Good Afternoon: Found the Nigl, which proved an excellent selection (thanks!), but that's not where things get interesting. The Von Winning had sold out at the store, therefore, bought another $17.99 bottle, the Max Ferd. Richter 2018 Richter Estate Riesling from Mosel. Got lucky here with another excellent wine, worthy of consideration for the next 20/20 list.
And perhaps that's represents the point of the 20/20 articles: to draw our attention to wines *not* on the list.
Asimov has surpassed himself in picking wines from obscure European vineyards. How about some bottles we can find? Not all of us live down the block of a New York wine store, or in a state that allows unrestricted mail order. Jay from Indiana
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2017 Dashwood (Marlborough NZ) Pinot Noir.
It fills the mouth in the nicest way.
I know it's considered "pedestrian" but I like my Chardonnay and I'm not afraid to admit it. Any suggestions for a good oaky variety in the $15-20 price range?
Isn’t it well past time to consider the carbon footprint of drinking wines from far away? And recommending pairing wines with burgers? We really all have to do better.
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Alcohol content should be given for all wines in these reviews.
So good to know about wines with 12 percent or even less content — two people can kill a bottle and then move on, capably, to even more intimate encounters.
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Both rieslings are from top-tier producers. In Germany the bottles are listed at the higher end of the pricing scale for "Gutsriesling" having a double digits €-price. For producers who are engaged in export business this is customary.
At present German Wine Institut is trying to motivate and inspire more producers to export; also those who are playing in the "lower than 10 € Gutsriesling league" here. They are still reluctant, some don´t see the need, some are able to offer small quantities only, some are afraid of the administrative expense, some after mixed experiences with own attempts.
That´s why the establishing of groups of more producers including top cooperatives is encouraged right now. Maybe this could lead to a larger consumer-friendly offer in USA also.
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Not a bad list. Would've been nice to see a Sherry, but happy to see some Rieslings.
@ Alex Bernardo Millbrae, California
Sherry, Port, and Vermouth are fortified wines. Perhaps this is the reason, why they are not reviewed in this column.
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@Tuv etc, exactly
Eric the problem I see with your list is the availability of these. I know other people made the same comment. I'm wondering if you offered these as a package how many people would buy their favorite 12. I enjoy trying different wines so it is very appealing to me. What I would like to know is how many wines you sampled to finally decide on this selection. That said, it sounds like a very eclectic list. I have been an avid wine drinker for more than 30 years and many of these are totally new to me. Good job sir.
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@Les Ciapponi
if your state allows out of state inbound shipping you might try some via "mail order" there are good websites with reputable wine stores. I have done this with success. even though you can get most in NYC Watch the weather don't ship when it's very hot or freezing cold.
Shop where there is a good selection and an offer of 20-25% off if you buy 4-6 bottles. You can get that $20 bottle for $15-16 and save a lot of trips to the store.
Washington State wines have many bottles that are great values and quality for under $20, just saying. L'Ecole No. 41 Chenin Blanc is a great movie-watching partner in this price range.
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@jim-stacey
I would caution you to be wary of stores that offer 20% or 25% discounts on any bottle count....that usually means their prices are WELL above average to begin with. Often it would mean their discount prices are similar to what other stores offer without a discount.
The negative comments below are astounding. The labels are too ugly, the wine names have too many words, why don't you come to my small town in Missouri and review the wine I can find here, $20 is way too expensive, $20 is too cheap, why don't you include wines from (insert one of many states/countries/producers), I'll never be able to find those wines near me and I don't want to order them online, why don't you write a column about wines between $10 and $15 (he did, in April).
I love this column. After years of sticking to the $10-$12 price range, and now being thoroughly bored by nearly everything at that price, $20 is exactly what I want to spend. I'm finding just those extra few dollars make a difference, and that American wine in that price range is generally still not good.
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I only drink American organic wine, and had found a great one, I believe from Oregon, for around $10 or $12. I forgot the name but no problem because the liquor store had it located in the organic wine section. The store had changed their organizational system from type of wine to..the name of the wine. Clerk had no idea how to find it and didn't care much about my problem. Sad!
