Talk-A-Vino

It is great when your wine budget is unlimited – no doubts. But this is typically not the case. Are you destined to drink bad and boring wines in such a case? I believe the answer is no – and to test it, I decided to try different wines with only one common characteristic – none of them should cost more than $11.99 for regular size bottle.

Finding good wines in this price range is not easy – there are only some regions which will deliver decent wines in that category. For instance, I wouldn’t look for Californian wines – in that price range I find many wines literally indistinguishable and boring. Same with Chile and Australia. Don’t get me wrong – there is plenty of great value wines coming from Chile, Australia or California – but you really have to cross that $12 border line.

Where do you look for value? I believe Portugal, Italy and France can provide what we are looking for, so – here I go.  To implement this project, I went to Bottle King store in Glen Rock, New Jersey, which is a part of Bottle King chain of liquor stores. Bottle King has great selection of reasonably priced wines from Portugal, Italy, France and of course many other regions. I got there a number of wines in the $3.98 to $11.99 range, which I will be reporting on in this series.

First wine in the series happened to be 2009 Ciconia, an Agarones/Syrah/Touriga Nacional blend from Alentejano region in Portugal, priced at $6.98. The wine had beautiful dark purple color. On the nose, it had a scent of fresh red berries, with the touch of pepper. On the palate it was nice young wine, a bit jammy at the beginning with red and dark fruit and hint of pepper and leather coming in the second wave. The wine had good acidity and a bit sharpness on the edges, which should mellow out as it will age. Definitely excellent wine for the price. Should be good with food, and should cellar nicely for another 3-4 years (or at least I think so). I will put Drinkability at 7+.

Pretty good for the beginning – I can only hope that the next bottle will be as good or better. Don’t worry, you will be the first to know…