Tag Archives: $10 wine

Wine of the week: Ch teau de Campuget rose 2012

Wine of the week: Ch teau de Campuget rose 2012The Wine Curmudgeon is putting his keyboard where his metrics are. If rose is really undergoing a resurgence, then this post should be a hit with visitors and not end up in the cyber-ether wasteland where most of my rose reviews go.

And why not? The Campuget ($10, purchased, 13%) is an exceptional rose, especially for the price, made with syrah from the Rhone region of France. Best yet, it’s the kind of wine you can drink all day during Thanksgiving — tasty, fresh, relatively low in alcohol, and something that will pair with almost anything the holiday dishes up (pun sort of intended).

This is a traditional French rose, which means a little cranberry fruit and that the wine is as dry as the proverbial martini. It was exactly what I was hoping for when I bought it. Highly recommended, and a candidate for the 2014 $10 Hall of Fame.

cheap wine backlash

Falesco wins cheap wine poll

wine-bottles-rowFalesco Vitiano, the long-time Wine Curmudgeon favorite, stormed past Bogle over the weekend to win the blog’s first best cheap wine brand poll. Bogle had held a comfortable lead until Saturday morning, when Falesco made its move. The complete results are here.

McManis finished third, while Two-buck Chuck came in last among the 10 brands. The other big mover was Barefoot, which spent most of the poll in ninth, but rallied over the weekend to finish sixth.

The biggest surprise was Yellow + Blue, which came in ninth. I’ve never had a badly made Yellow + Blue wine, and its products regularly make the $10 Hall of Fame. The only thing I can think of is that voters really don’t like wine in boxes, which is something they need to work on.

Thanks to everyone for the terrific response, which earned the poll a Statesman’s badge from Ranker, the company that does the polling widget. We had 770 votes, which was a nice turnout for something that didn’t get a lot of planning or preparation. And thanks for all your comments, even the not-so-nice ones. Much of the what I did this year was limited by the polling widget, and I’ll see if I can streamline the polling next year.

Wine of the week: McManis Petite Sirah 2011

McManis Petite Sirah 2011Wine competitions, regardless of some deserved criticism over the past couple of years, are the great levellers of the wine business. Since every wine is judged blind, price, appellation, and critical acclaim don’t matter, and it’s difficult for judges to vote their prejudices. Yes, lots of expensive wines do well, but so do lots of cheap wines — often to the chagrin of the people who give them the medals.

Few things make the Wine Curmudgeon happier than to find quality cheap wine that earns big awardsl at wine competitions, and especially at the best known. That was the case this year, when the McManis ($11, sample, 13.5%) won a double gold medal at the San Francisco International Wine Competition, perhaps the most prestigious of them all. The McManis was in fine company — double golds also went to a $40 California pinot noir, a $125 Napa cabernet sauvignon, and a $50 Paso Robles red blend.

And why not? McManis, as my old pal Dave Falchek regularly reminds me, is at least the equal of Bogle, one of my cheap wine favorites and a fixture in the $10 Hall of Fame. The petite sirah shows why: a little earthiness and lots of dark fruit, not too overdone, and, most importantly, varietally correct, This is petite sirah that tastes like petite sirah, something that too many producers no longer bother with. Drink this with dinner as the weather gets cooler and don’t be afraid to open a bottle or two at Thanksgiving. A candidate for the 2014 Hall of Fame, since it retails for $10 in much of the country.

Wine of the week: Purato Catarratto Pinot Grigio 2010

PURATO-CAT-PG-2013-okOne day, no doubt, the Wine Curmudgeon will stop writing about Sicilian wine in gushing, rapturous tones. I just hope it doesn’t happen anytime soon.

The Purato ($7, purchased, 12.5%) is a white blend from Sicily that, once again, offers everything a great cheap wine should. It’s interesting, which means it does more than just shove fruit in your face. It provides ridiculous value, even when it’s not a previous vintage (as this is). And it’s a delight to drink, which means the bottle is empty and an hour has gone by before you realize what has happened, and you’re wondering why you didn’t buy more of this when you had the chance.

Catarratto is a grape native to Sicily that has traditionally been used to make marsala, a sweet dessert wine. It’s increasingly being used to make table wines as part of Sicily’s wine renaissance, and blending it with pinot grigio is just another of those things the Sicilians have done that has turned out better than anyone could have imagined.

Look for lots of white pepper and a little pinot grigio fruit (maybe a lemon drop that isn’t sweet?), and without any of the bitterness or boredom that is the hallmark of too many Italian pinot grigios. This is a seafood or roast chicken wine, or even something to drink when you want a glass of wine and you don’t want to be bothered by any wine foolishness. Highly recommended, and if this isn’t in the 2014 $10 Hall of Fame, I should skip doing it.

Wine of the week: Hardys Nottage Hill Pinot Noir 2012

BT008501-ARDAGH-460g-PinotNoir-NottageHillWhen we did this year’s great cheap pinot noir tasting, Diane Teitelbaum and I were surprised at how many wines labeled as pinot noir didn’t taste like pinot noir. Regardless of anything else, cheap merlot tastes like merlot, cheap chardonny tastes like chardonny, and so forth.

But that wasn’t the case with the pinots. There were some exceptions, but the most of the wines we tasted made us wonder: Was what the wine business considered pinot noir changing to meet pricing and consumer demands?

Fortunately, the Hardys ($10, sample, 13%) shows what can be done when the winemaker and the Big Wine company that pays for the wine want to make pinot noir that tastes like pinot noir. Even more amazing: This is an Australian wine, and Australia is hardly prime pinot noir territory.

Nevertheless, this is quality cheap pinot — not nearly as fruity as most of the wines we tasted in June and with more structure. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end, and not just the juicy fruitiness that is what most other cheap pinots offer. Look for a telltale pinot herbal aroma as well as muted cherry and raspberry fruit. And while it’s not to be confused with a $75 red Burgundy (pinot noir from France), it will more than do for those of us who don’t have $75 for a bottle of wine. Highly recommended, and a candidate for the 2014 $10 Hall of Fame.

Wine of the week: Maculan Pino & Toi 2012

pino_toiCue moody music.

The phone rang. The voice on the other end was sharp, abrupt. “You da Curmudgeon? I gots some cheap wines for ya. Go ta dis place” — and he mentioned a retailer in Dallas that specializes in Italian wine — “and tell ’em Ace sent ya.” And then he hung up.

Shift scene to a neighborhood that has seen better days. I adjusted the brim on my fedora, pushed open the door. I got an up and down from the guy behind the counter. “Ace sent me,” I said. He pointed to the back of the store.

Which is where I found the Maculan ($8, purchased, 12.5%), a white blend from the Veneto region in Italy’s northeast. It’s made with two lesser known grapes, pinot blanc and toi, the latter of which is actually friulano but is called toi in that part of Italy. The result is an amazing wine — refreshing and clean, with green apple fruit, and even some kind of a finish. The pinot blanc adds a floral aroma, whilte the toil contributes that uniquely Italian white wine character that can best be described as bracing.’This is an amazing value for $8, the kind of wine that makes me wonder how I missed it in my decade-plus pursuit of cheap wine. But I’m certainly glad I was tipped to it now; highly recommended, and a candidate for the 2014 $10 Hall of Fame.