s selection process and eligibility rules are here. I considered wines that cost as much as $13 or $14 to take into account price creep and regional pricing differences.

Photo: Los Muertos Crew from Pexels