As Grape Sense nears the start of its fifth year, it’s time to return to the staple of any good wine column and recommend a few wines.
People always ask, “What are you drinking lately?” So, here is a column on five easy-to-find wines that are all priced under $16. All five are light-bodied wines perfect for late summer evening dinners.
Burgan’s 2010 Albarino
A great summer wine is a bit of an understatement with this $12.99 bottle from Spain. Albarino is a summer white wine with hints of lemon, nice minerality, floral characteristics and a beautiful freshness missing from way too many white wines. This wine has consistently scored around 90 points from the major wine critics. This wine is widely available at or near the price above. Serve this by itself, with appetizers or white fish and it will be a hit!
Graffigna 2010 Malbec Reserve
Even though many gravitate to white and Rosé wines in the summer, meat off the grill deserves good red wine. An outstanding choice — even for those grilled steaks is Argentinian Malbec. The Graffigna really delivers bang for the buck for around $11 to $12. The Graffigna is frankly lighter than most Malbecs making it a perfect summer wine with steak or even pork. You’ll get the typical beautiful dark berry flavors with a hint of vanilla. This is about as good as a $12 bottle of wine can ever get.
Gerard Bertrand 2008 Minervois Syrah/Carignan
Here is another light bodied wine with a world-class pedigree. Bertrand is a much heralded Southern France winemaker who turns out several different wines under $15. But you will have to make it to a wine shop to find his wines. The Minervois region seems to always produce well-rounded and smooth-bodied wines. This is delightfully light-drinking wine that can use 10 minutes in the fridge — a very light chill — before serving. If you can’t find this one, pick up any of the Bertrand wines and give one a try. This Minervois region wine is probably the lightest but the winery consistently delivers very balanced and drinkable red wine.
Clayhouse Adobe Pink
No summer wine column can go without a Rosé wine recommendation. It’s a Grape Sense mission to spread the word on the delightful dry Rosé wines. French Provence Rosé and Pinot Noir Rose from California and Oregon fill the wine rack. But the Paso Robles Clayhouse label delivers consistently good red and whites. The Rosé has done well with wine critics scoring around 90 points. This wine has a little bigger flavor than the French wines but it’s a nice blend of Rhone varietals Mourvedre, Grenache Noir, and Syrah. You get really drinkable wine with Clayhouse Adobe for $14. Be crazy, live dangerously and try this with bold flavored fish or a salad.
Ravenswood 2010 Napa Valley Zinfandel
Ravenswood is a name many will have seen in wine shops and grocery stores. They’ve been around a long time because they consistently deliver good wine. The Napa Zin has big fruit with a balance and finish any red wine drinker will appreciate for the $15.99 price point. Ravenswood has a basic bottling that turns up in many grocery stores that’s also quite palatable for even less. Give that wine an hour or two in a decanter and it delivers for the cost.
All five wines are widely distributed in the U.S. For more wine news, stories, features and wine recommendations — check out the Grape Sense wine blog at www.redforme.blogspot.com.
Howard W. Hewitt of Crawfordsville, Ind., writes Grape Sense every other week for 18 Midwestern newspapers. Contact him at hewitthoward@gmail.com.
Features
Related Photos
-
Howard Hewitt, wine columnist
Discussion
Grape Sense enters fifth year: Time to recommend a few wines
- Features
-
-
3 virtues 4-H has taught these youths
Perseverance, integrity, honesty, responsibility and service are the hallmarks of any successful business.
-
YOUR GREEN VALLEY: A Wood’s student’s quest to save thousands of turtles
If you don’t like something, sometimes it’s a matter of taking it into your own hands to change it. For Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College student, Amber Slaughterbeck, that mentality couldn’t be any more true.
-
TRIED 'N' TRUE: Fix this Oven Fried Chicken ahead of time
When my brother Gary’s wife got breast cancer, he needed something he could fix ahead of time to throw into the oven when it was time to fix supper after Kathy’s treatments.
-
Fit for a King: Couple opens Clayshire Castle as bed and breakfast in rural Bowling Green
There aren’t too many castles around the Wabash Valley, but now there is one worth checking out. Sit back and relax, and let me tell you the story of the Clayshire Castle and Lord Douglas and Lady Josephine. It’s a modern day fairy tale complete with, yes, a castle.
-
Steps to the River: Watermark Landing project brings artistic recognition to Valley’s most prominent waterway
Petra Nyendick recalls that when she moved to Terre Haute in 2005 in hopes of opening an art gallery, one of her initial surprises was usage of the Wabash River by people in the city was so light.
-
Bond of Brothers: Performance to reveal complex kinship between Dreiser and ‘My Brother Paul’
Two famed writers linger in Tedi Dreiser Godard’s family tree.
