I hadn’t seen anything remotely like this particular blend on the shelves of my favorite San Antonio Wine Stores so I picked up a bottle when I saw it at Costco for $6.89. There was some signage on the Costco display with a few excerpts of positive press (I believe it was this 90 rating from Wine Enthusiast), but I didn’t realize until I started doing a little research for this review that the Big House White was in fact ranked number one on the Wine Enthusiast Magazine Top 100 Best Buys of 2009.

Dennis Schaefer from the Kansas City Wine Examiner has a nice article about the 2008 Big House White and summarized the wine this way –

…for newer wine drinkers, it has an enticing and very appealing initial sweetness, primarily a function of the Malvasia Bianca and Muscat Canelli in the blend; for wine drinking vets, it has a fresh flamboyancy of flavors that are layered with a textural component and a zippy finish.

After enjoying my bottle of Big House White over the course of two days paired with variety of seafood dishes, I’ve become a fan as well. In short, the Big House White is one of the best white wines under ten dollars I’ve tasted this year.

If you’re looking for an interesting white wine at a value price, the 2008 Big House White may be tough to beat.

Wine Name: 2008 Big House White
Three Nine Wine Rating ****½ (4.5/5)

(Note: If you want to learn more about what goes into crafting a wine like this, Snooth has an interview with The Big House Wine Company’s winemaker Georgetta Dane.)

Related links:

Wine Enthusiast Best Buys of 2009 (PDF)
Wine Searcher prices for 2008 Big House White
KL Wines summary of the 2008 Big House White

In the spirit of helping to make that San Antonio wine shopping experience just a bit friendlier, Three Nine Wine is introducing our Guide to San Antonio Wine Stores, Shops and Merchants. The guide is a Google Maps mashup of our favorite places to shop for and find great deals on red, white & sparkling wines in San Antonio.

Screenshot from our Guide to San Antonio Wine Stores, Shops and Merchants

From superstores like Walmart, to grocery stores like HEB, to chains like Gabriel’s and Spec’s, to local wine shops like Saglimbeni’s, the Guide to San Antonio Wine Stores is where you’ll find information about who has some of the best deals on wine in SA plus ratings from Three Nine Wine and links to user generated reviews from sources like Yelp. We’ve also started experimenting with how to share tips and check-ins from location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla.

Though still in beta, we decided to open things up to the public as we build and you can now access the guide anytime via the link San Antonio Wine Stores which we recently added to our main navigation menu above.

And to give you a little glimpse into what’s coming down the road at Three Nine Wine, we’re working on taking all the information we’re creating and collecting on San Antonio wine stores, reviews and ratings (along with our wine reviews spreadsheet) and curating it into a special version of the web site optimized to help you use your smart phone or favorite mobile device to find an awesome bottle of wine at a great price in San Antonio.

image of G1 from T-Mobile Launch Event photo by Flickr user MobileBurn

Ultimately, we think it could be pretty interesting to build a layer of augmented reality services on top of all this wine data and release it as a downloadable app for Android devices, the iPhone and iPad with the hope of delivering the ultimate mobile shopping experience for tech savvy San Antonio wine consumers.

Stay tuned — and if you have any feedback or input, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Thanks for visiting Three Nine Wine.

Can you recommend something different to try in a red wine for around $10 dollars?

…the 2008 Tormaresca Puglia Neprica would be near the top of my current shortlist of wines I’d point them to.

Made in the Southeastern region of Italy known as Puglia, the Tormaresca Neprica is a blend of 40% Negroamaro, 30% Primitivo (which is genetically similar to Zinfandel) and 30% Cabernet Sauvignon . The name Neprica comes from combining the first few letters of the names of each of those grapes.

I first learned about this wine late last year while chatting with a vendor who was stocking the shelves in the wine section at HEB. I mentioned I really enjoyed the Penfold’s Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet and he suggested I check out the Neprica. Turned out to be good advice, somewhat ironically though because for my palate the quirky Neprica offered a much different experience than the more traditional Penfold’s. And by quirky I mean unconventionally delicious, delivering a solid combination of value and taste that earned the Neprica a spot on Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s Best Buys of 2008.

A common thread among the reviews and mostly accolades I’ve been reading about Neprica is that it pairs well with just about anything. After serving the wine with a variety of dishes I would agree with that, and perhaps even take it a step further in that you will want to pair it with something. The unique personality which makes the Neprica special works extremely well when it shares the stage with a main course. Less so I thought when it had the spotlight all to itself. Or, to put it another way — if you’re searching for a red wine to serve at/bring to your next casual dinner party, Neprica may be just what you’ve been looking for.

I purchased the wine originally for $8.47 at HEB -

but have since seen the price moving quite a bit, from a high of $12.98 -

to $10.99 I saw during my last visit.

While I haven’t seen it there myself, there are also several mentions online from fans of this wine of it being available at Costco. If you can find it in your favorite neighborhood wine store for under $10, the 2008 Tormaresca Puglia Neprica is one of the more interesting bargains in red wine I’ve tasted recently.

