Reduced to an inadequate choice at a supermarket, I foolishly chose a ten dollar bottle of wine when I could have done much better for less than five. Give me Two Buck Chuck or give me death! Why did I buy a $10-$15 bottle of wine, when I could have done better for three bucks? Well, first of all, the nearest Trader Joe’s is at least thirty miles away. And secondly, I made two classic wine buying mistakes. One was being sucked in by the words “Old Vines.” Just how old were these vines anyway - six years? Besides, no matter how old they are, they seem to come from the wrong place. The second mistake was one of signification. Just considering a winery is in a great appellation or makes a great wine doesn’t mean that the wine you are buying comes from that appellation or is a great wine. In that case, I bought a bottle of 2005 Bogle “Old Vines” Zinfandel. Now, Bogle is situated in Amador County where I’ve had great times tasting big rustic Zins.

In fact, my favorite Zins are from Amador County. Was that gem from Amador County? No way! The label says California, but my guess is that at best the grapes come from somewhere in the Lodi/Modesto area or just the Central Valley, the great lake of California wine. that swill is passable whether you just want something to wash down your food. It is light, slightly sweet, with no real flavor. Not really like Kool Aid and there are no real imperfections. It just tastes like factory wine and not as good as some other factories such as Beringer’s lowest level or Mondavi’s jug wine. I must say I’ve done a lot better with those little bottles they serve on airplanes. Normally I don’t even specify appellations or AVAs when writing about wine considering wine names and terminology are already confusing adequate. But that is a good example of how vital they can be . whether these grapes had been from Amador that might have been a completely different wine idiot me once….

Original post by SeattleWineBlog