quote:

Originally posted by MikeS.

Scorereader, don’t be knocking my central valley grapes dude.[:D] Most of the family’s acerage goes to Sun-Maid for raisins but we do sell several tons a year to the local winerys and they do produce some decent wines in the valley. You didn’t even mention the central coast winerys. That segment has really exploded in the last 30 years or so.

Charles Shaw does make some really nice cheap stuff, I’m not a big wine drinker.

MikeS.

I’m not knocking Central Valley per se. Of course there are good wines in the Central Valley and Central Coast. But, typically, the grapes are cheaper from the Central Valley than buying grapes from Sonoma and Napa. So, it’s not always truely Napa wine as the bottle suggests.
I like Tacchino’s outlook, which is that cheap wine can be good and drinkable and it should be. If we look to Europe as a guide, then we should have lots of table wine that is in the neighborhood of Charles Shaw. Decent inexpensive, vintaged, bottled table wine. "Cheap Red Wine," "Barefoot" (which also makes a Sonoma Reserve line of wines) and others are other wineries who are producing inexpensive palatable wines.