What is Your Favorite $3 Wine?

Sadly, our wine tastes seem to have gone downscale recently. Although we are not big fans of Two/Three Buck Chuck, the Pinot Grigio seems okay for home use. Even an Aldi's Winking Owl Cab Sauv (on sale for $2.65) was drinkable. What are your $3 favorites (if any).

Unfortunately, I do not think that you can find any decent drinkable wine around $ 3.00 in the Chicago marketplace at the present time.
The TJ's Shaw's Sauvignon Blanc is what I use for cooking, but I cannot absorb a single glass of that stuff.
The two cheapest, both at $4.99, but drinkable red wines I found so far were also from TJ's : Les Portes de Bordeaux, a pleasant but not too complex everyday Bordeaux Blend, with an acceptable balance of fruit and acidity, but not a long finish for sure. And my always reliable Villa Cerrina Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, DOC.

when I was a starving student, I used to drink Gallo Hearty Burgandy (about $5). Put a slight chill on it...not bad with some sausages or grilled meat.

Alain: I certainly didn't think you drink any $3 wine, but your recommendations have been excellent and we use them frequently for our weekend meals. For weekday meals, some of the $3 wines are adequate for us. We do draw a line at box wine and jug wine. The .75L are perfect for 2 meals.

MortonG wrote:Alain: I certainly didn't think you drink any $3 wine, but your recommendations have been excellent and we use them frequently for our weekend meals. For weekday meals, some of the $3 wines are adequate for us. We do draw a line at box wine and jug wine. The .75L are perfect for 2 meals.

MortonG-

If you're talking Franzia or its ilk, then I agree. I wouldn't write off box wine entirely. I've had some, can't remember the producer, that is quite good. The box was far more portable than a bottle for a train trip last summer. Once I find who made it, I'll post again. It doesn't fit in the $3/bottle category though.

-Mary

There is a box wine called Black Box which is pretty decent. But it is about $20 for a 3 liter box.

MortonG wrote: We do draw a line at box wine and jug wine. The .75L are perfect for 2 meals.

Would you reconsider and be willing to spend just a little more? Big House Red runs $18 a box, which works out to be $4.50/750ml. You can buy the same wine for $8 in a bottle. It is a kitchen sink blend and comes in at a reasonable 13.5% abv. It isn't complex, but it is very drinkable. We basically always have a box of this sitting around. I have to imagine it is better than any $3 wine in a bottle.

Bota Box is another decent brand. The malbec and chardonnay are two of their better products. $17 a box.

Black Box is another option, though slightly more expensive at around $22/box most places.

A box also keeps better than a bottle, which means you can have just a class or two if you want and not worry about leftovers (not that I frequently have leftovers)...

I have to admit that I feel a bit unsure about how to deal with this kind of alternate ways to enjoy wine in "bulk".
I do not want to sound snobbish but I never tried to drink wine out of a box or a jug.
To me, so far, and I have been drinking wine every day since 1959, nothing will ever beat a good old 75 cl. glass bottle, that my wife and I never contemplated re-corking at the end of the meal in order to save the left-over content for the next meal. There is never any wine left at the bottom of this glass bottle at the end of the meal.
Sorry... everybody is entitled to its own wine drinking habits.

I feel fairly comfortable writing off box wine. Apart from jug-style box wines like Franzia, any box wine that is intended to be drinkable seems to be boxed more for novelty than anything else, and is priced accordingly. In other words, you can buy cheaper, better-tasting wine from a bottle. The only box wine I've tried that I like is Cuvée de Peña, a Rhone-style blend made in Languedoc. At one time, it was served by the glass at Avec. It's drinkable, but at approximately $30 for 3L, the advantage goes to the restaurant; their ease of storing a box wine far outweighs my enjoyment in drinking it at that price point.

Given that $3 buck chuck isn't even $3 bucks nowadays, you're likely to have a hard time finding drinkable wine retailing at that price. TJ's carries a sweeter but pleasant bubbly Asti in the Italian section for about $4. Otherwise, I'd wait until World Market or Binny's is having a sale, and stock up.

The bag-in-box technology is very good if you anticipate not drinking an entire bottle at once. Unfortunately we don't tend to get many superior wines in that packaging in the US. I have read that they are doing a lot with it in Australia for their middle-tier wines (like NZ and their screw-top "revolution") but they don't export those wines to us.

jblth, just curious, where do you get Big House Red in a box in the Chicago area? I don't recall ever seeing it in a store.

Katie wrote:jblth, just curious, where do you get Big House Red in a box in the Chicago area? I don't recall ever seeing it in a store.

Binny's in Lincoln Park has it almost all of the time, and I've seen it at Whole Foods before as well.

I think the Bota Box Shiraz is actually pretty good. $17 (and often on sale for cheaper) for a 3L box at Binny's. I don't need to do anything convoluted to purge the air and seal it like I do with a bottle. It's over the OP's $3/btl, but not by much, and (IMO) *much* better than any of the bottled wines you are going to find at that price point.

[Apologies in advance for further thread transgression.] Boxed wine in purse form. It works out to be about $6 a bottle.

.75L, $3 wine is perfect for 2 meals for us. And we don't mind drinking the 2nd half of the bottle a day or 2 later. Sure drink a lot more with a box.

Whole Foods has their "Three Wishes Vineyards" that is comparable to TJ's Two Buck Chuck. I don't think it is very good, but you can give it a shot since it should be under $3 (maybe more like $2).

CNN reviews box wine - which ones are worth your time and money
http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/06/25/box ... ?hpt=hp_c2

Pinot Evil is a fabulous boxed wine. In honesty, it's the only boxed wine that I'll drink (only because I know that I like it, I don't often drink boxed wine, and it's cheap). They sell it at the Jewel for less than $20 a box. Cute picture on the box, and lovely velvety wine inside.

http://www.pinotevil.com/

MortonG wrote:Even an Aldi's Winking Owl Cab Sauv (on sale for $2.65) was drinkable. What are your $3 favorites (if any).

I heard that winking owl and 3 buck chuck were the same wines with different lables. FWIW trader joe's and aldi share similar ownership.

We always joked that the label looks more like a wincing owl. You decide.

I came across this for $9.99 at Trader Joe's. It could be worth a shot...

I love how they're starting to advertise wine like beer and beer like wine now.

It's slightly more @ $3.79 but the Gato Negro Sauvignon Blanc is highly drinkable. It's available at Foremost @ 3014 N Ashland. They also have a Malbec, Merlot and Cab though I've never tried them.