On my way to a dinner party, I hit up a little wine shop, on first glance, in the middle of the isle is a large stack of wine advertised as 12.99 or less. I look over these wines and ponder “I wonder if these are any good?’ I usually spend 16.00 to 20 on a bottle of wine, knowing there are some good unique wines just under 20 bucks lurking around some unique wine regions, from places I can not pronounce. But I am a sucker for a deal.
On this deal rack, I am familiar with a few. Inexpensive bulk wines from large companies, as their entry level price wine, something I could find at Trader Joes for 2$ if we had a Trader Joes here.
One or two bottles looked promising. I was torn, do I take the gamble under door number 1, perhaps my new fave value bottle. Or do I continue my search for something I know will be unique, tasty, a confident crowd-pleaser.
I continue my search, scanning the wines from Spain and Portugal, I find my wine. A fun Portages blend from a reliable importer. 16.99, not bad, but that other bottle still lingers in my thoughts, I pick it up on the way to the cash register, to tempted my a good value.
At dinner with friends we open the Portuguese wine, the millennial crowd loves unique wine, and this one hit the hipster quota for something good they had not tried before. I still had my gamble wine, should I bring out among friends, or take home to try when I am cooking a roast. I brought it home, just in case the wine would make a better sauce than in my glass.
Cooking spaghetti later on that week, I opened my value wine. It was a lovely little bottle, sweet red fruit, lighter in body and tannins, but good acids. It tasted just fine in my glass, and in my spaghetti sauce. I don't think I would pick up to take to a dinner party, but to have around the house, it made a fine addition to my kitchen and my dinner.