Weekend Picks #8: Wine Edition

When it comes to wines, I'm the type that likes to find great bottles at discount prices. To date, this Chilean carmenere is my favorite budget wine. I usually get it for around $10, and yet it tastes great.

This weekend I decided to go completely budget. I got two bottles of "2-Buck-Chuck" from Trader Joe's. I got the Charles Shaw shiraz and the Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon. (Btw, the so-called 2-Buck-Chuck costs $3 in NYC. Not $2. Inflation I guess.) Anyways, I tried the shiraz Friday night. I drank it with a completely open mind, but unfortunately, I didn't like it. I wouldn't say it's the worst thing I've ever had, but it was just barely tolerable. It smelled cheap (it smelled like an old bar) and it tasted, well, cheap. Granted, this is a $3 bottle of wine, I wasn't expecting to be wowed, but I was hoping it'd at least make for a good party wine. (It doesn't. Unless you never want to have friends over again.)

Saturday night I went back to the shiraz (I had more than half the bottle left.) By then, it had gone from tolerable to plain awful. It smelled and tasted like skunk. Seriously, it smelled rancid. I took one sip and I was done. It tasted like a mix of grapefruit juice and cranberry. I poured it out. I haven't tried the Cabernet yet, but to be honest I'm not looking forward to it. Hopefully it'll taste better than the shiraz.

So, my personal review: stay away from Charles Shaw shiraz. You can find better "budget wines" (such as the carmenere I mentioned) for just a few dollars more. Hopefully, I'll be able to find a Charles Shaw that I can recommend. Stay tuned!