Liquid

The House Always Wins 

I might be the last person qualified to answer a question I hear an awful lot: what’s a good everyday wine? Everyday? Every day? I’m so far gone into wine geekery that if I have the same wine twice in a single month, I start to get twitchy.

But sure, I realize that most people don’t want to stalk the wineshop wilds in search of ever more exotic prey. Those who aren’t me usually think it would be nice to have a few bottles they can rely on, bottles that will be there for them after a hard day. Comfort wines. Faithful or cats that will sleep on your lap and purr, rather than spiny, fivetoed albino lizards that might swallow your fingertip in the middle of a yawn.

In the restaurant biz, these are called “house wines,” and to be honest, they usually suck. All too often, they’re the lowestcost, highestprofit,  a supplier can dump on an account — because the restaurant doesn’t care, and judging by their consumption, the customers don’t either. There are a few that pay more attention, and you’ll usually know them by how much verbiage they bestow on their house pours (the Barbara Lynch/Cat Silirie constellation of restaurants is particularly good in this regard).

At home, “weeknight” or “pizza” wines serve the same function as restaurants’ everyday pours. Predictably, many of these wines are no better than their restaurant counterparts: jugs and bagsinboxes whose primary quality is that they’re loaded with preservatives and thus won’t turn tasteless after a few days of exposure to oxygen, which most bottled wines will. (That’s right: the bag, which is extremely oxygenporous, doesn’t protect the wine at all. It’s the chemicals.)

But we can do better, so here’s some advice from your safari guide. Watch out, though: after a few glasses, I’m a little dangerous with a scythe, and I get uncontrollable giggles every time someone mentions a pith helmet.
The key to picking everyday wines is recognizing what doesn’t work best at the lower price ranges. That used to eliminate just a few grapes and blends that needed more care to reach their potential, like pinot noir. But with prices the way they are these days, that list has grown long.

Long, but not allencompassing. In Alsace, for example, the singlevariety whites that were around $10 just a few years ago are now in the low 20s, or at least the very high teens. But some producers make a lowercost blend that’s richly flavorful (thanks to the dominant characteristics of grapes like gewürztraminer, pinot gris, and auxerrois), and remain excellent values. Hugel “Gentil” is probably the bestknown, But Pierre Sparr “One” is better, albeit bigger and a very little bit sweet. If you need a little more crispness in your whites, look to Picpoul de Pinet from the Languedoc in southern France. Any producer will do, as American importers have done a fine job selecting the better examples.

Those who love the zesty zing of sauvignon blanc have watched prestige French versions from Sancerre and PouillyFumé climb into the price stratosphere, while the former value alternatives from New Zealand have either followed them or turned sicklysweet from residual sugar, enzymes, and yeasts that nudge sauvignon’s neongreen edginess into the realm of canned fruit salad. To the rescue comes South Africa, whose lack of marketing traction means stillunderpriced wines (look for Vergelegen or Neil Ellis), and some of the lesserknown stretches of France’s Loire Valley, where the Clos Roche Blanche Touraine Sauvignon “No. 2” is a yearin, Yearout value star. (In fact, the latter producer makes a whole range of delicious wines — white, pink, and red — that are priced for weeknights but taste and age better than many pricey specialoccasion bottlings.)

Among light reds, there’s no better choice then Beaujolais, and the JeanPaul Brun/Terres Dorées “L’Ancien” has been absurdly cheap for years (in the near future, it’s going to be called something else; just look for the producer’s name). For those in the mood for a little more heft and power, zinfandel used to be the goto grape, but other than the cheapest bottling from Easton, there’s not much left under $20 that’s worth anyone’s time. The Iché Vin de Pays de l’Hérault “Les Hérètiques” has long been a tremendous value, but its future isn’t assured (the winemaker recently passed away). And so wines from a corner of France tucked against northeastern Spain take center stage: they’re called Vin de Pays des Côtes Catalanes, and producers worth searching for include Piquemal and Tribouley.

“Pith helmet.” Hee, hee.