When people like a brand of wine, they often drink it to the exclusion of everything else. That’s one reason why Kendall-Jackson’s $12 chardonnay has been the best-selling wine in the US for about 25 years. We buy it, we like it, and it’s easier to keep buying it than to try something else.
But wine can be so much more than drinking the same thing year after year. Given the thousands of wines most of us have never had, there’s almost certainly something else in the same price range that we would enjoy—and enjoy more.
Here are six very popular brands of wines…along with suggestions for other brands that could become your new favorites….
If you like Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay ($12), try Argento Chardonnay ($10). Kendall-Jackson’s chardonnay is famous for its fruity, almost sweet character (using a production technique that wine geeks call stuck fermentation), as well as a dash of vanilla. This is not easy for other producers to do, but Argentina’s Argento pulls it off nicely. Look for white stone fruit flavors and the same hint of sweetness as in Kendall-Jackson. In all, the Argento offers a balance between the fruit and sweetness that many other chardonnays can’t manage.
If you like Ecco Domani Pinot Grigio ($8), try Alois Lageder Pinot Grigio ($13). Ecco Domani is one of a half-dozen or so immensely popular Italian pinot grigios (including Costco’s Kirkland Signature and the Cavit and Mezzacorona brands), best known for their crisp, almost fruitless style, with something like a tonic water minerality and a short, clean finish that is one reason pinot grigio drinkers enjoy the wine so much. These wines are refreshing and lend themselves to ice cubes in summer. The Lageder, also Italian, offers something that many pinot grigio drinkers have never tried—more fruit, a flowery aroma and a richer style.
If you like Beringer White Zinfandel ($8), try Charles & Charles Rosé ($10). The surge in rosé’s popularity over the past several years may make a lot of white zinfandel drinkers who have never tried a dry rosé wonder what they’re missing. Classic rosés are dry, while white zinfandel is sweet, and rosés usually are more crisp and feature tart berry flavors (cranberry, in particular) as opposed to white zinfandel’s ripe strawberry fruit. The Charles & Charles rosé, from Washington State, is a dry rosé but with the strawberry fruit, which isn’t as tart as many rosés—in other words, a white zinfandel-friendly introduction to rosé.
GADGETS FOR ABOUT $10
Here are useful wine accessories that cost about $10 each…
Rialto Waiter’s corkscrew. This has a double-hinged lever and a Teflon-coated screw (technically called a worm). It will open any bottle with a cork, and learning to use it isn’t as difficult as it seems. That’s because, after a half-dozen times or so, you’ll figure out how to screw the worm into the cork, work the levers to pull the cork out and impress others with your ability to do so.