Best Light White Wine 2016 Lemony, crisp light whites pair well with shellfish, while fruity aromatics with a whisper of sweetness will temper spicy cuisine. 50th Parallel Estate Riesling 2014 Full of energy and drive, this Lake Country riesling displays floral perfume, lime citrus, and generous peach flavours. Minerally, mouthwatering succulence and a pleasingly dry finish make it a glorious food wine. Grant Stanley, who made wine at Quails’ Gate for a decade, has brought his immense talent to 50th Parallel Estate. Characterful blend of two wacky grapes is on top wine lists Clos du Soleil Pinot Blanc 2014 Delicious white from the rugged Similkameen Valley evokes pears and citrus Château de Sancerre Blanc 2014 Graceful and minerally sauvignon blanc from the homeland La Chablisienne Chablis “La Pierrelée” 2013 Steely, lemony, minerally chablis defines light white Marisco The Ned Sauvignon Blanc 2014 A wine so fresh it should be slapped

Wild Goose Gewurztraminer 2014 Aromatic local hero with a whisper of fruit on the finish Mission Hill Reserve Riesling 2014 Dry riesling lush with peach and lime flavours Reh Kendermann Uber Riesling Kabinett 2014 Killer value off-dry riesling for an uber-hot curry Haywire Switchback Vineyard Pinot Gris 2013 Game-changing Okanagan white, fermented in concrete eggs Fontanafredda Gavi DOCG 2013 Suave Italian from a great estate in Piedmont Casal Garcia Vinho Verde Best-value light and zesty white blend from cool, coastal Portugal Telmo Rodriguez Basa 2014 Killer value from Spanish superstar Telmo Rodriguez << BACK TO CATEGORIES Own your city with Vancouver’s thrice-weekly scoop on the latest restaurant news, must-shop hotspots and can’t miss events. Rest assured your email is safe with us.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. best age to drink wineExpensive wines can be crap. best places to wine taste in the usCheap wines can be great, though that’s rare. best wine academyGenerally, a dollar saved equals a corner cut.best indian wine names This makes good, cheap wines the unicorns of the wine world—more myth than reality. best wine from irelandJust enough of them exist to keep the dream alive. best bottle of wine under 10

It’s why the first question people ask after finding out I’m a sommelier is inevitably “What’s a good cheap wine?”best way to buy wine in france Everyone’s looking for their unicorn. best buys wine 2013 My methodology for finding these wines was simple. glass of wine instagramFilter 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. That’s because these wines are Canadian in name only.