Tag Archives: $10 wine

Wine of the week: La Fiera Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2009

Where has this wine been all my life? It does everything a great cheap wine should — reflects its origins, pairs with food, and doesn't cost a lot of money. Make room in the Hall of Fame, as well as the wine closet, since I'm buying a case.

The basics, quickly, about the La Fiera ($8, purchased) before the Wine Curmudgeon goes into lyrical, wine writer overdrive: It's a red wine from the Abruzzo region east of Rome and is made with the montepulciano grape (and is not be confused with the pricer Montepulciano from Tuscany, which is made with sangiovese). Wine quality in Abruzzo has improved significantly over the past decade or so, but prices have remained more or less the same.

Which is one reason why this wine is so exciting. The La Fiera smells oh-so-Italian, and tastes of very sour cherries. Plus, it has that wonderful dark earth quality that isn't so much a flavor or an aroma, but more of a presence — something that so many wines, of all prices, aspire to but fail to deliver. One sip of this and you'll be thinking of your mom's spaghetti and meatballs. It's also perfect for grilled sausages and peppers over the Labor Day weekend. Highly recommended.

Wine of the week: Pico Maccario Barbera d’Asti Berro 2010

It's more difficult to make quality cheap red wine than it is to make quality cheap white wine, which is always one of the challenges that the Wine Curmudgeon faces in finding a red to serve as the wine of the week. Complicating the issue this summer is Dallas' record-setting heat wave. I'm dedicated to what I do, but 14 1/2 percent red wines and 105-degree temperatures do not agree with each other, especially when I have to taste three of four wines at one time.

Thankfully, several wine regions still produce lighter and less alcoholic red wines, so I've been touring Spain and Italy this summer. Which, of course, I do a lot anyway, but I've been paying more attention over the last couple of months.

That's how I found the Berro ($10, purchased), stuffed on the shelf at what is probably Dallas' best Italian wine retailer (and wonderfully grungy and old-fashioned as well). It's from the Piedmont region and made with the barbera grape, which produces more rustic kinds of wines.

The Berro fits that description well. It was a little choppy toward the end, with too much oak showing (though that may eventually go away), but otherwise all was as it should be — sour cherry fruit, not especially heavy and low in alcohol at just 12 1/2 percent. The Berro needs food, like barbecue or burgers, and don't be afraid to chill it for 20 or 30 minutes. No, it's a not a fruity, New World-style merlot that you'll hardly notice going down, but that's not what I was looking for.

Wine of the week: Pedroncelli Dry Rose of Zinfandel 2009

Wine of the week: Pedroncelli Dry Rose of Zinfandel 2009The Wine Curmudgeon used to eat at a Dallas restaurant where the wine list was, to put it politely, pretty sad. This is not uncommon, of course, since too many restaurant owners tend see wine as an aggravation and not a way to please customers (and yes, I know I promised to write something about this, and it’s still on the agenda).

It was frustrating that the wine list had very little anyone would want to drink, since I liked the food and the prices were reasonable. Fortunately, the Pedroncelli rose was on the list, and I drank a lot of it. Like almost every time I ate at the restaurant.

And why not? The rose ($10, purchased) paired with the food that I ordered and it was cheap, especially for restaurant wine. Best yet, the wine was — and still is — well made, with some cranberry and currant fruit, a bit of juiciness in the middle, and even some heft. This is not a light rose, but one with body, and it’s almost as if there are tannins lurking in the back to remind you this is a dry wine and not that pinkish, sweet stuff. Pedroncelli is a fourth-generation California winemaker, and the family takes great care with what it does — quality wine at good prices. The chardonnay is worth trying, too.

Chill this (especially this summer) and drink it on its own or with any summer food — burgers and barbecued chicken come to mind. And be glad that one long ago restaurant owner had the good sense to have one quality wine on his list.

Wine review: Cupcake Chardonnay 2009

This review has been on the Wine Curmudgeon's to do list since Cupcake was named the country's hottest wine brand. And now that E&J Gallo's Barefoot, a similar sort of brand, has been anointed the country's top-seller, what better time to do the review? (And there will be a follow-up to the Barefoot post soon, which apparently created some controversy.)

The Cupcake wines are from Underdog Wine Merchants, which has established a very profitable niche by selling grocery-store wines with incredibly cute names — not just Cupcake, but brands like Fish Eye, Flip Flop, and Big House.

