Austin Hope would be a good Syrah or Cab choice. It’s the right price point, is fairly spoofy and manufactured, but is a recognizable label that is maybe a bit less well known vs Caymus. I also think their wines are slightly better (still too ripe for me, but drinkable at least).
Lots of Pinot options: Orrin Swift, Belle Glos, Erath, maybe Kosta Browne come to mind offhand.
One good trick for this exercise is to go to Vivino and see what gets good ratings in your price point. You’ll find plenty of inspiration there.
This sounds like a lot of fun. I would offer a small word of caution though. If paired against a commercialised sensebuster, there is a danger that some of the more subtly complex wines you’ve chosen may come off less well than you’d hoped. A real fruit and alcohol bomb could leaden the palate for the subtleties of what would, if tasted in isolation, be the superior wine, so it may not actually come off as better. So basically while I think it would be very interesting to pit the more commercial against the more individual bottles, it may be good to keep the proper fruit bombs off the table.
I was also going to suggest the Austin Hope Paso Robles cab as one that might fit your profile at the right price. I brought a 2019 RM Sonoma pinot to dinner with my folks on Saturday night and my Mom had this wine open. The AH was full bodied, low acid, highly extracted, with residual sugar, and underscores Ian’s point above that especially if you are hosting this tasting for less experienced drinkers, be careful not to pin the artisan product as the “better” or “right answer”. Two of 4 tasters in my example strongly preferred the Austin Hope cab over the board favorite. I can tell from your other posts that you’re not trying to isolate folks who might favor the more “mainstream” product, but would caution that equating mass produced wines with the word “soulless” comes off to me as at least fallacious and at worst snobbery. There are plenty of world class wines with high case production (Champagne and Bordeaux are easy examples), heck even Opus One makes 25K cases/year.
It was really helpful for them to analyze the two wines in terms of color, body, acid, sugar, and nuance. Everyone tasting could correctly decipher greater acidity, relatively leaner body, no residual sugar, and more complex spice notes in the pinot. But you don’t need to organize the tasting around artisan vs industrial to achieve that result.
I suspect this is exactly what will happen. That’s why I’m planning to lock our wine club members in a room with a bottle of baijiu and won’t let them out until they admit that Dehlinger is better than Mer Soleil.
Thanks! When I wrote “soulless,” I really did mean a wine that was manufactured as a product as a crowd-pleaser and not one that intimately reflects the personality and beliefs of the winemaker. However, I think it’s harder for a large-scale winemaker to make artisanal wines that reflect individualism than for a small scale maker, though I agree that there are are notable exceptions.
And as for coming off as snobbish by labelling some wines as “soulless,” if I insult Constellation, Treasury, Gallo, or Wagner Family of Wines… Oops.
Nope, I’d never call those LVMH wineries soulless, and I’m certainly not doing that. Nor would anyone (except maybe those who still insist upon ordering “freedom fries.”) What they do is very, very tough and requires a rabid attention to detail and a significant investment at a scale that makes consistency extremely difficult. It’s a miracle, and a tasty one at that, that the wineries you’ve mentioned can do that. And I’d argue that LVMH has succeeded by acquiring already successful wineries blessed with tradition, scale, and brand recognition and nurturing them rather than pillaging them for profits. Perhaps this is not the consistent modus operandi of the conglomerates I’ve named. But would anyone ever mistake Gallo for d’Yquem?
Michael, not trying to insult good winemakers. In fact, the whole point of my original question was to see if there were any wines that were consistently characterless/soulless and popular to set up as a foil to wines that are singular and reflective. So my friends and I can learn more about what makes wines from small makers different and unique. I’m guessing though that in a blinded tasting, the artisanal wines will be admired but not necessarily preferred.
Not trying to cast aspersions, except at conglomerates that have ruined some of my favorite wineries from my youth.
You bring up an interesting (and somewhat off-topic) question. Why does a conglomerate like LVMH work so differently than others? Why can’t others be more like them?
My point to you was that the scale of production does not equate to quality, so that is probably not a useful way to frame your tasting. Neither is ownership, so best not to conflate that with the actual winemaking. Else you could grab a Penfolds Grange or Hewitt cab (Treasury), Pahlmeyer or Clarendon hills (Gallo) or Schrader (constellation) for the spoofy side…
I think I understand the intent to compare wines that actually taste “manufactured”, but why would one want to show his guests bad wines? The stuff that really showcases the difference you are trying to highlight are mostly grocery store/gas station wines (Apothic Red, 19 Crimes) that top out at a lower price point <$20. Wine Folly had an eye opening article on it a while back Big Wine Brands vs. Independent Wineries | Wine Folly
Moth to a flame, I did think of some more though:
Caymus makes a Zinfandel ($44 on their website) that you could put against the Carlisle
Miraval (celebrity) rosé is pretty darn solid at $25 against the pibarnon as well.
Maybe you’ll end up surprised at how drinkable the Rombauers and Sonoma Cutrers are these days?
I guess the question is, do they? No disagreement on CB, Yquem or the like being top tier stuff, but there was plenty of talk up thread of Veuve and Moet as soulless champagne. Veuve certainly is the first thing that popped into my head on mass produced poor QPR champagne. And as has been mentioned some of the high end or iconic wines that are owned by the big guys are pretty well regarded.
My personal view might be that when taking over a truly iconic brand where the brand identity is producing a top quality product (like Cheval) the Product Manager’s incentive is to maintain the brand and the quality level. If you’re instead trying to scale or mass market the brand you’ve acquired the incentives are much different.