Toasting the Holidays on a Tighter Budget
Wine Adviser/Paul Gregutt The Seattle Times
It's no secret that consumers are trimming their wine budgets. Many smaller Washington wineries are offering blended red wines that have benefited from the same vineyard care, fermentation practices and even barrel aging as the superpremium wines, but at the time of blending did not make the cut. Most are priced at or under $20 and in general give you far more depth of flavor at this price point than comparable wines coming from California.
This wine is highly recommended:
Syncline 2007 Subduction Red ($18): A great bottle of wine, 35 percent
syrah, 21 percent mourvèdre, 16 percent grenache, 15 percent cinsault
and 13 percent counoise. Bursting with gorgeous fruit mixing every
kind of red and blue berry, with a vibrant and juicy mouthfeel that
speaks volumes about the quality and clarity of the fruit.
Paul Gregutt is the author of "Northwest Wines."
His column appears weekly in the Wine section.
He can be reached by e-mail at wine@seattletimes.com.