¡Viva Montañana!

Marqués de Montañana Viura
$3.99 @ Trader Joe's

Brian sez: Man, this is just a great little treat. Sure, it might be a hair too fruity or sweet for some folks, but there's just enough acid in there to keep it sane. A little floral, a little tropical and sure to be great with the stir fry chicken and bok choy I'm just about to eat.

Julia sez: It's good for cooking.

Binary scale rating: 1

Guenoc, Guenoc... Who's there?

Guenoc 2008 Victorian Claret
$9.99 @ Jenifer Street Market

Brian sez: Some red fruit, maybe just a little tannic, this is a great wine for steak night. Very Bordeaux-y if you're in to that kind if thing.  It's on the high end of the CWC budget, but still very much in the range for a Saturday night wine, I think.

Julia sez: Deep punt.

Binary scale rating: 1

Step One: Get a Box

Black Box Cabernet Sauvignon, 2008

Price: $22@Kopps Supermarket

Brian sez: Black Box has a pretty good reputation in the box wine world. Or at least, it was one of the first box wines about which I heard someone say good things. I'd had it once before thanks to friend of Cheap Wine Challenge, Corra, but I figured it was due for an official review.

Cheap Wine Challenge enjoyed this wine over the course of a week or so and it makes for a perfectly adequate-- if not somewhat uninteresting-- answer to the question, "Hey, what would you like to drink with dinner?" Round and relatively balanced, not too tannic with a little bit of black fruit and a little bit of spice.

Bottom line: Although I wasn't sad to see this one go and I won't rush out to buy it again, it's a passable Tuesday night wine.


Binary Scale Rating: 1

Maybe the koalas like it...

Down Under Shiraz, 2008
$3.33 @ Jenifer Street Market

Brian sez: This rounds out the "three for $10" deal I scored last week. Loyal readers (both of you) will remember that while the Crane Lake Pinot Grigio didn't really show well, I thought their White Zin was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the last member of the triumverate did not raise the team score. 

It's not the worst wine I've ever had, but I wouldn't serve it to friends. To be honest, it tastes too much like grape juice. My main complaint, though, is that it just doesn't have any of that big fruit that Australian Shiraz usually has.

Oddly enough, the two reviews I found online were pretty positive about it. Perhaps I got a bad bottle or maybe we here at CWC just have higher standards for our cheap wine... : )

Binary scale rating: 0

Pink is the new Red (Bonus Math Joke Inside!!)

Crane Lake White Zinfandel, 2009
$3.33 @ Jenifer Street Market

Brian sez: Best. Pink wine. Ever.

I bought this bottle as part of a "Three bottles for $10" deal when I dropped in to the Jenifer Street Market early last week. The Pinot Grigio from the same producer was a disappointment, so I wasn't expecting much from this bottle. I could not have been more wrong.

The standard I use to judge all pink wines is Susana Balbo's Rose of Malbec. If you haven't tried it, you owe it to yourself to grab a bottle (it should be pretty easy to find at most respectable wine shops) and enjoy outdoors with a plate of cheese and crackers before we exhaust this year's supply of warm summer nights. Forget what you think you know about pink wine-- this isn't Beringer White Zin...

Well, if Rose of Malbec is the standard, the Crane Lake is the first alternate. It's clean and crisp and tastes like crushed fresh strawberries. Incredibly refreshing without an overwhelming sugary finish. I could drink a bottle of this after mowing the lawn.

Now, I should probably give a caveat here: We took this wine camping this weekend and enjoyed it right out of the cooler, probably at a temperature close to 35 degrees-- not significantly colder than recommended serving temperature for cheap pink wine, but maybe enough to hide some of the sugary-ness. Anyway, for $3.33, I don't know how you'll find a more delicious and refreshing cheap pink wine. As such, Crane Lake White Zinfandel earns an unprecedented ONE FACTORIAL on the binary scale...

Binary scale rating: 1!

Trust the punt... (Reader participation post)

You know that depression in the bottom of a wine bottle?  That's called the "punt".  Did you know that?  I didn't.  I had to ask.  And it's still never been sufficiently explained to me what it's purpose is.  Anyway, one time Julia claimed that she could judge a bottle of wine solely on the depth of its punt.  Since she frequently makes things up, I was reluctant to believe this claim at first, but then I thought there might be some merit to it. 

I mean, ostensibly it costs more to produce a bottle with a deep punt or even any punt at all, right?  Slightly more material involved and I imagine there's an additional step in the production process.  So a producer who is only concerned with getting his cheap wine into a glass container in the most inexpensive fashion is going to choose a shallow-punt or punt-less bottle.  Or whatever.  I'm just hypothesizing here.  

Well, the long and short of it is that Julia's theory seems to hold up.  Seriously, try it.  Over the last year or so, I've tried to take note of the punts on bottles of cheap wine, and it sure seems that the better bottles *do* in fact have a bit of a punt to them, and the bad ones are generally flat as a pancake. 

So here's the reader participation part: next time you're drinking a bottle of cheap wine, channel your inner Wine Bottle Proctologist-- don't be shy.  Give it a little probe and see what you find.  I'd be willing to bet that the deeper the punt, the better the quality of the wine... Report back with your findings...

Crane Lake Pinot Grigio, 2009

Price: $3.33 @ Jenifer Street Market

Brian sez: I stopped by this neat little neighborhood grocery store the other day because:

a. I was driving past
b. I'd heard good things about it and, ultimately
c. I needed some sauerkraut

They had a special on two different labels-- $9.99 for THREE bottles.  Wow!!  This has CWC written all over it!!

My initial impression was not favorable.  None of the crispness that I like to see in a Gray Peanut (I think that's what Pinot Grigio means in English), and a little too much sugar.  Ultimately, it worked out as an okay compliment to our meal-- spicy gazpacho and Greek meatballs with blueberry and carrot salad.  There was just enough edge to it that it nicely cut through the dill, onion, garlic and mint in the meatballs.  Unfortunately, however, lack of balance and any real interesting flavor means this one is not a winner in the "Buy Again" category. 

Binary scale rating: 0