Selecting Good, Cheap Wines 

The other day I was riding in my car and I received a call on my cell phone. It was my friend Lee, and I could tell by the urgency in his voice that he needed help. "Mike", he said, "Im at the grocery store and Ive got to find a good cheap wine, any suggestions?"It turns out that Lee had a date that night, and didnt want to "bomb" on his wine selection.

I get asked questions like this frequently, so I decided Id write this article and try to address peoples concerns over selecting good cheap wines. First of all, for our purposes lets define "cheap." Now I could go on and on about individual definitions of the word "cheap" as it pertains to wine, but I dont want to bore you. So, for the sake of these discussions, lets define "cheap" wines as wines priced in the 5.00-12.00 per bottle range.

"Good" is a subjective term. So when we describe a wine as "good" what were really saying is that the wine is acceptable to the majority of people who drink that type of wine. I wouldnt know a good Merlot from grape juice because
I dont drink Merlot. So, tip#1 is to try several wines in the 5.00-12.00 range in the category of wine that you enjoy.Determine which of these wines tastes best to you. O.K,O.K, my friend Lee didnt have the inclination to start tasting wines in the grocery store, so what could he do?

My first suggestion is to stick to well known brands, preferably some of the larger vintners in California. Brands such as Robert Mondavi, Berengers, and even Sutter Home are dependable. These large wineries have both exclusive,select vintages, which tend to be pricey, and large mass produced vintages. Berengers Stone Cellars variety and Mondavis Woodbridge variety are mass produced, but reasonably priced and good. Fetzer is another good, reasonably priced California winery. Gallo, the grandfather of all mass produced wines, has recently introduced its "Gallo Of Sonoma" varieties of wines. These are quite good and easily fit our price range. Wine Spectator magazine has an excellent feature titled,"Great Wines For Under 20.00." Check it out!

Ah yes, dont let me forget box wines. Box wines have improved tremendously in the last few years. This improvement is probably due to wines increased popularity. At any rate, one can pick up a "box" which is usually the equivalent to 4 bottles of wine, for under 20.00!!Check with Boxwines.org for reviews of various box wines.

Hopefully, these few suggestions will be of help to you the next time youre entrusted with "choosing the wine."Apparently it helped Lee, hes been dating the same girl for 2 months now!

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