I’m alwayssearching for great values in the world of wine to share with anyonewho will listen. Here are a few new wines and notable values that I’vebeen able totaste recently and thought you might like. Come on in, check them out,and besure to ask the folks in the stores if they have any favorites of theirown.

  Also, don’t forget about our Weekend At Binny’stasting program special tastings are being held every Friday nightand Saturday afternoon at Binny’s locations all across Chicagoland.After all, there’s no better way to find a new favorite than to tasteit first for free!

Value From Italy

  From Italian wine superpower Antinori’s estate holdings in the Puglia region comes the 2008 Tormaresca Neprica.It gets its name from the grapes that go into the blend: NEgroamaro,PRImitivo, and CAbernet sauvignon. It has a good, deep nose, with adepth that suggests a heftier price tag. The wine is bright and fruity,showing deep plum and ripe red cherry, and I’d swear I taste cocoa orvanilla in the lightly tannic finish. Not only does it display anamazing amount of depth for a Stainless Steel aged wine retaining thefreshness and ripeness of the fruit without limiting the wine’scomplexity but the Neprica is an absolute steal at this price, atunder ten bucks.

New From Portugal

  I’m usually cautiously skeptical about red table wines fromPortugal (though lots of people around here will disagree with me).I’ve had too many roasted, burnt, or pruney reds that lack charm andcome across as one-dimensional. So whenever I try something from thatcountry that stands out, I usually take extra note. New to Binny’sshelves are the Quartilho wines labeled with a plain Q.The 2006 Quartilho Tintocaught my attention right away with it’s fresh, expressive fruit on thenose from tart red springtime cherries to a deeper red raspberry,with just a touch of vanilla. It’s a modern, almost flashy wine, withplush and lively fruit with just a touch of oak, and an exceptionalmodern red from Portugal. It’s white counterpart, the 2007 Quartilho Branco,isn’t bad either. Made from locally popular Portuguese varietal FernaoPires, this white is zippy and refreshing, lively with acidity, withhints of fruit cocktail and citrus, and underlined with grassyherbaceous qualities. You’ll find both of these Portuguese delights onBinny’s shelves for $11.99 every day.

Value From Washington State

  Binny’s has carried this wine for a while, but I was at a bigWashington wine tasting this week, and was reminded of just how greatof a perennial value it represents. We’ve carried the Bookwalter red blendfor years they used to label their blends with lot numbers, but theyrecently changed their marketing to incorporate literary themes (theyrefer to their mailing list as their ‘book club’) and now themultivintage blend is called Subplot. Yeah, that’s sort ofclever, I guess (Also, keep an eye out for the similarly namedForeshadow, an absolutely fantastic merlot from Bookwalter). At anyrate, the wine is great I tasted Bookwalter Subplot #23- a good representation of Washington’s signature of balanced, pure andbeautiful fruit supported by solid, modern winemaking techniques. Akitchen-sink blend of six or seven different grapes that spans severalvintages, this sleek red is driven by ripe cherries underline withnotes of cola, and finishes broad and deep, with hints of cocoa. It’squite a value in the mid-teens.