Wine Name: 2008 Tormaresca Puglia Neprica
Three Nine Wine Rating: ****½ (4.5/5)

Related links:

Wine Searcher prices for Tormaresca Neprica.
Corkd reviews of 2008 Tormaresca Puglia Neprica
Snooth reviews of 2008 Tormaresca Puglia Neprica.
Wine Curmudgeon Review of Tormaresca Puglia Neprica.

The Whimsical aisle of the HEB wine section.

If I were a wine maker, I’m not sure how I’d feel about seeing the fruits of my labor categorized as “Whimsical”. I do know that when shopping for wine, I tend to skip that aisle. I may have to rethink that usual route because though it is a non vintage wine, I thought the Barefoot Chardonnay offered an experience similar to that of some well made, moderately priced wines often seen on the shelves of a merchant’s Chardonnay or California section.

Now, if you’re searching for the kind of complexity that you might get from an old world Chardonnay-based white Burgundy then obviously this may not be the wine for you. Still, for the $6.99 I paid at HEB, I thought the Barefoot Cellars Chardonnay delivered plenty of value. (I also saw it for $4.97 at Walmart who btw carries another value priced California Chardonnay you may want to check out)

.

While trying to come up with a useful way to capture what this wine is all about, I ran across this quote on the The Wine Buyer from Barefoot Wine Maker Jennifer Wall:

“The wines are affordable, varietally correct, soft and approachable and are immediately ready to drink off the shelf.”

That sums up the Barefoot Cellars Chardonnay pretty well.

Wine Name: Barefoot Cellars Chardonnay California
Three Nine Wine Rating: ***½~ (3.5/5)

Related link: Cork’d Wine Reviews for Non Vintage Barefoot Cellars Chardonnay

Note: Not sure if this was a permanent price reduction or a temporary sale, but after writing this I saw the price for the Barefoot Cellars Chardonnay had been reduced at HEB.

The Santa Rita 120 does indeed show some of that peppery personality, but as I was tasting it I got to thinking about a Concha y Toro Carménère I also got the chance to try recently. I found the Santa Rita to be much more subtle (though ultimately, not necessarily better) than the Concha y Toro. Still, this gentler approach of the Santa Rita 120 may be something that might appeal to someone wanting to try a Carménère but is a little concerned about all this talk about pepper.

I purchased my bottle at Gabriel’s Superstore for $6.99 but since then have seen an earlier vintage (2006) of the Santa Rita 120 Carménère priced lower online at Spec’s, another one of my favorite San Antonio wine stores.

If you want to learn more about Carménère, the Wall Street Journal article Carménère: A Great Value Facing Risks is a good place to start your journey and includes a list of best value Carménère’s to try. They selected the Terra Andina Reserva 2007 Caremenere to be their “Best of Tasting”.

If you’re interested in learning more about all kinds of wines from Chile, producers in the country have an organization called the Wines Of Chile. You can follow the Wines of Chile on Twitter and become a fan of the Wines of Chile on Facebook.

Wine Name: 2008 Santa Rita 120 Rapel Valley Carménère
Three Nine Wine Rating: ***½~ (3.5/5)

Note: I tried the Santa Rita 120 Carménère before the massive 8.8 earthquake rocked Chile and damaged some Chilean wine producers. Since then, buying wines from Chile is emerging as one way you can support the people of Chile and the Chilean wine industry.

Related links about this wine:
Wine Searcher Prices for 2008 120 Santa Rita Carménère
Santa Rita 2007 Carménère
1337 Wine Review of 2008 120 Santa Rita Carménère
Snooth Community Reviews of 120 Santa Rita Carménère
Chile earthquake hits wine industry

Seems I’ve been missing out on a lot of good wine.

Part of the reason for not trying more Portuguese red wines may have been that I haven’t seen many on the shelves of my favorite San Antonio wine stores. So when I was in the Gabriel’s SuperStore recently I asked if they had any red wines from Portugal that weren’t ports. They said they did.

This one.

Though their selection that day was a little disappointing (they did have some Vihno Verde “green” wine from Portugal as well), the good news is that the one non fortified Portuguese red wine Gabriel’s did have on hand is a good one.

As far as what exactly is in the Charamba Douro Vinho Tinto, the English translation of Aveleda.pt explains it this way:

Charamba is produced from the typical varieties used to the elaboration of Port Wine: Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca, Touriga Franca and Touriga Nacional.

Turns out this variety of grapes from the Douro region is an attractive match for my palate. And if you like red wines that are “smooth” yet have ample complexity to keep things interesting, this might be a good choice for you as well. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that the Charamba had more than enough personality to pair nicely with a home made chili recipe I made during one of the cold fronts that blew through San Antonio recently.

Gabriel’s had this wine for $6.99. At that price I thought it was a solid value and would definitely buy this wine again. While researching the Charamba Douro Vinho Tinto, I did see some wine stores outside of Texas listing it for under $5 dollars. That may be one of the best values on a red wine I’ve seen.

