Freedom-Loving Wine Recommendations

There are two huge coalitions of wineries that want to implement freer markets in the wine industry, the National Association of Wine Retailers and the California Wine Institute. The second, California Wine Institute, lists their members on their website, and many of their wines are available in grocery or alcohol stores.

There are a lot of names on that list, many of which I wouldn’t know at all, and many of which I would never pick up because I almost always buy the same type out of habit. But in the name of freedom, I undertook the difficult task of sampling some of these wines to have recommendations on how we can support freedom through drinking. While, I do love my wine, I am no sommelier so feel free to take any recommendations with a grain of salt. A few friends and I sampled wines from the following wineries: Clos du Bois, Wild Horse, La Crema, J.Lorh, Kendall-Jackson, and Duckhorn. I kept it to under $20 a bottle because I thought it more likely someone would run out and actually buy a wine for about $10 as opposed to $20+, and we sampled reds to keep it a little more consistent. Here are our winners:

Best Value Winner: Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi. This is a solid table wine and for a standard size bottle (750 ml) you can get a Merlot or Cabernet for $4.99. For a mere $9.47 you can get the larger (1.5L) bottle of the standard reds and whites. You get what you pay for, and it’s good, but not the best wine I’ve ever had.

Date Night Winner: Decoy by Duckhorn Vineyards. This was recommended by someone as a great wine for a relatively inexpensive price. I decided to test it out with a few friends, and every single one of them loved it. We had the Pinot Noir, and it was incredibly smooth and had a great flavor. While it is great, it does run a little pricier at about $15 – $17 a bottle. Definitely affordable, but I wouldn’t use it as an everyday wine–save it for special occasions!

Ease of Access Winner: Clos du Bois. This wine is everywhere, which makes it the easiest way to support free market reform in the wine industry. It isn’t too expensive at around $11 a bottle, but I can’t say it is all that much better than Woodbridge, so it is not as great a value. Overall, I would happily buy and drink this if I couldn’t find something similar for a lower price point.

Those are our winners, but there are over 700 wineries on that list, many of which have brand names you probably recognize without realizing it. For example, Gallo Wineries is listed and they make the pretty popular Apothic wine. Kendall-Jackson and Sutter Home are also there, and you can find those readily available in grocery or liquor stores.

So while we continue to fight for freedom, uncorking one of these bottles after a long day will help send a message that we agree with them on free market reform in their industry. Even though many of these producers probably only support free markets in this one situation, we have to start somewhere, and I, for one, am more than okay starting with wine. To keep up to date on Tom’s work and the most up-to-date news on wine laws, feel free to sign up for alerts at WineFreedom.org. Cheers!