Everyday Wine

When I was fifteen or so, my father used to open one of those squat, funny looking bottles of Portuguese wine, Mateus, when we would have a roast on Sunday. Sunday dinner was probably one of the few meals we ate together as a family. He’d joke about contributing to the delinquency of minors, referring to my sister Ronna, who was twelve months older, and me. All the while, he’d be smiling at the thought of us sharing a meal together or thinking about his daughters being safely at home instead of out with friends where we would be more likely to make mischief. Of course, my sister and I were delighted at the chance to imbibe a grown-up beverage.

On Fridays or Saturdays, if we ordered a pizza, my father would uncork a bottle of Lambrusco. Too sweet for my current tastes, at the time, this Italian red seemed like the perfect thing to drink with a spicy sausage or pepperoni pizza.

I guess you could have called them everyday wines.

These days, I might reach for a Cabernet or Syrah to drink with a roast and a Zinfandel or Chianti to sip with a pizza, but I have stuck with the idea that an everyday wine makes a meal special.

I have been having fun with this idea as it makes me go ‘treasure hunting,” looking for deals on wines.

What constitutes an everyday wine? It’s not that I drink wine every day. It’s mostly about economy. It’s about an affordable luxury. A good friend talks about an everyday wine as something that’s “drinkable” and costs $9-$13. My threshold for spending comfort is a little lower, closer to $7-$9 and, while I wouldn’t drink vinegar regardless of alcohol content or relative cost, my palate probably accepts a wider range of what’s drinkable.

So, I love to wander down the aisles of Binny’s or Foremost looking for deals like a $13.99 Cotes du Rhone for $8.99, or a good Temecula Valley Sauvignon Blanc for under $10. Sometimes, I’ll look for vineyards or wineries that produced other wines I’ve liked, or sometimes, I’ll go by label. If the graphics and bottle art appeals to me, I will often give something a try. Sometimes, I’ll laugh at my own biases. I have some silly notion that wines from odd years will be better tasting than wines bottled in even years. I’ll tell myself that good doesn’t mean expensive and that perfectly fine wines can come in screw-top bottles, but I will still often look for the original sticker price to benchmark quality and hesitate before ringing up a Meritage in a screw-top.

I like to turn on other people to my finds. I love seeing a friend’s face when I open a bottle of Frontier Red, a small batch California wine, and tell its story as I pour. Each everyday wine seems to have a story, which I like too, either about the product or about my first taste. Fess Parker, after he retired the coonskin cap he wore as a TV Davy Crockett, started a winery with his family in Santa Ynez, just outside of Santa Barbara. The winery supposedly was one of the ones featured in the movie, Sideways. As I recount the tale of Frontier Red, I don’t always include the fact that it was first suggested by a Trader Joe’s team member.

I don’t drink wine from a box I have permanently installed and tapped in my refrigerator. I choose what I keep around the house, and I will choose what I want to drink depending on my mood, my menu, or my company. Having a few bottles of inexpensive wines in my household inventory makes me feel like I always like have choices, like I could always welcome a friend for a visit.

Maybe, too, enjoying an everyday wine makes me think about my father. It makes me recall the delight I had as a young teen when I was feeling a little naughty without causing anyone harm.

Reveling in the spirit of naughty but nice is no small thing.