Habits are a funny thing. I tend to open last bottles first because I like hate to have 1 of anything. LOL I’m trying to “accept” 2’s…but have switched to buying in 4’s…so I have a kill bottle…and three to drink at the “right” time. Silly, I know…but it works for me.
Since I consume wine every day, I have to keep some moderation in play. Most of my daily drinkers are around $20. Some daily drinkers are less, like Domaine Guion, and then some are more, like Ridge Zins/Cab, some nice Loire Cab Francs or northern rhones, etc. My specialty wines tend to be Bordeaux, but there are a lot of solid Bdx wines sub-$50 that I do not mind popping midweek when the moment hits. Ideally, though, I’m at $20.
A ‘daily drinker’ is the wine you open on that day. There are no rules (I hate having rules), but I hate more opening something that is not ready or closed, and that is what I try to avoid. Everyday can be an occasion; I see no logical reason why wine should be divided into ‘weekday bottles’ and ‘weekend bottles’. If you are living life right, it doesn’t really matter. A day is a day, surely as night follows day and begins anew.
There was a time my daily drinker was in the $10 range. That was 15 years ago. As I progressed along in my wine education, that daily drinker became $15, then $20; and sometimes these days at $25 - $30. Heck. I have the wine in my cellar. Why should I go out and buy a $10 bottle (granted, there is good wine out there at that price), when I have plenty of wine here in the <$20 range (most of it drinkable). The expression life is to short to drink bad wine goes a long way.
Sad to say that most love for my daily drinkers seem to reside in the $35-45 range.
Too funny, I use this term all the time…
For me, I stay under $35 for this, but I will often try and stay under $20 if I can manage. Usually depends on whether I can find something at the local wine shop for under this amount that is good… or good enough.
Generally, I might open any bottle I own any day, depending on what’s at hand, how I feel, who I am drinking with, what I am eating, etc. The only exception to this is when I feel that a particular wine is just too young to be meaningfully enjoyed (by my subjective standards, needless to say).
On any given day, weekday or weekend, the wine opened at our house is usually a function of what my wife is cooking up for dinner. If she’s going all out with her dinner prep, I try to find something appropriate in the cellar, irrespective of price or day of the week. If it’s nachos or leftovers for dinner, I usually pull something $20 or less.
I find that as my cellar is starting to mature, and more wines are entering their drinking window, my concern for saving this bottle or that one for a special occasion has greatly diminished. Not to say that there aren’t a few bottles that I look at with reverence, contemplating the right occasion to pop them. But more often than not, most anything in my cellar could be sacrificed on any given night.
I have been fortunate to buy close out wines at much reduced cost, so sub $15 is a pretty good bottle. Special $40-60 is for family and friend get togethers. Occasionally I will open a $30-40 just for the variety and drink over several nights. I have many $20-30 that compete well with the best, though not the great which I can not afford anyway. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
I’ll open pretty much anything on a given night if it works with dinner and I have the time to appreciate it. I also always have some sub $20 bottles that I grab when I desire a couple of glasses but am not really interested in spending hours contemplating it.
My fiancee and I are the same way. There are only a few bottles that we absolutely are saving and won’t touch, but for the most part, we open whatever we feel like drinking. Could be a $10 VdP or a $50 Brunello.
M-Th I try and stick to wine between $10-20, on Friday and Saturday, I pull some thing from the cellar to celebrate the weekend. On Sunday I try to have a taste off between two wines blind, that are the same varietal, that cost between $10-25.
Ditto the comments about drinking whatever whenever. 75% of the time I would say it’s <$20 wine on weekdays, >$20 wines on the weekends, but I have no problem opening any bottle any time depending on if I’m in the mood for something nice after a bad day of work or doing yard work on the weekends and craving a refreshing $10 riesling.
My wife and I have wine with dinner virtually every night. Used to have a bunch of less than $20 wines in the cellar (and still have a goodly number), but have found as time goes by the price range has crept up to more like $30-$35. Heck, I’ve even been know to open something like a Black Cat during the week!
I used to keep a bunch of lower priced stuff around (say $8-15) to keep my hands off the good stuff and let it age. Recently I have been trying many new wines in a higher range so I always have a bunch of bottles I’m trying to taste through (including the older ones). However, I still have a place for those lower-end wines and it’s mostly about food: If we’re having chili, I don’t want to open something too special, just a decent juicy red.
I also use some of my mailing list purchases as short-term drinkers, as I would like to get pretty familiar with these wines before committing too much.
Lots of thoughtful responses - thanks, everyone.
One of the reasons I ask is because sometimes I think that because I live where I live (Napa Valley) and do what I do for a living (grow and make wine), I lose sight of the larger picture. And even though the sample group here is already defined as wine lovers, as this Board has grown, I think it has become more diverse.
Two other thoughts: 1. When the Valley was quiet for the winter months, I suddenly found I no longer had multiple bottles of wine open and on the shelf left over from wine tastings - it became interesting to decide what to open! I was back to being a wine lover and consumer, and my perspective was different from the other months of the year. 2. Recently I opened and posted on a personal favorite, the 1984 Groth Cabernet. Some folks had comments about loving the wine in much earlier years, but then someone asked if it was a special occasion. I quipped something to the effect that yes, it was Tuesday. But as I thought more about it I had to realize that no, I don’t have that kind of wine to open every day, and yes it was a special wine. But it held equal weight to all the other bottles I own and only differed in that it was the last one of those I had. The cost of it had not entered the picture.
I was expecting to hear a fair amount of this, though I would have guessed a number of people would have responded about a $30-35 range - just slightly lower than Monsieur King Cab. But if you are not pulling Sauvignon Blancs, Rhone types, or wines from all over the globe - and pretty much drink Cab - I am not surprised at the slightly higher range.
You made me smile, Bob. Thank you.
My philosophy as well. My wife isn’t a big drinker, which makes it tough at times to pull out a really special bottle on a Tuesday knowing we may not finish it. But hey, thats what Wednesday can be for…
$40 and at least rated a 90