Tag Archives: Mike Dunne

Winebits 786: Cheap wine, Mike Dunne, Stella Rosa

Woman drinking wine
“No more Yellow Tail for me — Stella Rosa.”

This week’s wine news: The cheapest countries for buying wine (and we know what isn’t), plus Mike Dunne’s new book and Stella Rosa tops Yellow Tail

• Not the U.S.: Regular readers of the blog won’t be surprised to hear this – the U.S. ranks as one of the most expensive countries in the world for wine. That’s according to Food & Wine, which parses a study that says Portugal is the least expensive, averaging $4.30 per bottle. Hungary ($4.81), Chile ($5.13), Slovakia ($5.37), and Germany ($6.02) complete the lowest five. The fourth most expensive – and the only one among the priciest that is a major wine producer – is the U.S. at $15.18 a bottle. What makes this that much more depressing is the most expensive countries either don’t drink much wine or don’t make any, like Iceland, Norway, and South Korea. But that’s nothing we didn’t know, is it?

• Mike Dunne: Dunne, a long-time friend of the blog, plugs his new book, “The Signature Wines of Superior California,” on YouTube’s The Varietal Show. The book has been a work of love for Mike; he has talked about it for years. The book’s website is here; I’ll get with Mike and see if he wants to give one away as part of the blog’s upcoming Substack anniversary celebration.

• Topping Yellow Tail: Stella Rosa, the producer whose roots are in Los Angeles’ tenure as a key wine region, is the top imported wine in the U.S. It replaces Yellow Tail, which has been the leading import for almost two decades. The change is a combination of Yellow Tail’s sales decline (about a 14 percent drop since 2020) and Stella Rosa’s rapid growth. Stella Rosa has showed up on the blog a time or two – an example of a popular, sweet-style wine that has made inroads among younger drinkers.

studio microphone

Winecast 60: Mike Dunne and quality, affordable California wine

mike dunne
Mike Dunne: Egos and the high cost of doing business make it difficult to find quality, affordable California wine.

Mike Dunne: It is difficult to find quality, affordable wine — but some do exist

Mike Dunne, the long-time wine and food editor at California’s Sacramento Bee newspaper, has often chided the Wine Curmudgeon for not including more California wine on the blog. Hence, this podcast: Mike and I talk about why there isn’t more quality, affordable California wine —  and how to find what there is.

The reasons for these wines’ scarcity? They start with California’s high cost of doing business and include– not surprisingly — winery ego. Interestingly, many quality, affordable wines never make it out of California because they sell out in the state.

Mike suggests looking for wines from less well-known parts of California, like Lake County and Monterey, and varieties that aren’t cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay — chenin blanc or petite sirah, anyone?

Among Mike’s wine suggestions:

• J. Lohr’s Wildflower, a red wine made with the quite rare valdiguie grape (about $10). Serve it chilled — a perfect porch wine.

• The Shenandoah Special Reserve Zinfandel (about $11). Mike raves about this red — brambly, fruity and delicious.

• Korbel’s Blanc de Noir (about $14) and one of the blog’s old pals, the Barefoot Bubbly (about $10). These California sparkling wines, says Mike, provide more value than you’d think. He also told a fine story about dust mops and the E&J Gallo sales staff; Gallo, of course, owns Barefoot.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is almost 17 minutes long and takes up about 12 megabytes. Quality is mostly excellent, save for a couple of static-y bits toward the end.