Lovely list. Thanks Mr Asimov.
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I am confident that an NYT wine club offering mixed, all red and all white cases would succeed, with the sales volume allowing a discount to keep shipping cost down. Surely a wine importer would love to be the supplier.
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I want to go get all of these.
When will NYT put these out in a shopping list format? At least publish as a recipe to the cooking site. They do have the capability to push the ingredient list to a shopping list.
Please!!!!
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What is it about wine articles that attracts comments from whiners and self-proclaimed experts? Is it that difficult to read the perspective of one experienced wine writer as a way of enriching one’s understanding of the vast and ever-evolving world of wine? Has the world lost its ability to simply appreciate a thoughtful commentary without offering inane and/or self-absorbed criticism?
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@David H Everyone's gottana opinion. Apparently even you.
No skin off anyone's nose one way or ta other.
@Michael Mora Being gentle and informative, sharing information without "competitive" urge is now a lost art. Told you so.
It is "skin off" to point out or be negative when we are focused on a pursuit of happiness. Especially focused on and within the pleasures of vinophilia...be gentler.
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@David H, Nothing baffles me more than somebody who complains about the comments... Oh, wait...
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For me, on the States at home in Seattle it's $12 and under wines from WA. Costco mother store in Issaquah has the best selection. When at home in Italy, it's the 3 Euro bottles in Abruzzo...Montepulciano, Cerasuolo rosato, Pecorino white. Or the great deep south reds from Sicilia, Puglia, and the whites from Campania. When I'm working in Tuscany, I never drink the Chianti's.... overpriced for the tourists and too severe like Tuscan cuisine. I buy the southern reds, always on the bottom shelf in the stores there, 3-7 euros. If I'm eating out in Tuscany (infrequent) it's a cheap Super Tuscan blend. In Napoli, always the local wines. And eating out I always get the vino della casa, 1/2 -1 liter. Never order a bottle when possible unless the restaurant has cheap local whites. The local stuff is better for food.
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Oregon, Washington and British Columbia also produce wine. When I lived in New Jersey, which is well-supplied with wine stores, I found more wines from Patagonia than I found from Canada.
My general impression is that northern harvests are smaller, so the wines are inevitably rarer and more expensive than a wine of similar quality from California. However, if Mr. Asimov’s goal is to reach beyond California in search of wines that are interesting to drink, north (and south) on in the coastal mountains might not be bad directions.
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The question is where can I purchase 10 of these 20 from one source? It is useless to describe these but we cannot easily get some or all of them .... NYT wine club would be a good idea. Readers can choose to buy selected wine after each article appears.
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So East Coast/Euro centric. Not a single California zinfandel on the list. I shouldn't divulge this, but for drinkers of big red wines, zin (including some zin blends) is the best bargain available today from California, now that Napa cabs and merlots and Sonoma pinots are stupid expensive. I could, but won't, name several recent vintage zins that are outstanding table wines, and none of them exceed $15 a bottle. Some can even be found at times for under $10. Seek and ye shall find.
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@Jeff Sher I used to think so about Zins, but in the past few years the good ones have become absurdly overpriced. I remember when they were far drier, without a hint of sugar, but it seems too many Zins today are going the sugar route, especially those under $20.
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@Harry
I think that is because the sugar content these days in so high that converting it all to alcohol makes wines that are too high in alcohol to be considered table wines.
$20 wines can be just as good S $200 ones. It’s been proven multiple times. Those who have money to burn can be dumb as rocks.
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The writer is straitjacketed by familiarity. At $20, many wines from Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific north west are beyond excellent and would make the weeknights positively delightful.
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This is when I miss living in the states. None of these are imported here and if they were they would be in the $60 range. Yellow Tail is $20 here! Hip hip hooray for exorbitant taxes :(
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"Most are from little-known regions, often made from grapes of lesser status."
