Wine review: Big House Red 2010

The Wine Curmudgeon tries, if nothng else, to be fair. I spend a lot of time not only tasting wine, but re-tasting it. Was my initial impression correct? Am I being too hard on a particular wine? Is the wine better than I thought it was?

Which is why this review is here. Big House Red, for those of you who haven't had to read this before, was perhaps the finest line of cheap wine in the United States. Then, in one of those things that happens and that I never seem to be able to accept (bands breaking up, ballplayers being traded), Big House owner Randall Grahm sold the label in 2006 to The Wine Group. The wine hasn't been the same since.

Or has it? I've tasted most of the vintages since the sale, and they seemed lacking -- missing something that they had when Grahm made them. But other people, including George Taber in "A Toast to Bargain Wines," don't feel that way, and Big House gets generally good reviews. So I decided to taste the wine one more time. More, after the jump:

Big House ($10, sample) is a red blend from California, and there is not a thing wrong with it. It's a little dark on the front, which I liked, and it doesn't finish like so many other grocery store wines at that price, with lots of sweet fruit and not much else. There was only a little bit of sweet fruit, and I could almost taste a tannin trying to break through. If you need wine for dinner (hamburgers, pizza) and you're in the grocery store, you could do a lot worse

But I wasn't overwhelmed. There's a difference between a wine that is OK and a wine that makes you stop after the first sip and smile (even at the $10 level). The latter are wines that get into the $10 Hall of Fame; the Big House, though, didn't make me smile. It inhabits that grocery store middle ground between the Two-buck Chucks and Barefoots, which are cheap, and the Bogles and Vitianos, which are more than just cheap. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. But the Wine Curmudgeon has always had higher standards.

Comments

[Lewis Perdue]

Since I don't review wines, I buy all my wine, and always look for a bargain.

In the beginning (after Wine Group's acquisition) Big House Red was one of my favorite cheap wines. But in the past year, it has been inconsistent from bottle to bottle ... often just a watery plonk with no fruit and enough oak to leave splinters in your tongue ...

I have taken it off my list of trusty brands because it's no longer trustworthy and no longer a bargain at any price.,

[bburnsey]

Now a wine that I pass up. It used to be a favorite, but not anymore.

[Jeff Siegel]

The inconsistency that Lew noted has always been a problem with these kinds of wines. That's what happens when the goal is to hit a price and not to make a quality wine.

[Rob Johnson]

BHR- best wine in a box for me so far. Snootsters need not apply... Box wine was Verboten until the wife and I got tires of trucking bottles around when we travelled. The higher priced Black Box Brand pales- even though it is a Merlot. If anyone can tell me where to get a better box wine under 20 ducats- please fill me in.