The Small Wine Review

• Will this wine make my mouth happy?
• Will I be happy with what I paid for this wine after I’ve opened the bottle?

The Small Wine Newsletter is dedicated to the American wine consumer who, like most of us, doesn’t know all that much about wine or how to choose a good bottle off the shelf.

Each month we will offer you a review of a wine which we feel is noteworthy.  Generally, we will review only those wines which are new on the market, or have total production of less than 5000 cases, are estate bottled and might be hard to find.  These wines are also hard to get rated in the major publications because those magazines usually receive hundreds of wines each week and can only taste a small few of those.  The smaller estate wines very often just go unopened at those magazines.

Most of our reviewed wines will be under $15, with many under $10.  We believe strongly in easily affordable and easy to drink wines. A few wines will be under $8 and very few will be over $20.

In our wine reviews, we will tell you if we feel a wine is over priced, fairly priced or bargain priced.  With all the wine available in today’s market, competition is more fierce than ever and there is no reason whatsoever to over pay for an enjoyable bottle of wine.  There are some truly amazing bargains out there.  Wineries are lowering their prices almost monthly to fit into a market where the consumer is now in charge, and the wineries are forced to impress the consumer or else give up making wine.

We will concentrate our reviews on smaller production, lesser known new world wines, those from the USA, South America, Australia & New Zealand.  If an old world (European) wine is truly an exceptional wine offering exceptional value, then we will review it, but generally, we will stay away from old world wines simply because their labels are so often undecipherable for the typical American wine consumer (and us, too!).

We are not a panel of wine snobs or cork dorks intent on exploring every nuance of a wine’s character, agonizing over rating a wine at 86 points?  Or 87 points?  That’s just not our style, and not something that average wine consumers can relate to.  We are simply average wine consumers who enjoy tasting wine and having a good, affordable bottle of wine with a meal two or three times a week.

Most wine consumers just want to know the answer to the basic  questions, “Will this make my mouth happy?” and “Will I be happy with what I paid for this wine after I’ve opened the bottle?”

We will answer those questions for you to the best of our ability.  If you like the wines we recommend, then come back here often, and bring your friends!

ABOUT  OUR  SMALL  WINE  RATINGS

• We believe that EVERY wine is a great wine AT THE RIGHT PRICE.
• Thus an $8 wine might get a 5-Star rating from us, but it won’t be nearly as good a wine as a $20 wine with a 5-Star rating.  We expect more of a $20 bottle of wine and we demand it.
• So with our ratings, you need to pick your price point first, then you need to decide on which wine to enjoy for tonight.
• In our opinion,
  • a 5-Star wine is really nice bottle of wine priced well below what we’d expect to pay for that much quality.

• a 4-Star wine is really nice bottle of wine which is priced fairly.

• a 3-Star wine is a nice enough bottle of wine, but we paid too much for it.

• a 2-Star wine is serviceable but unexceptional in flavor and definitely overpriced.

• a 1-Star wine is a bottle to leave on the shelf for somebody not smart enough to read our review.