wine12 great wines under $20 a bottleDaryna TobeyThey are wines that have a place in every home, though there’s no formal name for their kind: They’re sip-with-pizza-on-a-Tuesday-night quaffs, yet they’re nice enough to bring to a friend’s house for a casual dinner. They are enjoyable right out of the bottle, and it wouldn’t be a travesty if you cooked with them. These wines are, as 90+ Cellars’ vice president and co-founder Brett Vankoski calls them, “soldiers” that protect your cellar’s more treasured bottlings from premature death. I just call these all-purpose, buy-by-the-case bottles our “house” wines.I’ve spent the last month or so evaluating dozens of under-$20 wines for Fortune. Many were “classical, seasonal, versatile and affordable,” all qualities that Colleen Holden, wine director at Eastern Standard Kitchen & Drinks in Boston, looks for in house wines. I also found that the wines I wanted to reach for again did not have too much acid, oak, tannins, or alcohol.

So how much should you spend on these wines by the case, and what should you buy? Here are our experts’ top tips on how to shop for them, along with a dozen of Fortune’s recommendations for easy-to-find, please-everyone bottles. Stick with newer vintages. Wines meant for casual drinking don’t age particularly well. “If a wine is meant to be drunk fresh,” as are most whites and rosés, says Holden, “it’s important that you’re buying the most recent vintage, or just one year prior.” A $12 2005 rosé, in other words, is no bargain.Be mindful of the alcohol content. If you’re enjoying a glass or two during the week, says Vankoski, “a 15% alcohol wine is not what you want.” Stick to wines in the 12%-to-14% range, which Vankoski likens to “session” ales, if you don’t want to be hurting at work the next day. Get it while the getting is good. Word about a great bottle at a giveaway price can spread like wildfire. Jeff Wooddy, general manager of Rochambeau Wines in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., says that shortly after turning his customers on to a $13 Médoc cru bourgeois, “it was suddenly a wine that only sold by the case …

We had a customer who would drive here from Greenwich and put six cases in the back of his Bentley, and off he went. We must have sold over 200 cases of that wine.” The moral: Buy up a few cases of a favorite now—or cry later. Don’t go too cheap. How much should you spend on a good weeknight wine? Our experts all give retail price ranges between $10 and $18, and they say $15 seems to be the “sweet spot” at which you’ll taste a noticeable step up in quality. Fortune’s tastings bear this out. And don’t forget: With a 20% case discount, a $15 wine will only cost you $12.Here are our dozen picks for Fortune’s favorite affordable house wines:Mulderbosch 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé Coastal Region ($14) Dry, with mouthwatering acidity. A fuller-bodied rosé from South Africa, with raspberry and orange/grapefruit flavors.Aia Vecchia 2014 Vermentino Toscana IGT ($12) Plump, round, and minerally, with pear and melon flavors. A drink-anywhere white that's not overly dry or acidic.

RelatedwinesThese 5 Can’t Miss Wines Are All Under $50winesThese 5 Can’t Miss Wines Are All Under $50Arnaldo Caprai 2013 Grechetto Colli Martani DOC ($20) Has a clean feel and a sturdy backbone plus pear, mineral, and olive oil flavors. glass of wine 35 weeksVersatile enough to be a fine apéritif or a good accompaniment to seafood or poultry.fruit wine to buyColumbia Crest 2014 H3 Sauvignon Blanc Horse Heaven Hills ($15) The bottle should say “springtime fresh” on the label; buy wine bottle clothesshows citrus and stone fruit couched in a clean, pleasing mouthfeel. best oregon wine yearsWill have wide appeal.best wine distributors nyc

Dourthe 2013 La Grande Cuvée Bordeaux AOC ($13) A crisp white with herb, mineral, and citrus flavors. Just the thing for the raw bar—or enjoy it on its own.wine for mac downloadHanna 2014 Sauvignon Blanc Russian River Valley ($19) A taste of summer: This California white wine has sunny peach and pear flavors, a smooth, river-rock feel, and good length on the finish.Santa Cristina 2014 Pinot Grigio Delle Venezie ($12) Has bright green apple and grapefruit flavors; pretty straightforward but delivers a good, everyday wine at an affordable price.Château Saint-Sulpice 2012 Bordeaux AOC ($15) Approachable but not simple; red fruit has nutty, earthy nuances and a nice mocha note on the finish. One to drink with dinner. 70% Merlot.Enrique Mendoza 2012 La Tremenda Monastrell Alicante ($12) Has pleasing spice and herbal accents to the cherry/blackberry fruit; it’s the easy kind of Spanish wine you’d order by the glass at your favorite tapas bar.

