Bulk Wine: Worth a Second Look

So you have a pocketbook hangover?  Many of us feel poor after the holidays.  As I thought about what wines to recommend for the new year, I realized that right after Christmas, most of us would probably prefer something inexpensive.  So, I went on a personal quest for some cheap, but decent, wine.

During the year, I recommend lots of inexpensive wines, both in this column and to folks who ask for individual wine advice.  But these wines tend to have limited availability – either in quantity or in the length of time during which they may be found.  Either they are one-time productions by the maker or they just happen to have been great in one particular year.  Thus, though you can probably find them when I recommend them, you may not be able to find them next year or the year after.  And even if you do find them a year or two later, they may not be as good as the year I recommended them.

So, what was in order was to find one or more wines that are consistently similar from year to year and bottle to bottle.  Thus, I decided to re-taste some widely-available, white wines made by some of the best-known bulk producers.  As a rule, I don’t usually buy these wines because they do not tend to be very interesting or inspiring.  That’s because the goal of these winemakers is to produce something that a large number of people will consistently find drinkable from year to year at affordable prices. 

To do this, the winemaker develops a “flavor profile” for a particular wine and then attempts to replicate that flavor in every bottle of that wine for years.  The goals are consistency, affordability and drinkability, and it’s not dissimilar from a fast-food model.  It may not be fancy, but you always know what you’re getting in a Big Mac or a Whopper:  It’s going to be decent, safely cooked, inexpensive and consistent, regardless of when or where you buy it.

To achieve this consistency of flavor, the winemakers blend lots of grapes, often from many different areas and many different years, until the signature flavors are achieved.  The sheer volume of grapes blended assures that there will be a large quantity of the wine.  The large quantity also helps the producer to keep the costs low.

While I generally do not recommend this type of wine for special events, I did think that some of them might be perfect for a regular meal at home when you’re feeling pressed for cash.

With that in mind, I asked a few family members and friends to get together to taste a few bottles of wine so that I could make some recommendations.  There was nothing scientific or methodical about the way I chose the wines.  I simply wanted five white wines that were cheap and easy to find.  I chose not to select any boxed wines because (a) that might mean I was becoming my mother; and (b) since we are comparing the wines to each other, I did not want to toss in a new variable (i.e., type of container).  Maybe I’ll do a boxed wine comparison another day, but this one was for bottles.

To do the tasting, I needed to put the wines in a logical order.  Without having tasted them, I had to rely upon the descriptions I got off the internet and use the general rules of wine-tasting.  The relevant guidelines include:  sweet wines (other than heavy dessert wines such as port, sherry or ice wines) first, and lighter wines before heavier wines.

The wines (listed in the order in which we tasted them) were:  Almaden Golden Chablis ($10.99 for a 1.5L bottle), Yellow Tail Riesling ($4.99 for a .75L bottle), Yellow Tail Pinot Grigio ($5.99 for a .75L bottle), Sutter Home Sauvignon Blanc ($4.99 for a .75L bottle) and Vendange Sauvignon Blanc ($9.99 for a 1.5L bottle).

As the professionals do when tasting wine, I served the wines “blind.”  In other words, those who were drinking did not know which wines they were tasting.  The scored them on a 20-point scale, using the guidelines provided at californiawinehikes.com.

Based upon the scores given by 6 of the 7 tasters, the order (from best to worst) was as follows:  (1) Almaden Golden Chablis; (2) Sutter Home Sauvignon Blanc and Yellow Tail Pinot Grigio (tied); (4) Vendange Sauvignon Blanc; and (5) Yellow Tail Riesling.  I did not include myself in the tally because I was not tasting the wines blind, and I am a firm believer that knowing what wine you are drinking can really influence how you rate it.

What really surprised me about the results and the tasting were that my favorite wine finished last among the other tasters, and that most tasters, including me, found something to like about almost every one of these wines. 

Here is a summary of conclusions about these wines and our thoughts on what foods they might best complement:

1.                  Almaden Golden Chablis:  Slightly sweet, easy drinking, smooth, good with a picnic or picnic-type foods.

2.                  Sutter Home Sauvignon Blanc:  Herbal, pleasant and interesting, good with seafood and cream sauces.

3.                  Yellow Tail Pinot Grigio:  A little oaky and tart; good as cocktail wine.

4.                  Vendange Sauvignon Blanc:  A little vegetal, but very food friendly; likely good with salad and/or vegetables.

5.                  Yellow Tail Riesling:  Slightly sweet, but also somewhat bitter; several found an unpleasant aftertaste.  Could match with hot and/or spicy cuisine.  I was the only one who found this wine to have any redeeming qualities.

If you are feeling poor after buying all those Christmas gifts, select the wine above that most suits your personal preferences and be thankful that not all the winemakers are obsessed with making $100 trophy wines.