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Dee Randall
 
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Default What is your idea of cheap,moderate& expensive wines

In my salad days I never overspent on wine. I lived in California in the
60's 70's 80's and visited all of the California wineries when tasting was
free. I never cared for California wines and still don't. It's the barrel
taste - yuk!

But today my favorite wine is a Ruffino chianti -- not Reserva because I've
not been able to justify in my "retired on a budget" mind $18 for a bottle
of wine.

I sometimes see the regular Ruffino in large bottles for $12 and small
bottles for $7.50. I usually buy the large bottles when I see them, but it
is not often I see them; I have to go CT to find them. Then I stock up.

Now I can only find for $18 small bottle Ruffino reserva at Costco. Maybe
I'll try it for Christmas eve.








"Cwdjrx _" > wrote in message
...
> In the mid 70s you could buy most Bordeaux reds at under US $10, and
> even the first growths often could be had in the $20 - 30 range. Even
> Romanee-Conti often cost well under $100, if you could find it. Many
> very good Rhones were nearly given away. Now the 2000 first growths are
> going for several hundred dollars. The 1985 Romanee-Conti sells at
> auction for several thousand dollars. The best Rhones also can be quite
> expensive. The Rhone growers should erect a huge statue to honor Robert
> Parker for making their wines so much more respected and expensive. The
> cost of the more desired high end wines has increased much more rapidly
> than inflation since the 70s. Also the spread in prices between a decent
> classified Bordeaux and a first growth has increased. Also there has
> been a huge increase in the price of many US and Australian wines of the
> cult sort, and a decent, but not cult, California Cabernet Sauvignon is
> now not inexpensive.
>
> The bottom price now probably is in the US$ 2-3 range per 750 ml for 5L
> box wines. Many of these do not have serious technical flaws as did many
> cheap wines in the past, but then they seldom have anything exciting
> either. The upper limit for new releases has moved up to over $US 1000.
> for some very famous and cult wines in the more desired years.
>
> Rating wines as cheap to expensive depends on your income, and how
> freely you spend money. To a very rich person who collects old masters,
> even the cost of Romanee-Conti may not seem very high. For the poor,
> even a US$ 5 bottle of wine may seem expensive.
>