$5 Pinot Noir vs $65 Pinot Noir
 

Mrs. Motion and I enjoyed a bottle of $5 Black Mountain California pinot noir from Trader Joe's last night.

On Monday, driving down from Laguna Seca, we stopped at a vineyard north of San Luis Obispo and had a tasting of $65 reserve pinots.

I gotta say... the bouquet and palette of the $5 pinot is just as nice as the $65 reserve I tasted. Every bit as good. Its even ever so slightly less bitter, so I probably prefer it more.

So, what's the deal with expensive wines? We have a few $8-$10 every day reds we enjoy. Guess I am a wine slummer and enjoy being one :)

On a side note, has anyone seen the southward proliferation of grapes in California? Holy hell, there sure is a lot of production these days, even compared to 10 years ago. I gotta think that means some really good, low-cost wines are easy to find.

I've had my best luck in the $20 range. At $5 I think you got lucky! Keep buying it and see if the quality holds up over time.

From my experience Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio/Gris are pretty hard to screw up, no sense in spending the extra skrilla.

If I remember correctly the grapes are among the most hardy as well so there is rarely a shortage causing "legit" price hikes year over year. I would imagine it's almost entirely hype/marketing.

Me and the Mrs drink boxed wine for our "every day" wine.

Some of it is damn good.

If you are a red drinker you can have just one glass and not have to worry about killing the bottle before it turns. The way the boxes are designed prevents air getting back in.

Myself, I grow those little bombs and put them in a bottle.

I will quote a old time grower in WA and when asked when it is time to drink a batch and he says" when you taste a vintage you like, drink the **** out of it"

Its all in your taste buds, nothing more nothing less.

I buy wine in the 10-20 dollar range and drink nice wine. We have 50-100 dollar wine in the cellar and it is good but its not my every day drinking stuff.

When a winery wins awards for a particular vintage the costs go up cuz it has a gold metal.

In all my experience with wine, Pinot Noir is the most fickled, love the grape but can be the toughest one to buy right, at 5 bucks you got lucky, buy a case and let us know.

My pick for consistent quality is sangiovese or chianti wine.

Interesting story I've heard about Pinots. While they're produced all over the world, only the Pinots you get from Washington and Niagara are pure pinots. Everywhere else (most notably California, Australia and New Zealand) they're cut with another grape, usually shiraz. Apparently this is to give the wine more body and colour. Our Pinots from Niagara are among my favourite wines from anywhere in the world, but they are definitely a lighter wine, and quite orange in colour.

A good one here will set you back $20-30. For $30-40 you can get a knock-out. Beyond that I don't see much improvement in flavour, but I'm hardly the best judge of that. Wine here is about 150-200% the price that it is in the US,.

I think the best price-taste ratio is around $25, for Oregon wines anyway.

I used to bartend at the kids' school's wine auction, and naturally I tasted everything, from $10/bottle to $85/bottle - there were all local wines - there were $85/bottle wines that were genuinely sublime, even with a dulled palate - but you know what your palate is worth, and mine is worth $25 to $35/bottle.

Though I will happily drink a $10/bottle. At $5 - hmm, you are getting into cooking wine. Wine is an analytical business, the vintner who chose the grapes to sell at rock bottom prices and the winemaker who blended those cheap grapes into mass market wine, they knew what they were trying to produce and they weren't trying to make a good wine. Maybe they made a mistake.

I can't believe I spelled it "palette". That's ripe :)

It is mass-produced, but seems to be fairly drinkable: Wine Lush: Black Mountain Pinot Noir and Muenster

If you like a $5 wine, buy it & enjoy it. The cheapest palatable wines that I can enjoy are all Spanish in the $10 - $15 range.

I have a different view of pinots & for me to-date, only true Burgundy shows the grape at its best. But I'll keep trying.

Ian

Whomever the buyer is for trader Joes has excellent taste in wines. Always surprised by what I find there.

Two Buck Chuck - I always have a few bottles on hand, when I'm cooking oxtail or pork belly or etc

It is not as tolerable for drinking as it used to be.

NONE of the Niagaras?

California wine producers keep improving with the years. California has burst onto the wine scene, relatively speaking. People drink in a recession to forget about how awful the economy is and they celebrate too when times are good by drinking.

The wine industry is saying, "What recession?"

I had a nice glass of Gnarly Head — Cabernet Sauvignon this evening.

Not true.

While some people might put Syrah into a Pinot (called "hamburger helper" in the winery), and a couple of the big point getting wines are suspected of doing this, no self respecting producer would do that. The beauty of Pinot Noir is that it is a 100% varietal wine, it does not need other varietals to make interesting.

Refinement - I have no real operating idea of what they do in NZ, I have winemaker friends of high end brands in Mornington (Australia) and they are 100% varietal.

The wine we make, the wine I see made, the vast majority of the Pinot Noir from Sonoma County are 100% pinot and they are wonderful.

Absolutely - drink what you like. BTW, the bitter taste in the $65 may well mean it is not yet ready to drink yet.

I opened a 199 Savigny tonight b/c I finished off the last of the 1996 Barbaresco.

I'm happy with Orygun pinots tho, and my goal is to drink (and force others to drink) pinots from every part of the world.

I've had very good pinots from NZ BTW; I think nothing tastes like Burgundy b/c no one else has the limestone in the soil. But some Oregon pinots can confuse sophisticated Burg. swillers if tasted blind. I know b/c I have tricked them several times...

My best advice on choosing wine is simply, "Drink what you love and love what you drink."

Don't drink wine because others tell you it is great. That goes for scores from Parker, or advice from guys that own wineries in Sonoma County. If you find a reviewer or wine store owner that rates wines that agree with your palate, then follow them.

Aside from our own wines, the ones we tend to buy and drink are from the Rhone and Languedoc - value for dollar just unbeatable. We buy wines from Kermit Lynch in Berkeley at the $15-25 range all day long, they are wonderful.

Another word on the price difference between wines (or Pinots to the OP's point). At the high end, our inputs are very expensive. Premium Grapes cost between $5K and $8K per ton - a ton produces between 50-60 cases - or just about $9 per bottle on the averages, for just grapes, not including processing, barrels, packaging, time, et al. Our corks cost nearly $1 each. So our wines are very expensive, but like other luxury brand products, the margins are quite healthy. There is limited supply, and that is valued by some purchasers.

Again, the bottom line is what you like to drink. I'm drinking one of my 2010 Pinot Noirs right now, and I'm loving it.

high scores from Parker tell me which wines to avoid

Wine 101 tip: just look at the back label - if it says Kermit Lynch on it, buy it

Anyone can buy a good 50 buck bottle. But buying a good 5 buck bottle takes skill...