The Wine Curmudgeon

The 2013 $10 Hall of Fame

This was a record-setting year for the $10 Hall of Fame, with 12 wines making the cut. In some two decades of drinking cheap wine, I've never tasted so many that were so good. I came across at least one wine every week that was made me go, "Does this belong in the Hall?" That has never happened before.

Click here for the entire list, or the $10 link on the upper left of this page.

There were lots of surprises -- the Mandolin syrah from California, a French picpoul from Font-Mars (picpoul is notoriously inconsistent), and even the Rene Barbier Mediterranean Red, which took $5 wine to a place I never thought it could go. The Hall's selection process and eligibility rules are here.

We're living in the Golden Age of cheap wine, and I hope everyone who reads this understands how lucky we are to be here. It's as if Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, the Ramones, and the Beatles were all on the same bill, all in their prime, tickets were free, and we never had to go home.

2013 $10 Hall of Fame coming on Monday

The 2013 $10 Hall of Fame will post on Monday -- perhaps the most impressive group of cheap wine I've honored in the decade I've been doing this. There's more Gascon wine, a French picpoul that is stunning, some of the best Australian wine I've had in years, and even $10 California wine -- plus a mystery wine that surprised even me.

Want a sneak preview? I'll be on Olivia Wilder's Internet rado program at 8 p.m. CST on Sunday to talk about the new Hall, answer questions, and dispense cheap wine advice.

Wine prices in 2013

Apparently, we have to listen to this one more time.

They’re not going anywhere, no matter what you may read elsewhere. Some higher-end wines, like Napa reds, red and white Burgundy, and classified Bordeaux, may be able to take increases. Though, interestingly, Champagne is in a quandary over cutting prices.

But the cost of the wine that most of us drink will stay more or less the same.

Details are after the jump:

Wine of the week: Falesco Vitiano Rosso 2009

Consider these quotes from the Wine Curmudgeon’s previous reviews of the various Vitiano wines:

• "I sound like a gushing school girl. …”

• “Riccardo Cotarella is a genius.”

• “How does Ricccardo Cotarella produce a wine of this quality, ship it to the U.S., overcome the high euro, and sell it for about $10?”

Needless to say, I like the wines.

The 2009 Rosso ($10, purchased) is yet another triumph – a red blend of sangiovese, cabernet sauvignon, and merlot that is not too fruity, not too alcoholic, not too tannic, and not too acidic. In other words, balanced, as all great wine should be, whether costing $10 or $100.

The 2009 is more rustic than previous vintages, with some heft and a leathery feel, but this variation is one of its charms. Most cheap wine is made to taste the same from year to year, but Cotarella’s wines are better than that.

Drink this with any red sauce or any combination of beef or chicken with red sauce. It will be back in the $10 Hall of Fame when it appears next week, a testament to the concept that cheap wine does not have to taste cheap.

Wine of the week: Castello Montauto Vernaccia di San Gimignano 2010

We’ve had more than 250 wines of the week on the blog since we started, and this may be the most unique.

For one thing, the Montauto ($10, purchased) is a white wine from Tuscany, best known as a red wine region. For another, it’s made with vernaccia, a minor grape even by Italian standards, given that there are more little-known grapes in Italy than almost anywhere else in the world.

And it doesn’t taste like you’d expect an Italian wine to taste, which means it’s not for everyone -- especially for people who prefer anything but subtlety in their glass. Look for some white pepper and lots of minerality to go with a little lemon peel, and not much else. In this, it’s almost like an aperitif made with tonic water and vermouth. But it’s fresh and clean and very well done.

In fact, it was far from a wine of the week when I first tasted it, but the more I thought about it, that difference was part of the Montauto’s charm. It’s the sort of wine that fits the holidays -- light and refreshing, whether for drinking on its own or with Christmas oysters.

Wine of the week: Ravenswood Old Vine Vintners Zinfandel 2009

One of the things that the Wine Curmudgeon doesn’t like about this job is how cynical it has made me about grocery store wine. So many of them have been so disappointing that I’m at the point that if the front or back label uses adjectives or descriptions like reserve, old vine, or artisan, I figure the marketing department is compensating for quality (given that federal regulations for using terms like these is vague, at best).

So I expected absolutely nothing from the Ravenswood ($10, sample); that’s why it sat in the wine closet for 13 months. Shows how much I know, other than to reiterate the No. 1 rule of wine reviewing: Don’t judge the wine until you taste it.

This red is surprising in many ways, not the least of which is that it held up for a year. There is lots of sweet berry fruit in the modern zinfandel style, but it’s not unpleasant and it’s balanced by some some traditional zinfandel character (particularly pepper). It’s a nice value for $10.

Don’t worry too much if the wine you find is the current vintage and not this one. One of the good things about grocery store wines is that they are consistent in taste and style from year to year.

Wine of the week: Alois Lageder Pinot Bianco 2010

One of the great joys of Italian wine is also why Italian wine is so frustrating. There are too many wines and too many regions and too much to understand, but the thrill of finding a wine completely by accident makes up for all of the aggravation.

That’s what happened with the Lageder ($10, purchased). It’s an Italian white wine made with a German grape, pinot blanc, that is more popular in France than it is in Germany – but in Alsace, a region of France that used to be part of Germany. And if that wasn’t complicated enough, this wine is made by a fifth-generation Italian producer that comes the country’s far northeast, which is almost in Austria (as you can tell by Lageder, which sounds more German than Italian).

With a story like that, how could I not buy the wine? Best yet, the Lageder rewarded me for the decision. It didn’t taste like I expected it to – none of that Italian minerality or bracing acidity. It was a more subtle wine, fresh and clean but with a bit of richness to go with some apple fruit. In this, it was more Alsatian than Italian, though I paired it with my annual spaghetti carbonara dinner and it was exactly what the spaghetti needed.