Wine Wednesday! At the Grocery Store!

As much as I love to frolic through the Napa wine country, picking and choosing my favorite bottles of wine, it just can't happen all the time. Because I have never won the lottery or a Nobel prize. Heck, I can barely fit in a trip to our little wine store when our months get crazy.

So what does this all mean? A reality check.

Yes, a reality check that me and most of you probably end up buying wine at the grocery store more often than anywhere else. However, thanks to many grocery stores pushing to add some credibility to their wine shelves, as well as the recession tanking restaurant/speciality sales, an impressive selection at every price point can be found at the ol' supermarket.

In a wine tasting course I attended, I learned some valuable little tricks to wine shopping in grocery stores or anywhere else that may not have a knowledgeable staff. These can be a great help when you are in the mood to try something totally different or simply can't spot your favorites.

Disclaimer: These tips are most valuable when shopping for inexpensive wine ($15 and under). Many fabulous wines would break all of these rules, but most cheap bad wine will too. That being said, if you know the vineyard/wine, then go for it! Save these for that moment when you are staring at an aisle with your eyes glazed over...

1. Alcohol Content

Many super-mass produced wines use very poor quality grapes to crank out enough booze. These grapes are so bad that they don't have enough fruit sugars to convert into alcohol. So do you know what these companies do? They put SUGAR in the juice to get the alcohol levels to an appropriate level. You are basically drinking fermented Tang. disgusting.

These sugared up wines, due to their calibrated alcohol percentages, are often set at whole or half percentages (12.5%, 14%). So look for wines with an "off" percentage (13.2%, 14.1%) which means the wine was likely made with quality grapes that could produce the alcohol on their own.

2. Estate Bottled

Look for the term "Estate Bottled" on the label. Many wines slap something about being estate grown, but that pretty much means nothing.

Where else would the grapes grow? On the shoulder of the highway? hmmm... don't answer that.

If the wine was actually bottled at the estate, as opposed to a factory, it is more likely to be a quality product.

3. Cutesy Labels

I love a good cutesy label! And it doesn't mean the wine is bad! But many yucky wines do try to maximize the cute/funny factor on the label, so you will buy it for the look instead of the taste. If the label is very simple then you can trust that the wine will speak for itself.

So on your next trip to grab that gallon of milk, make a little detour to the wine section and pick up something you have never tried. After all, you might just find your new favorite.

Love ya'll! Mean it.