The Under $20 A Bottle Wine Thread:

[TheRiddick]

Lance,

Problem with Costco is that most of the wines they carry are selected and pushed onto the stores by the corporate buyers, local wine managers have little room to sneak in what they like (although some do). Costco is one of the largest, if not the largest, buyers of wine in USA and do a good job with some high end wine (price wise), but I also rarely buy anything in their low end selections save for white wine to cook with. I'd rather buy their white selections on the low end than reds, most reds lack in body and flavor. Just my opinion, YMMV.

Chilean wines were a decent deal 15-18 years ago when they slowly trickled into USA. As volumes increased, same thing as with Australian "animal" labels happened, quality went down to keep the prices low and inferior fruit was used to make the juice. Some Chile wines are now almost $100 per bottle, have no idea who pays that much for a generic wine, at this price you can have pretty much anything from CA and Europe with few exceptions, and from proven vineyards to boot. I am wiling to bet that in a blindsetup a bottle of 2BC will easily taste better than most Chilean wines up to $10-12 per bottle.

If anything, I'd go for a Argentina wines these days, it is difficult to screw up Malbec. Plus, to me it is a bit more adventurous than a generic Cab at the same price, more complexity, body and spice. And most likely less oak.