20 Great Value Wines: How to drink good wine when gas is $5.00 a gallon or more

The current economy has most of us cutting back on non-essentials, driving less, and trying to find ways to save a few bucks. Below is a list of wines that you can afford by cutting back on two gallons of gas or less (most are under $10!). For specific recommendations on wines, wine regions, wine pairings, or anything related to value wines, leave a comment. Have a favorite wine under $10 that I missed? Let us know about it! (Image: WINE AND MONEY© Kvkirillov | Dreamstime.com)

Here are my top picks for value wines, producers, and wine regions. Keep in mind that an 85 is a “Very Good” wine and shouldn’t be overlooked. Too often reviewers and magazines want you to think that only 90 point wines are worth drinking…this isn’t the case and can become quite expensive! An 85 point wine is a wine that I consider to be very good, and would buy again.

Keep an eye out for my report next week on the best wineries and wine regions when it comes to quality and value!

Twenty Great Value Wines: (Click here to download this as a shopping list in PDF Form)

Sparkling

N.V. Riondo Prosecco Veneto IGT -$12 (Italy, Veneto, Veneto IGT): Sealed with a traditional cork requiring a cork-screw. A little sweet, hint of yeast, a little fruity, not a lot of fizz but quite refreshing. Overall good appertif, nice flavors. My rating: 87 pts, GV (Good Value)

N.V. Roederer Estate Brut -$21 (USA, California, North Coast, Anderson Valley): This is the most expensive wine I put on the list, with all the others being $12 or less. But for the price, you get good value here. Apples and citrus on the palate, a very crisp wine with subtle nuttiness and caramel. Nice finish- a great bottle of a special dinner on a budget. My rating: 89 pts, GV Read more

WineBloggingWednesday #46: White Rhone Wines with Dr. Debs of Good Wine Under $20

Each month wine bloggers around the world unite for a virtual wine tasting labeled “Wine Blogging Wednesday.” A particular blog is chosen as the host for the event who then picks a theme and a Wednesday on which the wine blogging community gets together to post their wine and a few tasting notes.

This month our host is Dr. Deb’s of Good Wine Under $20. Her theme which I greatly appreciate is white wines from the Rhone. We’ve been tasting and drinking a good amount of Rhone wines lately, but only 10 or so white wines in the last few months from the Rhone. This was a good reason to open a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc I’ve been waiting anxiously to try. (For more on Chateauneuf, click here!)

The wine I chose is the 2003 Tardieu-Laurent Châteauneuf-du-Pape Vieilles Vignes (vines pictured below). This wine comes from an established producer who makes good to great wines throughout the Rhone Valley. Recently, Michel Tardieu put out a 2005 Chateauneuf-du-Pape (CdP) red wine that has received outstanding ratings and praise, including a score of 96 pts from the Wine Spectator’s James Molesworth (of whom I have great respect as a wine critic). This was my first Tardieu-Laurent white wine, though I’ve had many of his reds across a variety of vintages. I enjoy his style of wine very much finding them consistently hold true to the characteristics of both the fruit and terroir. I do recommend them highly if you enjoy Rhone wines or are looking to expand your palate to Southern France. Read more

Rhone Tasting Report: Including some very good wines from Domaine de la Charbonniere

The Rhone Valley is one of my favorite wine regions in the world. The Northern Rhone is known for producing the best Syrah’s in the world which are spicy, terroir driven and complex. Red wines of the Southern Rhone, including the prized Chateauneuf-du-Pape wines, are comprised of Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, Cinsault. Wines labeled Cotes du Rhone cover both the Northern and Southern Rhone Valley, and are generally wines that didn’t meet criteria for being labeled as a specific designation (which means they cost less and can be much better values!). Wines from the Rhone vary quite a bit from North to South, and appellation to appelation. One thing that remains constant, is the trueness to the terroir that these wines possess. The whites tend to have great minerality and good expressions of the fruits, whereas the red wines generally have good earth/soil characteristic to them, as well as spice and both red and dark fruit notes. (Image of Castle/Vineyard in Chateauneuf was uploaded from Flickr Photo uploaded on Flickr April 28th, 2007 by Fretless88 Creative Commons license).

Below are my tasting notes from a recent Rhone Wine Tasting at the Wine Source. This is part II in the Overview of the Rhone Valley feature I wrote yesterday. Overall, there were some very good wines poured and although not too many great “values” (under $20), there are a lot of good wines for the price if you can afford to pay a bit more. I’ve arranged the wines into categories to show which wines I feel are best for their price.

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I love it when friends come to visit - Cheeses, scallops, shrimp, ribeyes, Cabernet, Syrah and more!

I love it when a good friend comes to visit. It’s a great excuse to open a few nice bottles of wine and make a big dinner. Last night my friend Brandon drove down from Michigan for dinner and a 4 day mini-vacation. About 10 minutes after pulling into the driveway, we went to a local wine store for a wine tasting and to stock up for the weekend. From there we hit Whole Foods where we found some cheese, sweet potato’s, scallops, collosal shrimp, beef ribeye steak and a bison New York strip steak.
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Wine Club March ‘08 Meetup: The Recap!

This past weekend the F&WB Wine Club met up for an Easter-eve wine tasting. We had a good turnout this month with 13 attendees including 5 (two of which I am pictured with below near our bar) new people who haven’t been to any previous tastings. There were more than 10 cheeses, multiple salmon-based finger foods, grilled chicken and a bunch of other treats on hand. The theme was to bring a bottle of wine under $20 that was something you have had before and enjoyed. The hope was to find a handful of great value wines that would be outstanding for every-day consumption. About half of the wines fell into this category while the other half were randomly picked. The wines were all brown bagged and tasted blind and rated. We voted on our favorites at the end of the night before removing the bags. Below is a list of the wines on hand in descending order of how they were rated (I present the sparkling wines first which were tasted non-blind). The unanimous winner was the 2006 Fat Catz Cat Amongst Pigeons Syrah/Cabernet blend which I scored blind 91 pts and is an outstanding value.
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