2005 Columbia Crest Two Vines Shiraz – $6

A 2005 Shiraz from Columbia Valley, Washington, the current vintage of Shiraz from Australia in this price range is 2008, so this wine has a nice bit of bottle age. Aged for 14 months, half in oak barrels, half in stainless. A splash of Cabernet Sauvignon to help with the nose and mouth feel. More attention to detail than you would expect for a wine that I picked up on-sale for $5.99. to top it off it’s a Wine Enthusiast “Best Buy”.

So, how does it taste? The answer is pretty good. A nice mellow fruit forward flavor, not a huge “fruit bomb”, more smooth black cherry with a touch of pepper. The finish evaporates quickly. Not a complex or lush wine, but drinks very well.

I usually avoid really inexpensive red wine, they seem to always have something that is not quite right about them, but the Columbia Crest was a solid shiraz. It was more than just bulk juice, somebody cared about what this wine tasted like. This would be a good “Playstation” wine, invite your buddies over for a Madden tournament, pop the top on a couple of bottles and you got a party started.

NO more zany & fun labels for cheap wine

Under $10 wines moving to more conservative look

Less expensive wines used to be colorful and fun, redesigned now to look more sophisticated.
Package design firm CF Napa says the bad economy, as well as continuing environmental concerns, are driving wine packaging design in 2009.

Particularly in the under $10 category, where distributors are hearing from consumes that “zany and fun” might not communicate value, but rather lesser quality. So once colorful labels are becoming more serious.

Sustainability still remains a strong driver. In addition to ongoing efforts “shifting toward lighter-weight bottles, PET plastic bottles, cartons such as the TetraPak and new takes on the bag-in-box such as the minibarrel,” wine packagers are going as far as using totally recyclable plastic screw caps.

Certainly, as Starbucks was once the ultimate cup of coffee worth spending more for, until Dunkin Donuts made frugal cool, serious wine drinkers are on a quest for the best cheap label. The fact that now these labels will be taking the consumer more seriously is a sign of the times.

(courtesy Packworld)

Sweet or dry? Wine choice shows personality.

Sweet or dry? Wine choice reveals your personality

A taste for Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay or a liking for Bordeaux or Zinfandel can indicate more than just a preference in wines. It could also reveal personality traits.

New research by scientists in Australia and Britain showed that drinkers who preferred a sweet taste in wine were more likely to be impulsive while those who chose dry varieties had greater openness.

“Participants with a sweet taste preference were significantly higher in impulsiveness than their dry preference counterparts,” Anthony J. Saliba, of Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, Australia, and his colleagues said in the report.

Saliba and Kate Wragg and Paul Richardson, of Sheffield Hallam University in Sheffield, England, said apart from impulsiveness and openness, no other personality trait was significantly different between the two groups.

“There is some support for the notion that sweet preference develops early in humans and thus could drive the development of impulsiveness,” said the researchers, who reported the finding in the journal Food Quality and Preference.

They tested the wine preference of 45 people from Sheffield in South Yorkshire and divided them into two groups — those who liked sweet or dry wine.

Each group was also given personality tests to evaluate their impulsiveness, empathy, openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

The researchers said there is some evidence that a preference for sweet tastes fluctuates throughout life. It seems to be heightened during childhood and then declines in late adolescence.

They called for more studies to determine whether a causal relationship between impulsivity and sweet taste exists.

(courtesy Reuters)

Regular WINE drinkers exercise MORE

Study: Regular drinkers get more exercise
Moderate and heavy imbibers found to be more active than abstainers.

People who drink regularly seem to exercise more often than teetotalers, and those who average more than a drink or two a day may be the most active, a new study suggests.

Using data from a government health survey of U.S. adults, researchers found that in general, the amount of time people devoted to exercise tended to inch up along with the number of alcoholic drinks they had each month.

Compared with abstainers, those considered heavy drinkers — at least 46 drinks in the past month for women, and 76 or more for men — exercised for an average of 20 minutes more per week.

Meanwhile, moderate drinkers — which included women who had 15 to 45 drinks in a month, and men who had 30 to 75 — got 10 extra minutes of exercise each week.

Both moderate and heavy drinkers were also more likely to report vigorous exercise, like jogging, than either light drinkers or abstainers, the researchers report in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

Compared with non-drinkers, adults in both groups were about 14 percent more likely to say they got some vigorous exercise in a typical week.

Not surprisingly, the findings do not mean that drinking is the key to launching an active lifestyle.

“We certainly would not advocate that abstainers should start drinking or light drinkers should start drinking heavily as a way to increase their exercise,” lead researcher Dr. Michael T. French, of the University of Miami, told Reuters Health in an e-mail.

But, he added, the fact that people who drink, at varying levels, are all generally more active than non-drinkers is a finding “worth exploring further.”

One potential reason for the link, French noted, is that some regular drinkers use exercise as a way to counteract the calories from alcohol. It’s also possible that drinking at “responsible” levels is a maker of a generally healthy lifestyle, the researcher said.

For its part, relatively heavy drinking might be part of a “sensation-seeking” lifestyle for some people, French and his colleagues speculate.

