Wine of the week: Marques de Riscal Verdejo 2019

This is quality Spanish white wine that can be found at many supermarkets

Welcome to part three of the WC’s supermarket wine search, where we find cheap wine that tastes like it came from a winery and not from the marketing department. This time – Spain’s Marques de Riscal Verdejo 2019 ($10, purchased, 13%).

One of the difficulties with finding this kind of wine among the plonk on the Supermarket Great Wall of Wine is that many grocers don’t bother to group wine by country any more. Hence, all of the sauvignon blancs are crammed together, as are the red blends, the chardonnay, and so on and so forth.

Which leaves wine made with less common grapes, like the Riscal, stuffed in a corner and difficult to find. But many supermarket verdejos are well worth kneeling to find on the bottom shelf. It’s a white grape that isn’t too tart and can be quite herbal; not bad for $10, yes?

And, in this case, the Riscal is exactly what a cheap wine should be — well made (clean and crisp); varietally correct (just enough lemon fruit); and simple but not stupid. It’s not a life-changing wine; rather it’s the kind of wine to drink on Tuesday night with a big salad when it’s 100 degrees out. That it’s Spanish and not Californian speaks to how screwed up the wine business is. California used to excel in just this kind of wine.

Imported by Shaw Ross