Acceptable everyday table wine

Not a connoisseur by any definition of that word, but I love cabs and merlots. Even the house wine at restaurants are pretty decent to my taste buds. I usually pay between $6 and $11 for a glass of wine. I have some wine at home, but not many in our family or our friends drink, so they keep piling up besides my 32 bottle cooler in the living room. I took a bottle to my sister-in-laws for Christmas, and my wife's niece helped finish the bottle.

I happen to have tried a red zinfandel recently that tasted great, in a restaurant.

In general, I can hate zinfandels, especially white ones, but I had an experience in the early nineties that tweaked my interest. I had my paintings showing up in Sacramento, a show put on for me by the California Arts Council. Big deal for me. A state van came and picked me and a dozen or so paintings up from down in Los Angeles. I invited a few northern california friends to it, one of them a class mate I met in my first class at university, thirty years before. We had kept in touch over the years and I knew her later husband from back then too. Anyway, they picked me up in Sacto, as they call it, and took me to stay at their home in Napa, where we got to late at night, say 11 pm.

Oh, my, what a house, an Edwardian? anyway big and lovely ramshackley white house, and my room had an actual feather bed and in a side sort of cupola, a table with a vase full of roses from the garden. Giminy christmas!
After being shown the room, we all gathered to talk a bit in their living room downstairs, and her husband asked me if I'd like a glass of wine. Sure... so he went to the cellar and brought back a red zinfandel from Amador County. I thought it was the best wine I'd ever tasted, not that I get around in high end wine circles or even have good taste buds, but, hey, it was terrific. It was from Renwood Winery, Old Vines Zinfandel, Amador County. The couple took me around to Napa and Sonoma wineries over about a week, great experience as I like them, and they knew a lot both about the area and wine.

So this is background for when Diane (of a2k fame) and I went out for lunch recently, we each ordered some wine, and I picked a glass of Terra d'Oro Zinfandel from Amador County, just because of how much I'd liked that wine from a lot of years before that was from Amador, at $7.00 a glass. It was good, very good. She sipped it and liked mine better than hers..

We did go there twice, I had the same glass of wine again, and I decided to buy some. Looked around and online I found a place that could get the first one, the Renwood wine of years before, now 2013, but for $19.99., and saw the price for the Terra d'Oro, 2012, at $12.00. but then there would be shipping..

I called what Dys and Diane and I have thought is the best bottle store in ABQ and they would order the Terra d'Oro for me. I got two, one as a present for Diane. I was disappointed, as it turned out to be a 2013, not 2012 and wasn't quite as good. Diane hasn't tried hers yet. Plus the price was, yes, 19.99, since they had to order it and bla bla.

So, what is the lesson for me and maybe you? Look in some big beverage warehouse type place, where they have lots of stuff and nose around. There used to be one in our area of Los Angeles that was a storehouse of goodies. At the time I still lived back there, I was nuts on trying out italian reds. Being me, I'd buy the ones from good areas but low priced.. some of those being from Abruzzo or further south.

Now I'm really cheap and just buy Livingston Chianti at my grocery store, swill of course, but I like even poor chianti. That splurge by me for the Terra d'Oro was unusual. We all have different tastes but if you play around at place like that old beverage warehouse in the Marina, you can zero in on what you like in the low range aisle, 750 ml size, and sometimes find good stuff, and then you'll have a mainstay.

Okay, I was doing a search on "wine" ...

Box wine is the way to go. I really like the "Bota Box" line, the Malbec and the "RedVolution" blend get poured daily around here. The great thing about the box wines is that they store really well, up to a month (although they get emptied a lot sooner around here). And they're cheap. And did I say they're cheap? And another thing — they're cheap. The equivalent of four bottles for twenty bucks or less.

There are a number of good box wines. Here's the thing — you have to try a few until you find a brand you like. So be prepared to boil down a few saucepans full for reduction sauces if you end up with four bottlesworth of plonk.

I've had Melbec in CA, Argentina and Australia, but I couldn't tell which ones were the best. I generally like red wines, and cab and merlot were often ordered with my meals. Same way with zins I've had in Lodi and Napa; couldn't say which one I favored. My wine collection has been static the past few years, because my doctor said no more alcohol.

We celebrated our 38th anniversary tonight and went a restaurant in Annapolis called Lewne's. It's been in the same location since 1921 and remains in the Lewne's family. Their specialty is U.S. Prime aged beef, but they also offer a few seafood dishes (crab cakes like your grandmother would make). I love this restaurant, still quiet, dimmed but not dark lighting, and a fine wine list. Mr. G'bag isn't wild about wine, so i just asked for a pinot noir. It was fine, but I think these damn antibiotics are defeating me when it comes to wine.

Dinner was lovely, but I think I'll stick to Irish whiskey until the pills are finished.

I think Hightor got it right with the boxed wines. I get a brand called "Franzia" and usually get their Chianti or Cab. $18.

I think you may be defeating your antibiotics with the wine!

I can't drink red, it doesn't like me. I've got tons of home brew and a load of wine picked up on the cheap at car boot sales. However, if push comes to shove I would buy something cheap and Italian.

It's been awhile since I partaken in boxed wine. But my vine en boite? The Trader Joe's Shiraz.

Looking up a suitable image for here, I noticed someone posted one for Cabernet Sauvignon which I don't remember ever being sold at my Trader Joe's Wine Shop.... But it has been a couple of years since I bought boxed wine.

Have you tried any bottles of Rioja wine? Made mostly from tempranillo grapes I think of it as the Spaniard's Cab. Great with U.S. Prime!

Hope you finish those pills soon. Life is too short not to have wine on a regular basis!

Do they still make Two Buck Chuck? Was up to three bucks at Trader Joe's the last time I was in, but well worth it.

Last time I was there, they have a whole(ish) wall with the bottles.

Buzzfeed tackles boxed wine:
We Figured Out Which Cheap Boxed Wines Actually Taste Good

Love my red wines, but my doc said no more alcohol. He should have just shot me in the head.

consider another doc. I'm not entirely kidding, and would agree review re your situation.

I was thinking of emailing my personal physician to ask about the meds I'm taking and why I'm restricted from alcohol. At 81, I don't think I need more meds that prevents me from drinking some wine with my meal.

I agree. I take it as a routine dismissal.

No, I don't mean that as a signal for wine wallop - let's say I think you should talk with someone else.

Me neither as we say in chardonnay socialist circles while pouring over first world problems.

A steely Chateau d'yquem Papier Carton is my fave goon with just a hint of skin and flint.

And the kiddies love to frolic in the ante-room full of inflated goonbags, diving headlong with renewable energy into environmental concern.

Your preferred plonk pavilion's website will show if it stocks your stuff and provide helpful, astonishingly good reviews of the ordure that they've over-ordered.

And remember to always gamble responsibly.

You know what really bites? I live in a county in Maryland that doesn't allow Trader Joe's or supermarkets to sell beer or wine. If I drive to Westminster (about 90 minutes away, the Rite Aid drug store chain has stores that sell only liquor (go figure) then an additional store near by that sells regular drug store items. There is only one Rite Aid store in Annapolis that managed to get a liquor license before the liquor board got pissy.

This is very odd.

I said that before this over stuff.