La Follette 2013 Pinot Noir North Coast ($20) A forward California style with a soft feel, it’s rife with berry and cherry flavors. More nuanced than a basic Pinot, but still affordable.Masseria Li Veli 2013 Passamante Negroamaro Salice Salentino DOC ($13) Well balanced and easy to drink, with forward but tangy berry-basket flavors. Delivers nice quality at a bargain price. You totally want this with red-sauced Italian fare.Qupé 2012 Syrah Central Coast ($20) California Syrah with an Old World soul: big, juicy, black and purple fruit with earth, clay, smoke/mocha, and fresh herbal nuances.While I believe I have an open mind, I know this from experience and common sense: Countries that have been making wine for centuries have clear advantages in offering distinctive values. They have far more local traditions in winemaking, which means that the variety of grapes and styles of wine in France, Italy or Spain far surpass what are available from the United States. Follow NYT Food's board Wine Reviews on Pinterest.

In addition — for reasons of real estate, the cost of doing business and tradition — small estates, which tend to make more interesting inexpensive wines than corporate producers, have an easier time keeping prices low in Europe than in the United States. Some fine American producers who have conscientiously tried to offer great values have difficulty today keeping prices under $20 a bottle. Those that can sell their wines quickly.Without question Americans can compete in producing some of the greatest wines in the world. Producing great values for less than $20 may be a bigger challenge. La Pepière Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie Clos de Briords Cuvée Vieilles Vignes 2014 $17.99Any list of great wine values could conceivably begin and end with Muscadet. La Pepière is among Muscadet’s best producers, and Clos de Briords, a single-vineyard plot of old vines, is among the region’s best cuvées. This is a concentrated, richly textured, resonant wine, with great minerality and flavors of herbs and citrus.

It’s great now but will reward aging. (Louis/Dressner Selections, New York) Domaine de la Grande Colline Vin de Table de France Le Canon 2013 $19.99If you are curious about “natural wine,” here is an excellent example of a wine made with nothing added, nothing taken out. This pale red, a blend of syrah and grenache, is pure, earthy, dry and refreshing, with aromas and flavors of flowers and red fruit. It has no sulfur dioxide, conventionally used as a preservative, so keep it cool. Instead, it has a bit of fizzy carbon dioxide, so decant first. (Zev Rovine Selections/Fruit of the Vines, Long Island City, N.Y.) Bodega Cauzón Spain Mozuelo 2014 $19.99Another natural wine, from that hotbed of natural wine production, Andalusia, in the south of Spain. This vibrant, juicy, savory garnacha (as grenache is rendered in Castilian) is the first I’ve had from there. It’s crisp, floral and herbal, with a refreshing touch of bitterness. Unusually for garnacha (and southern Spain), it’s just 12.5 percent alcohol.

(Selections de la Viña/T. Elenteny Imports, New York) Ermitage du Pic St.-Loup Languedoc Tour de Pierres 2013 $18.99This red, a sturdy, dark blend of grenache, mourvèdre and syrah, is redolent of earthy, herbal aromas and flavors of red fruits and stony minerals. Languedoc produces wines both indifferent and overly ambitious, but this one gets it just right with a genuine sense of place. Give it some air when you open it, and serve with stews and roasted meats. (Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, Calif.)Shinn Estate North Fork of Long Island Mojo Cabernet Franc 2014 $17.99This is exactly the sort of good, fresh local wine that I want to down by the jugful. Did I say jug? I know, it has connotations of bad, cheap wine. Yet this is lovely, juicy and fresh, with crisp, crunchy red fruit flavors, earthy nuances and a refreshingly bitter note of completion. Domaine Maestracci Corse Calvi E Prove 2013 $19.99I’ve recently been obsessed with the distinctive wines of Corsica. This white, made of vermentinu, as vermentino is rendered in Corsican, comes from the E Prove area on a high plateau near Calvi in the northwest of the island.

It is clean, lively and energetic, with flavors of nuts and yellow fruits. As the wine warms, its fleshy texture and minerality emerge, so don’t serve it too cold. (Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant)Loxarel Penedès Brut Nature Rosado Reserva 999 NV $18.99One must have bubbly, and good cava is one of the best values in sparkling wine. This rosé sparkler (technically not a cava because the producer does not use the term) is bone-dry and ultra-refreshing. It’s pale ruby in color and made of 60 percent xarello, the genre’s most distinctive grape, and 40 percent pinot noir, a Champagne grape that has encroached in cava country. No matter: This has the light, lacy texture of good cava and plenty of flavor. (USA Wine Imports, New York) Peter Lauer Saar Riesling Barrel X 2014 $18.99This exceptional value is the entry-level bottle of a superb Saar producer. It offers just a pleasant touch of residual sugar, the equivalent, maybe, of a kabinett-level riesling, along with exquisite balance and depth, great minerality and a combination of floral and fruit flavors.

