Bargain Wines Can be Found Both by Recommendation and With a Bit of Searching

Sometimes you have to do a bit of searching to find a good, bargain-priced wine. And other times it takes virtually no effort at all when you get a hot tip or recommendation on a wine from someone else.

I like to categorize a wine as a bargain in one of two ways. The first is the price test; that is, the wine is quite drinkable and it only costs about $10 a bottle or less. The second is the bang for the buck test, which means you get a great wine, say, in the $10 to $20 a bottle price range and it tastes like one that might be priced at $30 or more.

Rachel Riggs, proprietor of Quel Fromage cheese shop in Fairhaven recently suggested I try the Ridgeline Vineyards 2002 Merlot, a Sonoma County wine that she’s currently featuring for only $10. My first thought is that this wine might be past its prime, but it’s still drinking absolutely beautifully.

Twenty-four months of French oak aging provide the wine with great structure and depth and it’s also full of dark berry flavors and nuances of spice. This wine easily qualifies as both bargain-priced and comparable to many that are two to three times the price.

At Carpenter Creek Winery in Mount Vernon, there are several wines currently available that fall into the more bang for your buck category. I “discovered” them during a recent visit to the tasting room, which is about a 30-minute drive south of Bellingham.

White wine bargains include the 2005 Sauvignon Blanc (about $15) and the 2007 Signature Series Riesling (about $13), a delicious wine that tastes like a baked apple pie with a trace of sweetness on the finish. There are also several well-priced red wines, but my overall favorite was the 2004 Lemberger (about $14) which is wonderfully complex, with light cherry and vanilla flavors, a creamy mouth-feel, and a silky, lengthy finish.

If you can’t make it to the tasting room you should be able to find Carpenter Creek wines at the Food Pavilion, selected area Haggen stores and Compass Wines in Anacortes.