Some heavier drinkers may, for example, be the types who tend toward more-adventurous outdoor activities like skiing or rock climbing. Others may play team sports, which often includes a trip to the bar after a game.

French pointed out that excessive drinking and alcohol abuse — any drinking habits that are harmful to a person’s work, relationships or health — are well known to have “serious psychological and physical consequences.”

Moderate drinking, on the other hand, has been linked to potential health benefits, including a decreased risk of heart disease. While part of that might be attributed to moderate drinkers’ overall lifestyle — which, based on this study, includes higher exercise levels — research also suggests that alcohol has some direct benefits, like elevated levels of “good” HDL cholesterol.

To gain those potential benefits while reducing the chances of harm, experts generally recommend that women have no more than one drink per day and men no more than two.

(Courtesy Reuters)

Sign our guestbook

Got a sexy wine you found for under $20? Share it with the community using our new guestbook feature.

It’s available by clicking the “Cheap Wine Guestbook” tab at the top of our page. Browse the list of wines others have left, or add one of your own. And thanks for sharing!

Austria wants us to try Asian with that Grüner Veltliner

We’ve recently posted a favorable review of the 2007 Lois Grüner Veltliner for $14, so we already know how awesome these wines can be.

Austria pushes its wines for the flavors of Asian cuisines

Sushi is one of the Asian foods that pair well with Austrian wines. The full-page advertisement on the back cover of the August issue of Sommelier Journal is strikingly simple. A glass of golden white wine sits against a white background above a piece of fish roe-coated California inside-out sushi roll.

“Taste Culture,” the ad reads in large letters. “Austrian Wine.”

“Young gruner veltliners are vivacious aperitifs, and a can’t-put-down food match with tempura, dim sum, pakora and sushi,” says Ch’ng Poh Tiong, founder of the International Congress of Chinese Cuisine and Wine, in the ad.

For the wine professionals who subscribe to this magazine, the message is as brilliantly clear as the gruner itself: Make Austrian wine the go-to choice for Asian food pairings at your restaurant.

The crisp stylings of Austrian wines do make them useful for the growing roster of fiery Asian foods we enjoy. They also pair well with the chili-kissed dishes of Mexico and the imaginative fusion fare of California. Even the old dishes of San Francisco, the sand dabs and the petrale sole, the dungeness crab and the shrimp Louis, always seem to taste better with Austrian gruner than California chardonnay.

“Grape names like gruner veltliner may not roll off the tongue as easily as chardonnay, but in the glass the wines can be just as rewarding, or more so,” said Tyler Colman, the New York-based author of “A Year of Wine: Perfect Pairings, Great Buys, and What to Sip With Each Season.”

“Be the first on your block to toss around such exotic grape names as zierfandler and zweigelt,” quipped Colman.

The Austrian wine campaign aims to get that word about food compatibility out to wine lovers, also making the case in a 12-page pamphlet offering detailed matches between Austrian wines and some of the most popular Asian dishes.

“Austria has about 120,000 acres of vineyards, Australia over 400,000,” explained Willi Klinger, the director of the Austrian Wine Marketing Board, in an e-mail from Vienna. “They are making at least five times as much wine as Austria. But Australia has only about 2,200 bottling estates, Austria about 9,000. So we have to emphasize our authentic, artisanal, individual and natural wines made by families versus the world trend of commercial, industrial, uniform and technical wines made by big trusts.”

The work Klinger’s board does is based on three basic messages: Austria has a great culinary tradition; Austria makes authentic wines; Austria has a dynamic and innovative wine scene.

Klinger said the Austrians are focused on working with individual wine shops and restaurants because Austrian wine will not “conquer the supermarkets like Yellow Tail,” that Australian line of inexpensive wines.

Clearly the effort is bearing fruit. Austrian wines were all but unknown in the United States 10 years ago. Now it seems Austrian wines, particularly gruner, are showing up everywhere.

The Austrians are pushing into an economic market where people are “retrenching and saying ‘bargain, bargain, bargain,’ ” said Dan Fredman, owner of a wine public relations agency based in Malibu, Calif. “They (the Austrians) are saying you can enjoy a wine and you don’t have to spend a zillion dollars.”

Yet, Colman said, the higher-end Austrian winemakers are raising prices because of all the attention.

“Unfortunately, word has gotten out.”

More pairing ideas

–The Austria Wine Marketing Board has done a good job matching its wines to a wide variety of Asian dishes, from Japanese sushi to tandoori chicken from India to spicy Sichuan beef. Download the handy pocket guide from the board’s Web site: winesfromaustria.com/ adventuretour/ asiancuisine.html.

–Don’t worry about how to say some of these grape varieties, the Web site has a “live” glossary where you can listen to these German words being spoken by a native speaker.

–While the Austrians, naturally, focus on their wines in this guide, realize the flavor profiles listed for these specific Austrian wines can apply to other wines from other wine regions around the world. So don’t worry if you can’t find that one Austrian wine at your store, especially the more obscure ones. Don’t be afraid to experiment.