-
Longtime weatherman Jesse Walker relates well to people of Wabash Valley
While in middle and high school, Jesse Walker developed a strong interest in the weather. He thought about a career at the National Weather Service or at a storm prediction center, but the idea of becoming a television meteorologist never entered his mind.
-
CULINARY COURSES: Clabber Girl Classroom Kitchen provides variety of cooking courses for the Valley
There are a few taste-bud-tantalizing-perks for having America’s leading baking powder producer in your backyard. For nearly 120 years, Clabber Girl has been a staple in Terre Haute. In 1899, Hulman and Company began offering up what was to become one of the oldest brands in the country, Clabber baking powder. In 1923, the company changed the baking powder brand name to Clabber Girl.
-
RIVER OF SOUND: Composer sees symphony bring his musical imagination to life
David Watkins smiled as he stood on the Tilson Auditorium stage. The audience stood, too, applauding.
Two of his compositions had just been performed by the Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra. Neither piece — “A Wabash Portrait” and “River Fanfare” — had been played publicly in decades. -
The Beauties of Spring: Stunning array of wildflowers bloom each spring in Collett Park
Groundskeepers put off the first mowing of Collett Park each spring.
Admirers of the place, Terre Haute’s oldest park, like it that way.
A stunning array of wildflowers covers the 21-acre lawn for a few short weeks. Those plants, known as “spring beauties,” emerge in March, bloom in April and go dormant by May, when the brilliant waves of white and pink flowers disappear. -
Day spent with daughter inspires Valley man to write children’s book for her
It started with a warm sunny blackberry picking outing, a bee buzzing, a little bird nest with eggs in it and a little girl begging her daddy for a night-time story. And from those ingredients the children’s book, “The Bee in the Blackberry Bush” came to fruition.
-
From kilts to haggis, Wabash Valley Scottish Society marks a decade of preserving heritage
As soon as Richard Cooper breaks into his Scottish accent, a smile automatically follows.
It happened last week as he recited a work of legendary Scotland poet Robert Burns. -
Witness to history: April movie chronicles Jackie Robinson’s trials as be breaks Major League Baseball’s color barrier — something Vigo County native Harry Taylor witnessed first hand
The upcoming movie “42” aims to show America what Jackie Robinson endured.
Harry Taylor witnessed it firsthand.
Robinson wore jersey No. 42 for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Taylor wore 41. Both were 28-year-old rookies, considerably older than most. Taylor got delayed by military service in World War II. Professional baseball’s unwritten but ironclad code of racial discrimination had kept Robinson and other African-Americans out of the majors since the 1880s. -
Sisterly Habits: Fillenwarth sisters are linked together in more than one sense
The Fillenwarth sisters are sisters in more than one sense of the word.
Both were born two of the eight children of city cop Henry and his wife Catherine Fillenwarth. Both grew up among a large and giving Catholic extended family in inner-city Indianapolis in the 1940s. -
Geocaching Indiana: Clay County man develops idea to use geo-art to create outline of state in caches
Indiana, long-known as the Crossroads of America, has for years been a destination for people coming from around the world to witness such activities as the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, Indianapolis Colts football games and Indiana University Hoosiers basketball games.
Since October 2012, Indiana’s attractions have come to include the surprising geo-art creation of a group of Wabash Valley geocachers — people who use Global Positioning Systems and similar location-sensitive devices to find hidden objects for fun. -
Voice of a Storyteller: Chance meeting of Twain, Paris youngster inspired narrative voice of Huck Finn
The block offers no hints of its place in American literary history.
Customers dodge raindrops, walking in and out of an auto parts store. -
Pearls of the Wabash: Efforts to reintroduce mussels
Broken bricks, shattered large clay tiles and thin strips of lumber nailed into a crimped piece of sheet metal, sit piled down a county road in Hillsdale.
-
Natural Habitat: Meet 17-year-old Ben Cvengros, who has a knack for capturing wildlife — in particular, birds — on his camera
I would like to introduce you to a 17-year-old Parke County teenager who has an incredible level of patience. Ben Cvengros was 12 years old when he found his passion for photography.
-
WORD PLAY: Scrabble Club broadens Greene County youngsters’ vocabularies and experiences in a fun way
Drew Helton nodded his head like a wise college professor dispensing scholarly advice.
-
Doing a lot with a little: Family’s resourcefulness leads it to reuse vegetable oil as fuel
Up a winding driveway, tucked off a main road in Clay County, sits an average-looking house in a hardwood forest. The homeowners, Chris and Lori Hart, are two resourceful people.
