I’m passionate for great food and wine. Sometimes really good food or wine is equated with “expensive”. Now, I’m as happy with a complex, expensive meal at Le Bernardin as the next person but most days I eat relatively simple food that I cook myself and I like to drink simple, inexpensive wine to go with it.
If you read enough wine reviews, you start to notice that the highest rated ones are often expensive. These are fine wines if you are trying to build a wine collection that you’re going to age in a cellar. But, I think it’s silly to spend $30-$50 or more for a bottle of wine to go with your burger after work. Many of us can’t afford or justify this kind of wine every day or even once a week. Who cares if the wine will be perfect, complex, and smooth in 25 years? We need something drinkable and tasty for dinner tonight!
There are great traditions in Europe around drinking, simple, very inexpensive wines for most occasions. Here in the U.S., inexpensive wine is often equated with bad wine. Deb and I were in a Trader Joes in Cambridge, MA a couple weeks ago and saw a couple standing nearby shopping for wine like we were. The woman picked a bottle off the shelf and handed it to the man, “what about this one?” He replied “No, it’s only five dollars. It’s not going to be any good.” I think he missed an opportunity to learn something. The wine may have been good or maybe it wasn’t, but the price is no gauge for determining quality.
I decided to start this blog to talk about the many, very drinkable, less talked about simple wines available for around $10 or less. Of course there will be plenty of them which are less drinkable than others, but this is true of all price categories.
Rob