And, as usual, most of these miracle wines are bottles and or types that nobody's ever heard of, few people outside of Major Metropolitan areas can find in any wine shop anywhere at any price, and some of their names are more than two lines long and contain as many as sixteen, yes, 16, separate terms. For as long as I've been reading Eric's columns, I don't think that I have been able to find even one of his selections. Not one! It's nice when you are a wine columnist and have cases of free wine delivered to your desk by your concierge on a regular basis. The rest of us live in the real world. Want a challenge, Eric? Write about some wines that people can actually find in cities where the rest of us actually live.
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Order them online! Are you seriously asking him to limit his list to wines available... what, in every single small town in the country?
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@Eddie
If this is how you feel and the articles are useless to you why keep reading them?
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@Eddie Classic! I live in France, one of the hardest places to find imported wines from even border countries (and with good reason, one could argue successfully there is little need) and I can still find many of these on line with delivery to France. Want a hint? Go find a nice wine shop nearby, get to know the people who work there and ask around for these wines or wines like them in your price range. Mr. Asimov has promoted this approach for years now and hot dang, it works better than complaining.
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My choice, readily available and inexpensive at $13 per bottle - Robert Mondavi Private Selection Bourbon Barrel Cabernet Sauvignon. Don't be put off if you are not a bourbon drinker. Its a smooth, robust red that will make you wish you discovered it last year. Enjoy, my friends.
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I miss Washington state and California wines living overseas. I love all the wines I can easily buy here for a great price, but sometimes I just want something from the 'old days'.
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Ugh. Even the labels are terrible looking.
My grandfather used to say, " Good wine is wine you like, bad wine is wine you don't like." In general 37 years ago when I got into the wine business that was true. It's occasionally a truism now and again still.
That said, there are few wines I want to drink at $20, a few more in the $40's and many that I truly adore at $60-$80. Clearly for myself it means drinking less but being happier with every mouthful.
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Look for wines from the Horse Heaven Hills region of Washington state to find more excellent wines under $20.
Also, Malbecs from Argentina, and the French Rose’ wines.Portugal also produces many good wines that sell for less than $20.
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My wine reviewer is Costco They have a range of prices and often make an effort to have some local wines. Total Wine is good too, however it takes more effort due the wide choice. Trader Joe's is also quite competitive and can have good deals.
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@Sutter I live in France where Costco just opened its first store and most of the wines are of decent French producers at prices that are competitive so I gave their Kirkland brand a try, a 2015 Bordeaux-it was undrinkable. At 6 Euros, I can get 1000's of French wines that are not just drinkable but enjoyable.
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@Sutter-Trader Joe's too.
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@Sutter
I also love Costco wines, but our store imports mostly from Italy and Spain with only an occasional wine from France. The wines I have found most enjoyable came from Italy.
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These offerings are great for people living in New York State. I have lived and shopped for wine in the upper Great Plains for most of a decade. I've never encountered any of these choices, and I often look for wines from promising regions outside the U.S. Enjoy if you can find them.
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@James Quirk
I believe that your problems in ND and the rest of the upper Great Plains might be the local wine wholesalers and retailers.
I am sure that the importers of the wines in this article would love to have their products available in those states if they could, but they usually can't. The interest in fine (or even "pretty good") wines in the retail and/or wholesale level is minuscule. When asked what the difference between a bottle of Smirnoff and a Cotes du Rhone is, the likely answer is usually, "about three bucks".
Eric has the good sense of listing the importer of each of these wines. Call them. Ask them the name of the wholesaler in you market that carries that wine. Then call that local wholesaler. Ask him the name of a retailer in your area who carries that wine. If enough wine lovers did this you might start to get some goodies like these into your market.
Good luck.
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No way can I afford wine at or about $20 per bottle. Any recommendations at the $10-$15 level?
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@Kathy Try Muscadet--although his selection is over $15, many are that price and below. Also Poggiobello Pinot Grigio and Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc. For reds, ask your trusted wine store.