(Vom Boden/T. Elenteny Imports, New York) Domaine Ilarria Irouléguy Rosé 2014 $19.99This is one of my favorite rosés. Peio Espil farms his limestone hillside vineyard in the extreme southwest of France with meticulous care and works in the cellar as naturally as possible. The result is a rosé the color of pale blood, rich with the elemental flavors of iron and minerals. This is a cold-weather rosé if ever there was one, and it will improve with aging. (A Thomas Calder Selection/Moonlight Wine, New York) Bernabeleva Vinos de Madrid Camino de Navaherreros 2014 $14.99Vinos de Madrid doesn’t actually mean this comes from the Spanish capital. The grapes, old-vine garnacha, are grown about an hour west of the city, and the wine is absolutely delicious: juicy yet tannic, with good acidity and minerality. Bring on the roasted meats. (The Rare Wine Company, Brisbane, Calif.)Domaine Vincent Dureuil-Janthial Bourgogne Passetoutgrain 2013 $17.99Bourgogne Passetoutgrain is a wine intended for thirst-quenching early drinking.

It also belies the notion that Burgundy must always be made of a single grape. Red Passetoutgrain must be a blended wine, generally one-third pinot noir to two-thirds gamay, but this pretty wine from an excellent producer is almost 90 percent pinot noir. It smells like rose petals and tastes of sweet red fruit, with a core of minerals. (Skurnik Wines, New York) Ferrando Erbaluce di Caluso 2012 $17.99Explore the vineyards of Italy, and you’ll never know what grapes you’ll discover. In the northern Piedmont in the northwest, around the town of Caluso, you’re liable to run across erbaluce, which makes great sweet wines and excellent dry whites, like this vibrant, flinty, floral beauty. With a little more of a weighty texture than you may expect and very good acidity, it’s a nice white for salumi. (Rosenthal Wine Merchant, New York) Sign Up for the Cooking Newsletter Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Alain Coudert Clos de la Roilette Fleurie Cuvée Christal 2014 $19.99Belying its flowery name and the stereotype of easygoing Beaujolais, good Fleurie is often a structured wine that takes a few years to come around.

Christal, unlike Alain Coudert’s longer-lived cuvées, is soft and delightfully accessible. It’s beautifully floral, with a center of earthy red fruit. Fattoria di Sammontana Chianti 2012 $18.99This is straightforward, delicious Chianti, without pretense or polish. Who can’t use that? It’s made almost entirely of sangiovese, with a little canaiolo and colorino added, and offers firm, pure flavors of flowers, cherries and earth, with firm tannins that grip pleasantly as you swallow. (Grand Cru Selections, New York)Château d’Epiré Savennières 2013 $19.99Savennières is one of the great expressions of chenin blanc, an austere, tightly wound counterpart of the joyously outgoing Vouvray. Many Savennières require a few years of aging before they open up, but this one is immediately accessible, with flavors of beeswax, minerals and that wet wool quality so beloved of Savennières fans. Domaine le Couroulu Vacqueyras Cuvée Classique 2012 $19.99This luscious blend of grenache, syrah and mourvère is a quintessential southern Rhône reminiscent of the era before so many of the wines turned into fruit bombs.

Dry, well structured and absolutely delicious, it conjures up images of log fires and roasted meats. Contrast it with the Ermitage du Pic St.-Loup: same grapes, different places. (Verity Wine Partners, New York) Broadside Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 $15.99Broadside is a perennial 20 Under $20 favorite. This one is a departure, made by a slightly different winemaking team, and not all the grapes are sourced from the Margarita Vineyard. Yet it still possesses the hallmark character of a classically shaped California cabernet, with freshness, fruit, herbal accents and just enough tannins to give it a little grip. Equipo Navazos Jerez Fino En Rama $17.99 375 ml.An affordable sherry from Equipo Navazos, the great sherry négociant, which bottles specific lots it has singled out for high quality. This fino is surprisingly rich, concentrated and wonderfully intricate. The term “En Rama” indicates it was bottled with little or no filtering, and it is amazing how much more textured and dimensional this is compared with generic, filtered fino.