Photography by Matthew Sullivan

When your investment portfolio is hissing like a hot crater, spending more than $10 on a bottle of wine feels reckless. Even before the economic crisis, the case for cheap wine looked strong. The American Association of Wine Economists recently published a peer-reviewed study that found that, during blind taste tests, most wine drinkers actually preferred drinking the cheapest stuff imaginable over something costing over $150. Inexpensive wine can have smooth fruit flavours that are more welcome (or familiar) than the odd and demanding sensations that come from premium varieties.

BONUS: Watch Precedent's brown-bag blind taste-test!

These days, cheap wine is fashionable, and since there’s nothing I like more than a bandwagon, I decided to do my part by hosting a “cheap wine tasting” for Precedent’s editorial team. I wanted to see if we could agree on the best bottle under $10. I selected a handful of the best cheapies (see sidebar), and pitted them against each other in a blind tasting where each bottle was wrapped in a paper bag. Pouring wine out of brown paper is the fairest way to score it – and it adds to the thrifty ambiance by making you feel like a hobo. To add a little spice, I included one $30 wine as a ringer. Could we taste the money?

The results were depressing if you’re thrifty. Inexperienced wine tasters and veteran booze-hounds agreed that most cheap wines are both boring and overbearing, rather like some criminal defence lawyers I know. They tend to be fruity (the wines, not the lawyers), but the fruit tastes like it comes from a can. This synthetic flavour is easy to drink, but difficult to enjoy. As our publisher said, “This is wine for people who don’t actually like wine.”

Two wines stood out, however. The overall winner (sadly) was the expensive ringer, Clos des Andes ($29.95). Everyone loved it. It had strange flavours that popped right out of the glass: smoke, dried flowers, milk chocolate, and something that I swear smelled like dried seaweed. This may not sound delicious, but such personality was paradise next to the dull uniformity of the others.

By far, the best inexpensive wine was Cono Sur’s Syrah ($9.95). Everyone preferred it to the Argentinian Fuzion, which is so wildly popular right now that the LCBO can’t keep it in stock. The Cono Sur was peppery, lively, and spiced with just a hint of cocoa. Tasting it blind, I enjoyed it so much that I suspected it was the pricey bottle. When the paper bag came off, I was glad to be wrong — now I can save some cash.

Here are the wines we sampled and some of the comments from our panel. It turns out that amateur tasters are even harsher (and weirder) than I am:

Cono Sur Shiraz
($10.05, Chile) Note: price has changed since date of publication

• “Bright. Assertive. Clears the sinuses.”
• “I can’t identify the flavours, but I like it.”
• “Great legs, but doesn’t have much of an ass. Nothing to enjoy as it walks away.”
  

“Fuzion” Shiraz Malbec
($7.45, Argentina)

• “Smells like military tent canvas … like an army surplus store.”
• “Forgettable.”
• “Tastes like university. Sweet at first, but acidic and bitter at the finish.”
  

Sogrape “Vila Regia”
($8.95, Portugal)

• “Big and grapey.”
• “I detect a hint of lanolin hand cream on the nose.”
• “Can’t inspire any metaphors.”
  

Farnese Sangiovese
($7.55, Italy)

• “You can feel it in your mouth, but you can’t really taste it.”
• “It made my eyes water.”
• “Where’s the beef?”
  

Mezzomondo Negroamaro Salento
($8.85, Italy)

• “Smells like rope; coiled and dusty.”
• “Reminds me of listening to a stereo through a wall.”
• “Plummy and syrupy.”
  

Poesia “Clos des Andes”
($29.95, Argentina)

• “TRIUMPH!”
• “Like a punch to the sternum, it leaves a warm feeling in your stomach.”
• “Tastes like walnuts, bananas, and fresh air in the summer.”

Matthew Sullivan is a civil litigator in Toronto. He writes a weekly blog entry here on lawandstyle.ca. Matthew This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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