While I have always loved the good wines and have lashed out occasionally to buy 50-80-100-120 $ bottles of wine and really savoured them, my attitudes towards them are changing recently.
When I tasted a 100$ bottle of wine and it tasted great, my reactions and comments on the wine were just about the wine and not so much what I paid for it; it is easy because most 100$ wines taste darn good. It also resulted in me praising the wine maker for his great skills in producing the great wine.
Recently I am looking at things a little differently. The maker of the great wine is starting from a great place; he can afford and starts with the primo, crème de la crème juice from the best vineyards with the best climate for the year etc. So in effect, he starts on mile 14 of a marathon rather than mile zero.
The guy that produces a wonderful wine at 10-20$ a bottle is not starting from the primo juice and yet, he/she produces a great wine given their starting material. My respect for the makers of very good to great wines for 10-20$ is way more now than for the Mondavi winemaker who produces Opus 1 from the best juice of the year for the region and can sell his wine at about a 100$.
May be in my old age my palate has become not so refined anymore, but I don’t think so. It is just that I am looking at the skill levels of the wine makers with a different set of glasses on.
Our Everyday wine – Apothic Red
This has been our everyday wine in the house for the last three years or so. This is a luscious easy drinking wine. Fruit forward and does not need any work to quaff on a daily basis. Lots of Cheery Berry flavours in addition to soft but very noticeable vanilla from the oak.
In addition to its nice and easy drinking attributes, this wine lives on my counter top for two days without any deleterious effects; still very drinkable on day two. Only once in two years it has made the third day since we drink it. It has also been very consistent over three vintages…
All in all a great every day wine, especially given that it is a sub $10 wine…
This was our everyday wine for 3 years or so in 2015 when the original post appeared. It still isour evryday wine and it still is a sub $10 wine. It is awesome.
A Wine Rating System for a Pleb like me..
This is a simplistic wine rating system for me. A Robert Parker 98 means really nothing to most mortals who like to drink good wine.
This is my way of categorizing my wines based on my drinking…
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- WTIB – This is “Wow Take it Back”, meaning take it back to the kitchen. This lot of riff raff don’t deserve this and let us drink it just by ourselves without sharing.
- ONGM – “Oooohh, nice; Get some more”
- GW – Easy rating… Stands for “Good Wine”. A lot of every days wines fall under this category. There are exceptions of course
- YWE – “Yeah Whatever”. Nothing exceptional but will do at a pinch…..
- EwwP – “Ewwww, Plonk”. Have not drunk something like this since college. Would not put it out even after everybody at the party is drunk enough to kill their taste buds.
