The Under $20 A Bottle Wine Thread:

[TheRiddick]

Originally Posted by sboyajian

Should I steer away from Grey Goose Vodka? Should I stay away from Glenfiddich because it has an animal on it's label? With all due respect, while the the argument could be made that some wines like Yellowtail are pushing better wines out of the market because sales swing to the cheaper brand, calling all "Animal" brands bad, is just in poor taste. Can't make an assessment without actually trying the brand.

As you said yourself.. "Get some info before making a statement" ... unless you have tried all of those brands, and know exactly the process each one goes from vineyard to shelf, you can't make that kind of blanket statement.

We were talking WINE, right? What are Grey Goose and Glenfiddich?

Cheaper and "bad" are two different things, very much so in this discussion, IMO. Cheaper are the wines I listed above, there is whole bunch. "Bad" are wines I won't buy or even drink if offered for free, I only have one liver and no spares. And yes, being an industry insider, I do try a fair amount of wines, thus I only discuss wines I KNOW personally and well, I know a seriously good number of them whether I like them or not.

On the third point, the info is available, I do read up a fair amount on a daily basis, its MY JOB. I make wine for a living. And when I say these "animal labels" are chemical experiments, they are, just stock up on wine industry periodicals and light up a few cigars while you read up.

I am not here to tell people what to drink, I am simply pointing out that there are affordable wines worth seeking out and drinking. Same way you and I avoid certain cigars and brands, wines are also to be either followed or ignored.

And as I said already, it is strange that people don't bat an eye at spending a nice chunk on good cigars, or Scotch/Cognac/etc, yet "save" by buying inferior wines when much better wines are available at roughly same prices.

Anyway, I see we're talking apples and oranges, if "animal labels" suite your palate, in general terms, no issue here, your liver and your wallet.m I'll go pop a beer now...

Bogle, Sebastiani, J. Lohr, Meridian, Vouvray, German Reisling, CdR, Chilean and Argentine, all can be had in the $5-15 range.