Yes I do. Nice area

This is exactly what I've been doing recently. I have a real fondness for wines from Spain and Portugal so that is what I've been buying recently.

We stopped drinking wine with dinner during the week, so now more often than not it's "special occasion" stuff which I will have layed down between 10 and 30 years ago. In today's prices from a retailer, probably �50-300, but I would never pay that much.

For a non-special occasion, or when the children are around, it would be about �10 per bottle at which price point, if you avoid the supermarkets, you can get some excellent wine.

I was intrigued that, at my US home this summer, with a whole lot of guests, I was serving an Italian Sangiovese which I had bought at a merchants in SF for $8 plus tax. We went wine tasting in Sonoma and found several Sangioveses, the cheapest of which was $39 plus tax. None were nearly as good as the cheap Italian one - not surprising really, but confirmed my views on Californian wine.

I just checked. Roughly ~$50.
When I remove the higher priced bottles, the average is ~$40.

I should have included Portugal in that list of countries where the ~$15 reds are almost invariably decent or better - but for some reason, we don't get many of the non-fortified Portuguese value reds here in California, whereas we get lots of the better value Spanish wines.

Yeah, I worked there last year for a big American conglomerate.

Nice area but not an awful lot going on. I'm from north Bucks by the way.

And what happens when you remove the lower priced bottles?

Anywhere between $6 and $20. I have found some drinkable white wines from Italy, Spain and Potugal at the low end of that range. Reds are usually $12 -20. We are not sophisticated wine drinkers, just trying to avoid "funny" flavors like dirt and turpentine.

I hear ya. When I was temprarily retired 4 years ago, Mrs BamaVol and I hit the Alabama Wine Trail; a dozen wineries specializing in wines made from everything from muscadine grapes to peaches. In all,we found one decent bottle from a guy whose father brought tokay vines from his home in Hungary. We have also visited wineries in Tennessee with similar results. Now that we're in Florida, we don't bother. I mean, you feel obligated to buy something after a few tastes, but it's never worth it. I have a bottle of wine from Missouri in my rack that I have no idea where it came from. I keep trying to give it away to guests but I always find it back in the rack.

The Scots should stick to whisky.

I typically pay �8 for a bottle of wine but up to �15 for a special occasion wine.

I'm into Carmenere's and Malbecs at the moment.

For European wines, I'll go for a good Italian wine over a mediocre French wine which is typically price comparable.

Most Californian wine that makes it to the UK is cheap swill so I've given up on it.

I used to live in Chile and got spoiled by the wide variety of good wines available for the equivalent of US$10 or less---most of them much less. Yes, there is plonk sold in Chile too, but it's sold there even cheaper than two-buck Chuck. Maybe that's why I don't feel like spending much for everyday wine. I will say that inexpensive taste testing helped me to learn some things which of the old and new wineries in Chile produced the most reliably good- and high-quality reds and whites.

For daily wine drinking, we usually stay less than $8 for a 750-ml bottle or $14 for a 1.5-ml bottle, and I watch for sales at Costco and good local liquor stores (Binny's, DeCarlo's). For guests or gifts, a sentimental favorite is Santa Rita Reserva cabernet sauvignon, which I've paid $14-$19 for in the past, but lately goes for about $12, an old and reliably good red, or other reds that I'm familiar with from Chile in the $12-25 price range. If I'm looking to spend more for a bottle of wine for a gift, I look for Casa Lapostalle.

As for bargains, there used to be a great blog with reviews of Trader Joe wines---you could get some great wines at great prices based on that blogger's reviews. But he stopped keeping up the blog and moved on to something else a while ago. I wish someone else would take up the project.

It was pointed out to me some time ago that the price of cropland naturally enters into the price of wine, and since then, I've never felt disloyal about steering away from Californian and French wines, unless they're on good sales, and leaning toward Chilean, Argentinian, and Australian wines. For the same quality, you can get more for your money from places other than California.

I also notice some people in this thread, living in the UK I think, mentioning they favor reds for daily wine with dinner. I like red wine, but lately it has been way too hot here in the Chicago area to drink high-alcohol red wines--I'd be asleep by 9 pm! So I've been having chilled white wine even with dishes that normally go with red wine (pasta bolognese, beef, etc.). Just this week it's cooled down for the first time in months and is starting to feel like autumn.

I usually spend $15-25 but will spike up to $80 or so if I'm on a wine trip with my wine connoisseur friends.

I've discovered it's harder and harder to find a sub-$15 bottle I like. Or maybe my NYC wine stores are just too spendy.

One interesting thing I've learned is that a bottle of Pinot Gris/Grigio that costs more than $10 is unlikely to be any good (and stands a good chance of being more like a Chardonnay).

Good Pinot noir on the other hand are rarely below $18. Below $20 maybe, but pretty much never below $18.

The first Pinot Grigio (Santa Margherita ?) I tried and liked was >$30 a bottle. Of course those were cruise ship prices. It's probably <$10 landside.

I always thought I hated Chardonnays. Then I found that I like them just fine if they haven't been aged in oak. An oaked chardonnay, to me, tastes like my old gym bag smells.

Santa Margherita is nice but usually overpriced. It should be about $17 in the store, but has often crept up to $20-22ish.

Extremely envious of all the posts here. Import tax on alcohol is very high in Singapore so even the most pathetic wines cost at least US$20. As a result my average spend is ~US$60 and above. This is just above average in terms of what's available in the supermarkets, not considered extortionate. Not surprising given the cost of living out here. I always look forward to drinking Two Buck Chuck whenever I'm in the US.