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@Kathy -- try Splash wines online (or better yet via Groupon). You can easily have 18 bottle cases delivered to your door for around $5 a bottle. These are not "fine" wines, these are table wines, great with food. They're from Portugal, Spain, California, Chile, Italy, and elsewhere. I just got an 18 bottle selection of roses from around the world for $85 including shipping.
To paraphrase John 21:25: 'But there are also many other wines in this category; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.'
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Great list!
One thing missing is the sugar content of these wines. I look for 2 grams per litre at most, and it is very difficult to find a wine for less than $20 with that low sugar content, but here are some, and would love to find more.!
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@gil Yes a great list. Eric Asimov will usually do that. Sadly, as many others have noted, availability can be a challenge in the wine deserts outside enlightened major metro areas (and I classify Toronto as such a place). As to sweet talking the local wine store or distributor, well, lotsa luck in control states like here in Pennsyltucky.
As to residual sugar, are you sure you want 2g/l? 2% is the upper threshold for dry wine, and that's 2g/100ml -- 2g/l is 0.2%, a level that is not so easy to achieve. 0.5% is a more typical end point.
Keep in mind also that as %ABV goes up you need more residual sugar to counter the alcohol's burn. The wine will taste out of whack if residual sugar is too low for its %ABV. pH and tannins get into this, too, so it's not just a tango but more of a four couple square dance.
To complicate matters of taste further, glycerol is a natural by-product of yeast fermentation. It doesn't enter into the residual sugar measurement, but can perceptively shift the wine's taste of sweetnes.
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20 under $20? If I spend that I’m really living the dream. How about a good wine at $15. I’m On the patio now sipping a Rodney Strong Chardonnay ($14 at Pic n Save). It tastes pretty good to me
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@Meza
Mr. Asimov wrote a column "12 wines Under $12", April 24, 2019. I cut it out and saved it and we have tried and liked most of them. Viña Zorzal Navarra Graciano was a particular favorite.
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@Meza
I’m a Cabernet fan and J. Lohr or Joel Gott at Cost-Co or Trader Joe for under $15 does it for me.
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@Meza
It's always a bonus if an inexpensive wine has the words "produced and bottled by" on the label. Huzzah to the folks at Rodney Strong.
Thanks, but what about Washington state? None mentioned. It would be great if you could do a similar column focused on Washington and Oregon wines? They would be more accessible.
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Washington State has some of the best wines on the market under $20. Not to mention the carbon footprint is a lot less than the wines listed in this article.
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@Tim Hi Tim, I like Washington State's Chateau Ste. Michele Riesling which retails in NYC around $14.
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I don't know what you make as a columnist but $19.99 for a bottle of wine is not "inexpensive".
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@Bill
$20 divided by 5 glasses is $4 a glass!!!
Even a dingy dive bar will charge u $ 7-8 a glass for horrendous plonk
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20 bucks is pretty inexpensive for a good wine. Spend any less and you certainly don’t need a wine critic telling you what to drink.
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@Wayne Z.
You pretty much nailed it. I would probably drop the price to $15 though. There are some pretty decent sleeper wines found in that 15 to 20 price range.
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Lots of $12 - $17 bordeaux out there as well, pity none of them on this list.
Elsewhere, EA et alia need to get to Costco more.
Will seek out the Italy reds for sure. Wish there had been more reds, in fact.
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At the under $10 a bottle price point, I have found a few wines I really enjoy. They are all French -- viva la France!
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Thanks for a great article. I’m lucky. We live close to MacArthur Beverages in Washington, D.C. and have had some of the recommended wines. They are indeed excellent. And we have a daughter and son-in-law in Brooklyn who scout out bottles for us. I’ll add your recommendations to the list.
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I agree with you for the under $10. However I do quite a bit of between $10 and $15 and look specially for the specials. I would enormously appreciate if you do the article within this range (10-15). I have already tasted three of your recommendations (Tiberio, Vouvray and Pitti) and will continue tasting some of your other recommendations. Many thanks.
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@berale8 See his April 24 list of wines under $15
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My idea of a moderately priced wine? $8.00. But I don't live in New York.
