My mom came into town this weekend. And she came to our Serious Eats wine tasting. The low-down on my mom is that she lives in a suburban town in the Midwest, is vegetarian, and doesn't really drink. We're still trying to figure out if I'm actually related to this person. Since I have yet to see or even hear of my mom finishing an entire glass of wine, I wasn't really expecting her to wow us with her highly attuned wine palate and precise comments on a wine's nose and flavor profile. But I've got to say, she nailed it. A sip or two in, and she'd say the word that everyone was thinking. I've never been so proud. I figured a lineup of Barefoot whites would actually be very appropriate for my mom, as most of what I've heard is that they tend to be light, fruity, and sweet (and inexpensive, at about $7 a bottle). Most of them definitely fit the bill, but a couple stood out as much more palatable compared to the rest of the lot. This Barefoot Pinot Grigio had tart aromas of lemon and green apple balanced by a sweet honey scent.

We tasted peach candy flavors followed by a little tang of guava on the finish. While it still is on the sweet side, this wine has enough acidity to keep it in check—either with or without food. And something I've never seen before, this wine was classified as "American", with no more geographic specificity other than the fact it was bottled in Modesto, California. On the drier side, the California Sauvignon Blanc's scent reminded us of bright green grass or herbs with a little smokiness. The wine had a clear limey flavor (which made a few of us recall the flavor on Hint of Lime Tostitos.) It has an abrupt finish and isn't complex by any means, but it's not offensive. Of the remaining bottles, our tasters' main complaint was that the wines were too sweet, although some were clearly more off-putting than others. Here's a play-by-play of the bottles that you might stumble upon in a store. In general, these might be better dressed up in sangria or a cocktail, as we saw with the round of Three-Buck Chuck.

Riesling (California): Very sweet, slightly effervescent, dripping with honey and pear. Would recommend if you like—and I'll differentiate here between "like" and "tolerate"—really sweet things. best wines to drink for healthCould also be a decent base for a pitcher of white Sangria, but skip the sugar.the best wine list in london Chardonnay (California): If there was such thing as vanilla juice, this wine could be a good proxy. wine as a gift australiaA little too much oaky flavor (probably not from oak barrels) made the sweetness come off as overripe tropical fruit.buy buena vista wine White Zinfandel (California): Smelled like strawberry rhubarb jam, and tasted like diluted watermelon Jolly Ranchers.best boxed white wine canada

Moscato (Argentina): Had a strange chemical-like flavor to it, like orange blossom Windex. Have you tried the Barefoot line of wines? where to buy small empty wine bottlesAre there any bottles that you particularly like and buy frequently? best wine delivery australiaWe'll be hitting the bubbly and red lineup next.best wine publications About the author: Seema Gunda is an avid wine traveler, collector, and student with a background in chemistry and a day job in consulting.where to buy wine on tap Have you ever wondered whether an expensive, seemingly impressive bottle of wine really tastes better than a bottle of Three-Buck Chuck? For the layperson (i.e. anyone who's not a sommelier), drinking wine can be an especially psychologically driven experience, influenced by numerous factors: labels, price points, bottle appearance, and even your peers, just to name a few.

But take away all those factors, pour yourself a glass of wine, and take a taste. Without knowing the price or viewing the bottle, can you really tell the difference between a $65 bottle and a $3 bottle? What do your senses really tell you when those external factors and social influences are stripped away? We wanted to find out, so we set up a blind taste test in our office. Here's how it went down: Each taster blindly tried two types of wine side-by-side, not knowing which was which. One was from an expensive bottle, and the other an inexpensive version from the same region. We did this with two reds (Cabernet Sauvignon), and then with two whites (Chardonnay). Testers recorded which wine they thought was the more expensive of the two, and left comments explaining why. Here are the results: Trader Joe's Charles Shaw Blend Cabernet Sauvignon (a.k.a. Three-Buck Chuck), California, 2011 -- $3 Laurel Glen Cabernet Sauvignon, Sonoma Mountain, California, 2007 -- $65 Tasters' verdict: Only 38 percent of our tasters correctly identified the more expensive wine, and 62 percent preferred the $3 variety from Trader Joe's.

