Day 1: 2015 Spier Sauvignon Blanc
A new, large liquor store opened up in my neighborhood, and I wandered over to take a look.
There were Grand Opening Specials! And Featured Wines! And live music! And food tastings! And a whole schedule of beer and spirits tastings too!
It attracted a crowd, to say the least, and none were bigger than in the Sauvignon Blanc section. I engaged people in conversation and (yes) eavesdropped on what other people were saying to figure out why so much attention was focused right here.
Two older women were holding hands. One of them, clearly, was going through some medical treatment and this was an “outing” for them. “You can never go wrong with Kendall Jackson,” the stronger one said and pointed to the shelf. “Let’s get that one,” and she put it in the cart.
“Oh, remember we went here?” another man said to his girlfriend, as he pulled the Chateau Ste Michelle off the shelf. In the cart it went.
A different man maneuvered around us with his cart, which already had about 15 wines in it. “Stocking up?” I asked and smiled. “With these deals, you’ve picked a good day for it.”
“I’ve got friends coming from Europe,” he said, and gestured to his cart. “These wines are less expensive, but it’s not in the price. I’ve had all these wines before so I know they’re good.”
I walked up and down other aisles, and then circled back to the Sauvignon Blanc section. The crowd had thinned, and I wanted to try something. It wasn’t long before someone wandered by, again with more than a dozen bottles already in his cart.
He stopped next to me, hands on hips, reading the shelf talkers and picking up a bottle here and there.
“I never knew you could get a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc so cheap,” I said, enacting my little experiment.
“Which one?” he said.
I pointed to a $3.99 option, which a woman a few minutes earlier had commented “makes her a little leery” because it’s so cheap. “Sometimes I don’t think price has anything to do with the quality,” she’d said. “If you find something you like, then that’s what you buy.”
The guy next to me, however, picked up the bottle, shrugged, and put it in his cart. “I’ll give it a try,” he said, and laid it on top of the other bottles in his cart, then moved on down the aisle.
The $3.99 bottle was the least expensive option in 750 ml bottles that I saw on the shelves that day. (It’s possible that the jug wine was cheaper by volume.) The second least expensive option was the 2015 Spier Signature Sauvignon Blanc, from South Africa, at $5.99. Right next to it on the shelf was the another Sauvignon Blanc from the same producer, the 2013 Spier Private Collection, at $21.99.
It was a $16 difference for the same grape from the same winery. The cheaper wine had a white label; the more expensive wine’s was black. The label on the cheaper wine said the origin was “South Africa”; the more expensive wine’s said “Stellenbosch, South Africa.” The bold-faced tasting note on the shelf talker of the cheaper wine said “Crisp, Citrus, Tropical, Light-Bodied”; the shelf talker of the more expensive wine said “Crisp, Citrus, Mineral, Full-Bodied.” [Note to self: do “mineral” and “full-bodied” equal a higher price point, then?] I’m encouraged to enjoy the less-expensive wine with fish or pork, while the more-expensive wine specifies “grilled seafood, spicy Asian dishes and goat cheese.” Even the less expensive option was “hand harvested from selected vineyard blocks,” according to the tasting note on the winery’s own website.
I bought the $5.99 version and here’s what happened: it didn’t matter that the grapes came from South Africa and not Stellenbosch, South Africa. It didn’t matter that it was hand harvested. We weren’t grilling seafood or enjoying goat cheese when we ate it; in fact we unscrewed the cap and poured a few glasses as we were getting ready to go out for a birthday celebration the next night. And it was fine. More than fine. My husband knew it cost $5.99 and, though he said he wouldn’t put in the group of the best wines he’d ever had (nor would I), we liked it.
Quick Background Note: The Blue Collar Wine Guide is a 30-day, 30-wine experiment that looks at some of the world’s most popular, consumer-friendly wines. The idea is to take off my wine-writer shoes and stand instead in the shoes of Jane-and-Joe-in-front-of-a-wall-of-wine. Thank you for reading today’s post!