Wine Name: 2007 Charamba Douro Vinho Tinto Aveleda Portuguese Red Wine
Three Nine Wine Rating:****~ (4/5)

Related links:

English language PDF with details on Charamba Douro Vinho Tinto
Wine Library TV Review of 3 Portuguese Red Wines

Note: The Aveleda web site lists a rating for the Charamba Douro Vinho Tinto of 87 from Wine Enthusiast and 88 from Wine Spectator.

The 2007 Cupcake Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon could be one of the prettiest wines I’ve tried lately. Rich, dark, silky and just downright gorgeous in the glass. Kind of like a liquid version of Magic Hour.

The taste? Almost as good as it looked.

I saw the Cupcake Cab on the shelf in the little wine section of the Brookhollow HEB and purchased a bottle based on my friend’s suggestion. I tasted the wine initially paired with some gourmet turkey burgers, and then finished it off alongside a mail order prime filet mignon a relative had been nice enough to send along as a gift.

Overall, thought the Cupcake was a worthy companion to both meals, and at $8.99 a solid choice for someone looking for a value priced Cabernet Sauvignon.

One thing I noticed about this wine — for better or worse — is that it seemed as though the wine really didn’t change much as it spent time in the glass, or from the first day to the last. Consistent from start to finish. And if you like your tannins on the slightly bold side, then you might even enjoy this wine a bit more than me.

Wine Name: 2007 Cupcake Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon California
Three Nine Wine Rating: ***½~ (3.5/5)

Here are a couple medalists from this year’s competition that I’m going to keep my eye out for next time I’m visiting my favorite San Antonio wine stores:

Ironstone Vineyards 2008 Cabernet Franc $10
Banfi Centine Super Tuscan 2007 $9.99
Bonny Doon Vineyards Pacific Rim Dry Riesling $7.99
Sutter Home Family Vineyards 2008 Chenin Blanc $5.00
Redwood Creek 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon $8.00
Barefoot Cellars 2006 Chardonnay $6.99
Bella Sera DOCG Chianti 2008 $8.00
Palo Alto Reserve 2008 from Maule, Chile $9.99

Am not sure of the availability of a few of these wines. Some are very recognizable names that I’ve seen on the shelf before and have previously passed on for one reason or another. Others on the list have not been on my radar at all but look like they could be an ideal fit for what Three Nine Wine is all about — finding and trying great value wines that we’ve never heard of before.

The prices shown are the ones provided in the printed competition results.

Something different.

After one or two somewhat less than inspiring ideas, they suggested the 2007 Les Frères Couillaud Chateau de la Ragotiere Muscadet Sèvre Et Maine Sur Lie from the Loire Valley in France.

Bingo.

I was immediately interested in this wine for a couple reasons. First, I’d yet to try a Muscadet and had been wanting to get a bottle since reading about the great value it can deliver in this WSJ Tastings column. Second, it offered a chance to learn about the Sur Lie fermentation method.

From Wikipedia:

Sur lie literally translates from the French as ‘on lees’, lees being the yeasty residue remaining in the cask after fermentation. ‘Sur lie’ wines are bottled directly from the lees without racking (a process for filtering the wine)…The lees may be stirred (batonnage in French) in order to promote uptake of the lees flavor.

Upon seeing that explanation, I expected the wine to be cloudy like a Hefe Weizen beer. It wasn’t. Both the color and clarity were within the bounds of what I imagine most people would consider normal.

But the taste, that was where I thought this wine really separated itself from your normal twelve dollar bottle of white wine. For my palate it was, in a word, delicious.

Muscadet is often credited with being a smart choice to pair with seafood (oysters and shellfish in particular) and I am adding my voice to that chorus as well. I served this wine with a simple sauteed shrimp dish and it was a home run.

Kudos to Spec’s for the recommendation. I would definitely buy this wine again.

Wine Name: 2007 Les Frères Couillaud Chateau de la Ragotiere Muscadet Sèvre Et Maine Sur Lie
Three Nine Wine Rating: ****½ (4.5/5)

Unfortunately, I thought the Cono Sur 2008 Pinot Noir didn’t quite live up to the moment.

Though the nose was decent and I found some things to like, for me this wine had a subtle but difficult to ignore medicinal aspect to its taste that made it a challenge to enjoy anything else good about it.

I come across this medicine-like characteristic in red wine from time to time and have gotten curious about what can cause it. I’ve only started my research on the topic, but from my understanding so far I think the science behind it has something to do with acid levels (or lack thereof) present during the fermentation process.

As that first glass sat and with subsequent pours the wine did get better, but never good quite enough for me to where I’ll be buying another bottle anytime soon.

Wine Name: 2008 Cono Sur Pinot Noir
Three Nine Wine Rating: **~~~ (2/5)

An important note — This wine is different from the Cono Sur Vision Pinot Noit and Cono Sur Reserva Pinot Noir, so be sure and be on the lookout for those differences.