Pairing suggestions

–Fried spring rolls and riesling. Other choices: sauvignon blanc, rosé, weissburgunder.

–Tandoori chicken and roter veltliner. Alternative: gruner veltliner.

–Thai curry and zierfandler or rotgipfler (white wine grapes). Alternatives: Chardonnay, riesling, sauvignon blanc.

–Sichuan beef and blaufrankisch (red wine grape). Alternatives: Cabernet sauvignon, merlot.

By the numbers

Statistics tell the Austrian wine story — and the challenges still to be faced.

122: Percentage increase in Austrian wine sales in the U.S. as measured in dollars, from August 2007 to August 2008.

7: Percentage increase from August 2008 to August 2009.

8.8 million: Number of cases of wine that Australia sold in the U.S. during the year ending Aug. 25.

8,979: Number of cases Austria sold in the same period.

Source: The Nielsen Co.

2007 Lois Grüner Veltliner – $14

LOIS grabs your nose with a walk through bushels of fresh apples, and has a spiciness that surprises you, but in a good way. Tastes of exotic fruits remind you of that last vacation to Mexico – not Vienna – as this wine hails from Austria.

Its crisp acidity makes it perfect with chili or sushi and it can stand up to the heat of firecracker shrimp, but it’s also very easy-drinking all by itself.

Grüners have long been popular to drink young in the hip bars of Vienna, and are now getting popular here in the states as Yanks learn that they are beating out world-class Chardonnays from the likes of Mondavi & Latour in blind tastings. Plus, it’s nice to have another white in your arsenal when you’re sick of your friends serving Chardonnay and Riesling, Riesling and Chardonnay. Boooooooor-ing.

Napa Valley Vintners Tasting

We attended the Napa Valley Vintners Tasting at Fleming’s Steak House in Chicago the other day, and it was an awesome event! Wines from 70 of the best growers in the valley and presented by the winemakers themselves. The wines were uniformly of the highest standard and the winemakers were extremely personable and very proud to offer their wines for tasting.

At every table, we would introduce ourselves and upon seeing our cheapwinefinder badges, the vintners would start skeptically asking us questions. We would explain about how we are trying to demystify wine and that great wine can be found for a reasonable price (under $25) – if you know what your looking for. They would always say, “Well, we don’t have anything at that price here, but try some of this.” And sadly, they were right. With the exception of a couple of white wines, there was nothing available in this website’s price range.

Now I don’t presume to tell Napa what to do – I know they have spent considerable time and money to position their wines as “destination” wines. The quality and the desirability of their wines is unquestioned. But I would really love to see what they can do in the under $25 range. We have a review of the Turn 4 Cab on this site that we were highly impressed with. If Bennett Lane can deliver outstanding value, then it stands to reason that others can do it too. There are a whole bunch of us down here in this price range just waiting to buy their entry level value wines.

2008 Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling – $9

So Michalina’s cooking me dinner – a spicy chicken dish that smells as delicious as she does. When I get to her condo, DAMN!! I forgot to bring a wine! “Back in five, kochanie”, (Polish for “yo baby”) and I’m off, knowing I spotted a Dominick’s downstairs (that’s a chain of grocery stores in 312 that has a decent selection of wines) .

Once there, I spot a Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling for $9 chilled. Sold! Not only is Michalina Polish for Michelle, but if you know anything about Polish girls, you KNOW they likes their Riesling!

Back at her place, we enjoy a “primer” glass together while she puts the finishing touches on dinner. She couldn’t say enough about this wine – not too dry, not too sweet, nice and crisp and refreshing with lots of apples, melon and even a little lime.

Then we gave it a whole new level of appreciation when we started digging in (eating, I mean – other stuff came later). It went with her chicken dish like chocolate and strawberries. Like lingerie and sexy hips. Like bellies and jewelry. It was sweet but not too sweet, and it’s gentle sweetness was just the right counter to the spice of the chicken dish.

Chateau Ste Michelle is the oldest winery in Washington State and they are the LARGEST single producer of Riesling in the world (600,000 cases)! They were the winner of Wine Enthusiast’s American Winery of the Year in 2004, and have an amphitheater on their grounds in Woodinville, WA where you can drink their wines and see Styx or Tony Bennett (and others) in concert during the summer months.

Being around for so long and selling so much Riesling, it’s obviously not just Michalina & I that think their wines are a perennial solid choice for go-to consistency.

2008 Cono Sur Pinot Noir – $8

Cono Sur was born around the oldest Chilean Pinot Noir vineyards. For years they have promoted organic wine production methods since it benefits everyone from the consumer to the vineyard worker to the environment.

This wine is a rich ruby color with a nose that takes you for a walk through a cherry orchard. It’s light and breezy, soft and approachable, smooth and balanced.

It tastes like you’re nibbling on the bushels of fresh black cherries while you browse at your local fruit stand or farmer’s market, then finishes with a taste of toast that you reminds you of your Sunday morning scrambled egg breakfast. Awesome alone, or have with Chilean Sea Bass. Or turkey bacon if you’re eating that breakfast!

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