-
Crossroads Rep opens with ‘You Can’t Take It With You’
The 2013 summer season for Crossroads Repertory Theatre at Indiana State University bears the theme, Three Laughs and A Scream. It opens June 21 with a comedy that has remained popular since it was first staged in 1936: “You Can’t Take It With You.”
-
‘Pirates’ to invade Terre Haute Children’s Museum on Saturday
The Terre Haute Community Band will perform “A Pirate Adventure: The Treasure of Music!” at 2 p.m. on Saturday at Terre Haute Children’s Museum.
-
Learn about ‘The Wabash in Legend and Lore’ at Symphony fundraiser
Hear Vigo County historian Mike McCormick speak on “The Wabash in Legend and Lore” during the Terre Haute Symphony League’s fundraiser at noon Wednesday in the Country Club of Terre Haute. Reservations are due Friday.
-
GRAPE SENSE: Some think Chardonnay is next big thing in northwest wine
Does the wine world need another great Chardonnay region? California has the great big buttery, woodsy Chards while Chablis brings the mineral and acid. There is virtually every style in between from regions across the globe.
-
TRIED ’N’ TRUE: A Bar-B-Que recipe from my brother, Mark
My brother Mark lives in California. He does a lot of cooking. Both of my brothers are great cooks. (I’m the oldest of all my siblings.) Mark gave me the Bar-B-Que recipe.
-
Concert to honor Indiana composers, arrangers
The Terre Haute Community Band kicks off its summer season with Indiana’s official state song, “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away,” written by Terre Haute’s own Paul Dresser.
-
Water show kicks off Vigo library program
The Vigo County Public Library will stage its kickoff event for the summer reading program “Dig into Reading” with a water show from 3 to 4 p.m. on Monday on Walnut Street in downtown Terre Haute.
-
BRUCE’S HISTORY LESSONS: This week in 1944: D-Day and the Airborne assault on Normandy
This week (June 5) in 1944, with the D-Day invasion of the Nazi-occupied Normandy coast set to begin, the man in charge of that invasion, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, paid a special visit to members of the U.S. 82nd and the 101st Airborne.
-
All Valley artists encouraged to submit art at Vigo County Fair
Artists from throughout the Wabash Valley are encouraged to submit works to the 84th Vigo County Fair, which will take place July 7-15 at the Wabash Valley Fairgrounds.
-
YOUR GREEN VALLEY: Recycling initiative in full swing at Vigo County Public Library
The Vigo County Public Library has recycled the weight of two compact cars (7,000 pounds) since April, this after an employees’ initiative to recycle library-wide.
- More Features Headlines
-
Obama: US Has Helped Syrian Rebels
Robot Action Connected to Human Thought
Obama: NSA Secret Data Gathering 'Transparent'
California Cops Cruise on Stand-up Paddle Patrol
Man Who Disrupted Flight Ranted About CIA
Feds: 7-Eleven Stores Exploited Immigrants
Transgender Candidate Running in NYC
Tiger on Sergio: 'It's Time to Move On'
Raw: 100K Protesters Flood Brazilian Streets
Afghan Forces Take Afghanistan Security Lead
Rain Damages Brazil Soccer Stadium
Ex-NFL Star Chad Johnson Out of Jail
Iran's Rowhani Urges 'Path of Moderation'
Falling Cable Hurts 10 NASCAR Fans
Today in History June 18
Raw: NASCAR Driver Jason Leffler Dies in Wreck
Raw: First Lady, Daughters Enjoy Irish Sights
Daughter: Mandela Doing 'Very Well'
Raw: Prince Philip Leaves Hospital After Surgery
G8 Leaders Huddle on Syria
RAW: NSA Director Says 50 Plots Foiled
Video: worst way to load cargo onto a plane
Never-before-seen footage of '08 Times Square bomber
Mariah Carey Looks Beautiful in a Tiny Cut-Out Swimsuit
WATCH IT: Lil Wayne tramples American flag
Out of Control Boat Throws Passengers Overboard
See Lindsay Lohan in Rehab
Sofia Vergara Posts Perky Backside Pic in Thong
Gaga Ditches Her Crazy Couture
Caught on Tape: Teacher Accused of Beating Autistic Child
"Stay Classy" Campaign Aims to Curb Binge Drinking
Sesame Street Tackling Tough Topic Parents in Jail
Miss Utah Fumbles Interview Question
Deranged man claims Newark-bound flight was poisoned
Cameron Diaz and Kate Upton Show Off Their Amazing Bikini Bodies
NBA FINALS: Spurs Win Game 5, Lead Series
Exclusive Clip: Jodi Arias: 'Dirty Little Secret'
Amphibious bus filled with tourists sinks
Best Bikini Abs
