Cabernet Sauvignon Under $15 (page 2 of 4)

Change Text Size

Change Text Size
|
Bookmark

Bookmark

Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
|
Print
|
E-Mail

More on:

The Good News

The good news is that the world is awash in Cabernet Sauvignon wines. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that any country with a modicum of sunshine and more than two inches of annual rainfall has someone who thinks he (or she) can make Cabernet Sauvignon. Go to your local wine merchant and check out the shelves. You will find hundreds of different "Cabs" in a big store, including wines from countries you didn't even know existed. An astonishing number of these bottles sell for more than $50, a phenomenon driven, I believe, more by ego than the economics of wine making. Except at the very high end of the market where the wines are consistently outstanding, even if ridiculously expensive, there is shockingly little correlation between price and quality. It is absolutely possible today to find $15 Cabernets that are better than $100 Cabernets. So that's what we set out to do with this column.

Hint number one: Don't waste time looking for bargain Cabernets in the Napa Valley or Bordeaux sections of your local wine store. Good inexpensive wines are almost nonexistent there. To be fair, there are some bargains among small Bordeaux producers, but they are very hard to find in most stores in the U.S. So why this vacuum? It is certainly more expensive to make wines in these extraordinary regions, but they have the capability to make sensational $15 Cabernets and have chosen not to. I think they are missing a great opportunity.

If you want to find terrific $15 Cabernets, concentrate your search on the Mendoza region of Argentina, the Columbia Valley of Washington, the central coast of California and on Australia. I tasted a huge number of bottles for this column, and not only did the vast majority of the winners come from these areas, but the majority of the wines on the cusp of acceptance were from there too. There are some absolutely wonderful Cabernets on the list below. They are not wines to put in a cellar and age for years, and the labels won't impress your snobby neighbor. But for drinking with food and people you love, these will delight you.

One suggestion: these Cabs will improve with an hour or two of "breathing." Either pour into a decanter or into glasses and let them sit for a while.