Fine wines at frugal prices are the subject of today’s Wall Street Journal and “The Dow Jones Inexpensive Australian Cabernet Index.”
Based on a blind taste test of Australian Cabernets priced under $20 the WSJ had these comments.
“Best Value”
Yalumba Winery 2004 “The Y Series’
$10.99
WSJ comment: “Intense Dark Fruit with some herbs and good acidity. A wine of some conviction.”
Best Taste:
Ringbolt 2003
$16.99
“Interesting with true grape tastes…Could stand up to a good steak….Real character.
Also Mentioned: Other Good Values/Good Taste
Marquis Philips 2003 $15: “Some spice. Nice with food.”
McWilliam’s Hanwood Estate 2004 $9.99 “Grapey and pleasant with a splash of lemon.”
Wolf Blass Wines: “Yellow Label 2004 $9.99 “Pleasant and easy…Happy Wine.”
5 comments:
I'm starting to sound like the Sharon fan club, but what a great idea for a post: cheap but tasty wine!
Luckily (?) I don't have sensitive sommalier taste buds. I'm happy with anything above the level of Riunite. I love Banrock Station's White Shiraz ($4.99) and Yellow Tail Shiraz (about $6). Yeah, I'm a cheapskate.
I've enjoyed the WSJ Friday picks for years-they really do a great job. I can vouch for the Wolf Blass-great wine and u can usually find it on sale for $9.99
One of the great things about the WSJ's wine column is that they will actually highlight very affordable wines that you can buy by the case for daily table wine. I'm not *quite* that into drinking wine, but when I lived with awesome roommates who always cooked dinner, buying $7-15 wines by the case was fantastic!
I find Yellow Tail is pretty good stuff all around. If you like Shiraz, I'm still a fan of Rosemount Estates from Australia. Good good stuff for a good price, though I think they've been charging more as they've gotten more popular. (First time I had it was in about 97-99 and it was $7 bottle. Lately it seems to be about $12.)
This is another blog about wine from a frugal perspective.
The Frugal Oenophile's Wine of the Week link is the following:
http://tfo-wow.blogspot.com/
Cellar Notes is produced by WYPR in Baltimore. The host is from Wells Discount Liquor around Charm City. I used to shop there in college for the good stuff. The staff is extremely knowledgable when they were in the Rotunda before moving to the Avenue.
BTW, not everything there is cheap since places price differently, but if you want something that's been reviewed by a less high brow (i.e. not a snooty Hugh Johnson review) then Cellar Notes is perfect. Charm City isn't really ritzy so a lot of times the wine is pretty reasonably priced and they do like a good value.
Post a Comment