Cupcake always does well in blind tastings, and has earned some impressive medals at competitions. This wine got a big-deal gold medal at the California State Fair, and a silver at my pal Robert Whitley's Critics Challenge. So how would I feel about the wine when not tasting it blind, but with my critical, don't-judge-a-wine-by-its-label eye?

About the same way I feel about many grocery store wines. There was nothing really wrong with the Cupcake ($10, purchased) other than its price. It's a pleasant enough as $10 wine — not quite as interesting as the Bogle chardonnay, with some pear and green apple. It also had what seemed to be vanilla wood chips, which added a not subtle flavor that got in the way of the fruit (which may be a function of the wine not aging well, and the 2010 may not have that problem).

The catch, though, is that Cupcake is a $12 or 13 wine; this was on sale for $10, as near as I can tell, because it was a previous vintage. So that's the choice the consumer has to make. Do you pay an extra 20 percent or more for the name and label, or do you buy something like Bogle, which is often on sale for as little as $8 or $9? We all know the choice the Wine Curmudgeon would make.

Wine of the week: Vinho verde 2011

Vinho verde, the Portuguese white wine, is almost, in the right light, green. It’s often spritzy and can even be sweet. But it is cheap, usually $8 or less, and it somehow always tastes better than it should. So don’t discount vinho verde — and especially if it’s a long, hot summer with too many traffic jams and cranky bosses.

Our vinho verde primer is here and last year’s review is here. Keep in mind that several companies control the market, often selling the same wine under different labels. My retailer, in fact, had four vinho verdes this year, including one for $12, but all four were made by just two producers.

I bought the Caves de Cerca Famega ($7, purchased), which was one of the best-made vinho verdes I’ve had in years. It wasn’t as soft drink fizzy as so many others, and it had more fruit (lime?) and less sweetness. Don’t worry, though, because it’s still light and sweetish, with just 10 percent alcohol. It’s just not as cloying as vinho verde can be.

This is wine for people who want a glass when they get home from work but don’t want to consult their wine oracle about what to drink. Which, actually, is something we should all do more often.

Wine of the week: Picada 15 2010

This wine is why the Wine Curmudgeon loves his job.

It was a sample, and the only the only thing I knew about it was that it cost $9 and came from Patagonia, which is the Argentine wine region that isn't Mendoza. I had no expectations; Patagonian wines aren't common, and the guy who gave me the sample knew nothing else about the wine. Plus the winery web site didn't work, and there were few references to the wine elsewhere in the cyber-ether.

And what did I find? Wine of the Week delight. Hall of Fame bliss. This may be the best $10 red I've tasted since the demise of the much beloved Solaz. The Picada is a blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot,  malbec, and pinot noir (yes, Argentine pinot) and the result is balance between acid, fruit and tannin in a way that almost never happens with wine at this price. Yes, it's fruity, but the fruit isn't sweetish or heavy, like most $10 Mendoza wines. Which is the reason I don't drink most $10 malbecs and malbec blends.

Yes, the Picada is a little thin in the middle, but that's because I'm looking for something to complain about. And, believe it or not, there is a white blend that was almost as tasty, and a malbec that was somewhere between the white and the red blends. Drink this if you want a glass of red wine but don't want to be overwhelmed by fruit, acid, alcohol or tannims; it will pair with almost any red wine kind of food. Highly recommended.

Wine of the week: Yellow + Blue Sauvignon Blanc 2009

The Wine Curmudgeon has long enjoyed the Yellow + Blue wines, which come in a 1-liter box (one-third more than a bottle) and offer tremendous value. So why haven't I written about the wines in almost two years? Blame it on the vagaries of the three-tier system, which has made the wines very difficult to find in Dallas (and I don't write about wines that I can't find here).

Since this post is about the wine and not the three-tier system, we'll skip the rant on the latter. Just know that the sauvignon blanc ($12, purchased) was well worth searching for. It's Chilean sauvignon blanc the way the Chileans used to make it, before they decided to raise prices and knock off New Zealand sauvignon blanc.

Look for more lime than grapefruit, with a long mineral finish. This is a very well done wine, especially for the price, and an example of what Y+B can do — assuming it can find a way to get into stores. I drank this with a Cornish hen that had been split, marinated with olive oil and lemon juice, and broiled, and it was an excellent match.

One other thing: Matt Cain, who runs Y + B, would fuss if I did not mention that this wine is made with organic grapes and that the box is a Tetra Pak, which produces a significantly smaller carbon footprint than a wine bottle. Which are good things, of course, but wouldn't make much difference if Cain's company made lousy wine. Which it doesn't.