*maximum alpha at 1.25x speed* continuously lives on in my head, unfortunately.

Hang on, when did reading become so performative?

exactly!

long live stems! (and the long-lived wines that are made from them!)

quaffable, food friendly, always pleasurable wine

I have always thought of La Vieille ferme as the point of comparison for entry level wine -- and I don't know of any other wine near its price point available in N. America that can be compared

but it's perfectly well made, respectful farming in the vineyard, good, serious winemaking in the cellar -- no decent wine has any business being this affordable. I don't exactly know how the Perrin family do it (they have a lot of vines, so economies of scale matter I guess), but this is fun,

to me the 'baseline' (in terms of cost) for where a decent bottle of wine starts pricewise is La Vieille Ferme, the entry level wine produced by an old and distinguished French winemaking family in the Rhône. It's very affordable (near $10 in some places, at least pre tariffs?), it's nothing fancy,

as a consumer. Asimov regularly publishes guides to affordable wine (there's usually one around American Thanksgiving if memory serves).

better wine writers have to say

Eric Asimov, over at the NYT, is about as good as it gets in the US -- he knows what he's talking about, he has good taste (which of course means he and I share the same tastes in wine ;-), and he's very aware of the daunting nature of navigating the world of wine

really possible to make decent wine from handpicked grapes (which is make-or-break, though mechanical pickers are improving) for less

beyond that, learning the rules behind the labeling laws in various countries (AOC, DOC etc.) is dizzying and daunting

I'd suggest looking at what some of the

jurisdictions like the US, a variety of other additives like flavorings and colorings, or reverse osmosis alcohol out, w/o it affecting the organic certification).

One rule of thumb I suppose is that in the US the $12/bottle level is kind of a minimum barrier (maybe more now?) - it's not

that's a good question, to which the only true answers must contain multitudes!

the quick and dirty answer is: it's complicated. Even the "organic" label only gets you so far, as it only refers to what happened up until the moment the grapes were picked (you can nuke your must with sulfites and, in

in most cases what typically makes bad wine bad are heavy chemical treatments in the vineyard along with efforts to boost vines' yields, followed by a heavy hand with chemical additives in the vinification process

it's really me who should apologize: there's nothing worse or more insufferable than a wine obsessive