Think about how much more wine those tasters can get for their buck. Glen Ellen Reserve Concannon, 2010 Chardonnay, California -- $5 Cakebread Cellars Chardonnay, Napa Valley, California -- $45 Tasters' verdict: 60 percent of our tasters correctly identified Cakebread Cellars as the more expensive wine, but many comments suggested there wasn't much difference between the two (see comments in the slideshow below -- and trust us, you'll want to read the comments). There are two lessons to be learned from this. The first is that wine drinking is a subjective art. Don't judge a wine by its price. (All the more reason to get out there and try some new wines, right?) Check out the tasters' full comments on each wine in the slideshow below. This story appears in Issue 37 of our weekly iPad magazine, Huffington, in the iTunes App store, available Friday, Feb. 21.Let’s talk about cheap wine. Most of it is bad. Not just bad, but nasty. I’m not a snob.

I spent my first years of legal drinking proudly guzzling three-litre jugs of Carlo Rossi. I loved the label (a watercolour portrait of Mr. Rossi fondling a bunch of grapes) and the price (just $22.99 a jug). It was the total package – with a handle. And, as Mr. Rossi claims, “If you can’t taste the difference, why pay the difference?” Even then, though, I knew it was bad. And I bet you can taste the difference, too. While the culture of wine elitism is totally lame, so too is its counterpoint. That it’s enough just to say “I like what I like and that makes it good” is mental. It’s the sort of thing salespeople and day-drunk soccer moms say. It’s also not true. Go ahead and like what you like. Just know that there are well-made and poorly made wines and that the field of cheap wine is littered with the latter. They are the junk food of wine. “Wine drink” rather than wine. Franken-wines cobbled together in corporate labs from bulk wine, bags of sugar, and beakers of Mega Purple.

This presents a dilemma for the thrifty, yet quality-conscious drinker. Thankfully drinking well cheaply is not an impossible dream. Price does not dictate quality. Expensive wines can be crap. Cheap wines can be great, though that’s rare. Generally, a dollar saved equals a corner cut. This makes good, cheap wines the unicorns of the wine world—more myth than reality. Just enough of them exist to keep the dream alive. It’s why the first question people ask after finding out I’m a sommelier is inevitably “What’s a good cheap wine?” Everyone’s looking for their unicorn.  My methodology for finding these wines was simple. Filter by price, lowest to highest. Stop at the first wine worth drinking. It took 93 wines– a sea of Sawmill Creeks and Painted Turtles – to arrive at the steady-as- a-rock Jose Maria Da Fonseca Periquita, the quintessential red table wine from Portugal’s Setubal Peninsula. This rustic, but balanced blend of Castelao, Trincadeira, and Aragonez has been in production since 1840ish.

That’s a long time.All wines seem fancy when served from a decanter. That thing’s for nerds. Buy a glass decanter, or grab the nearest iced tea pitcher, and pour every bottle of red you serve into it. A bit of air helps this Spanish stalwart made from 40- to 60-year-old Monastrell vines show its dark fruit and dried herb character. From that hotbed of fine wine production—Hungary—comes the first, best, cheapest white in BC: Dunavar Pinot Grigio. The transparency of white wine makes it more difficult to hide wonky winemaking. Good value whites ought to be clean, straightforward expressions of fresh fruit. The Dunavar is exactly that. It’s got a simple melon and citrus thing going on with just a bit of spritz to give it all a lift. This old vines Grenache from France’s famed Cote du Rhone region is named for the Tarasque, a mythic turtle/dragon hybrid beast that terrorized the local countryside. To my eyes, on the label, it looks more like Bowser got sick of waiting around for Mario and just ate that goddamned Princess.

But that’s neither here nor there. What is here is a shockingly elegant, bright, and juicy red raised entirely in stainless steel and concrete by acclaimed winemaker Aaron Pott. Buy all of this before it, too, becomes legend. I’m not sure what’s “Reserva” or “Especial” about this wine. It’s cheaper than the other two Cono Sur Sauvignon Blancs at the BC Liquor Store. Dressing up a simple table wine with fancy words is a classic cheap wine move. In Chile, as is generally the case everywhere but Europe, ‘Reserva’ is just a marketing term. This classic cool climate Sauv Blanc—all crisp citrus, grass, and tropical fruit—is special, though. For the price, it’s super drinkable, varietally on point, and complex. It’s not transcendent, but that’s not the point. The point is that it’s cheap, and it’s tasty. And that’s more than enough. *Note: None of these wines are Canadian even though most of the cheapest wines in BC can be found in the Canada section.