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@Chris
Come on, Chris, don't hold back: give us then names of those $8.00 wines that you feel are the equal (or better) than the twenty mentioned in this article.
"Value" does not mean the cheapest, it means the happy meeting of quality and cost.
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@Janet Texas
GRUET Champagne...excellent value AND taste
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@Janet Texas
It’s simple, Janet. Most Americans can’t afford $20 “inexpensive “ wines.
Yes, I’d love to buy them but it’s a real stretch.
So I, too, would like to see a list of the best wines for $10 or below. It would also be good if they’re available widely in the US.
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Appreciate the review, but none of these are readily available in my college town in Missouri. it would be wonderful if you'd travel to some of our wine/liquor shops and review what we have. Maybe a store would stretch to challenge each other!
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@Geller Which university town? With the possible exception of Kirksville, a lot of these wines should be available in most of Missouri. I’ve personally imported some of them to the state, and my friends import several others. Asking someone at a smaller wine shop about bringing it in for you, and referencing the importer (conveniently listed in this article) might be the way to go.
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Really? The New York Times wine columnist should travel to your small town in Missouri to review what you have? How about asking your own local paper to do this?
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I lived in Spain, Germany and Belgium for several years... I have lived in California for over 15 years. I still find very difficult to understand, let alone select wine in the USA; I have concluded that decent US wine costs about $50, whereas one can find excellent french, Spanish or german wine for €20.
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@salvador
Besides Europeans I also buy Chileans and Argentines under $15 which are probably the best in the range. And I also buy a couple of Americans in tis range. By the way I also lived in Europe and yes, it is much easier to get the right thing there!
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As usual with these articles the problem of actually finding these wines for sale is never, ever discussed. None of these will be st my local store so the only option is traveling or shipping, neither of which is practical. I’ve moved to a well reviewed wine club. Eric, maybe you should review those.
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@Stephen, copy and paste the wine name into Wine Searcher. Several stores will come up. Astor Wines on lower east
side and Manhattan Wine Co. on West 28th will have several of these.
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@Rob D
Thanks but here's the thing. I'm not travelling that distance to buy one or two bottles of wine (and it is a HIKE for me to get there) and I'm certainly not lugging a case home.
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@Stephen Instead of not trying to find them, try Winesearcher and you may well find closer stores.
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Great article by Eric that ties in untraveled and differences in wine appellations.
Any article has some lesser known wine brand that will be hard to find. My suggestion is to bring this article to you go to wine retailer who knows your palette. Then you can pursue similar wines.
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union sacre and field recordings have similarly priced, phenomenal wines in paso robles. sad to see paso go unrepresented here.
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"Sure, you can find sound wines for less than $10. Some will seem confected, others simple, and most will not be particularly interesting."
Most - but not all.
I expect you would consider personally ferreting out these low-priced rarities to not be the best use of your time, and I guess you'd be right. However, why not delegate the task to scouts - e.g. reporters and other Times employees - who could bring back any apparently worthy bottles for you and Ms. Fabricant to try out for yourselves?
Or maybe you could challenge your readers to do the scouting for you and them write in with suggestions?
On the other hand, I don't suppose the various importers and producers that for good reason you are regularly in contact (and friendly) with would appreciate such an exercise.
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@Tom Benghauser
I would definitely appreciate it! Great suggestion!
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There was an article a few months ago about wines under $12…
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@Tom Benghauser
There are TONS of great wines for under $10 a bottle. I write about them all the time.
Here are some suggestions:
https://www.masslive.com/entertainment/2018/12/wine_press_top_10_wines_under_2.html
https://www.masslive.com/entertainment/2017/12/wine_press_top_10_wines_under_1.html
https://www.masslive.com/entertainment/2016/12/wine_press_top_10_wines_under.html
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A general comment.
"Weeknights are a state of mind", but to "improve" this state of mind with wine may be a slide into alcoholism.
As to the price, no true oenophiles or gourmets of refine tastes would probably worry about the prices of their favorite wines or foods, respectively. The household economies would dictate the frequency of consumption.
À votre santé et bon appétit !
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