Guest Blogger: A New Wine Rating System

(Tom Briggs of Fort Worth, Texas, sent us a note about his wine experiences. We enjoyed his rating system so much we decided to let Tom explain it here.)

I wanted to let you know that I’ve enjoyed reading AMealWithoutWine for some time now. I really like its perspective.

We rate every wine we drink on what I call an “X” scale: That is, a wine that’s worth what we paid for it gets a 1X, something worth triple what we paid gets a 3X, and so on. We try to hit at least a 2X or 3X, even though most of what’s out there – especially from California – usually doesn’t even make it up to 1X. As AMealWithoutWine has indirectly pointed out, Washington state has some real finds. Covey Run’s basic Riesling, for example, generally gets a 2.5X or a 3X (we pay $9, but it’s better than a lot of Rieslings in the mid $20s), as does the Ste. Michelle, and they’re generally repeatable and consistent from year to year.

The main problem we run into is repeatability: Often when we find a great value wine, it’s either completely gone the next time we shop for it, or the next vintage year isn’t as good. Our record-breaking find was a Monterra Monterey County Cabernet Sauvignon 2000, which we rated at an eye-popping 10X: We paid $4 but we thought it was worth $40. (It was fully mature, with a fair amount of sediment and a decent amount of real aged Grand-Cru taste.) Of course that’s gone forever and we only managed to buy 8 cases. The Columbia Crest Two Vines Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 was a real find at 4X (we paid only $6), but the 2005 wasn’t anywhere close to as good. That’s the story of our wine life – trying to find the best quality for the price.

Small Winery Wine Prices

We’re back from our wine adventure, and will have lots of wines to review in the near future.

We were recently reading one of our favorite travel bloggers, who was mentioning a way to earn frequent-flyer miles by joining a particular wine club. He said something to the effect of: “I’d never pay $10 for a bottle of wine, but that’s up to you.”

We didn’t know what to think. He’s obviously not a wine drinker, for which we feel sad. Yes, there are a lot of great wines available for less than $10 (and we’ve reviewed many), but it’s highly unlikely you’ll find any from the small, unique wineries of the world.

On our trip, we found that, generally, the minimum price at a small winery was about $15 – which we thought was a bargain. These may not be quite “mom-and-pop” wineries (if such a thing can exist in today’s marketplace), but they make in a year what Gallo (or even Mondavi) makes in a day.

We want to support the small wineries, which is why we recommend that if you go to a small winery’s tasting room, if at all possible buy at least one bottle. You’ll generally find something fun, unusual, and possibly unique.

Old Zinfandel Vines, Napa, California

Wine Prices

Many of the wine prices we list are a little vague – often because we have lousy memories and also forget to record the price when we purchased the wine. On other occasions, we list the price we paid and also what typical retail is (ie: “$8 on sale, usually about $13”). In keeping with our wine philosophy, we’d say that 80 percent of the wines we discuss are below $15 retail. But we – and you – seldom need to pay $15 for a $15 wine.

Many retailers, especially supermarkets in many states (California and Washington are two we know of), frequently have a variety of wines on sale. And almost all wine retailers – whether a wine store, a liquor store, or a supermarket – offer case discounts (even mixed cases) of 10-20 percent for a case of 12 wines.

Part of our goal with this blog is to show that you can consistently find excellent wines at nearly every price point, especially affordable wines. Of course, when you go too low in price you’ll end up with a few stinkers, but we’ve had $30 bottles we didn’t like either.

Another good way to find affordable bottles is to stick with one producer you know and that you’ve had good luck – four of our “go-to” affordable wineries where we feel we’ll seldom go wrong are Columbia Crest (Washington), Rosemount (Australia), Beringer (California), and B&G (France). Try some of the wines we list as House wines, and if you agree with us, then try a few others in that winery’s line.