Last fall, after we found one of our favorite French wine values on sale for less than $5 a bottle, not only did we stock up on both the red and the white, but we used it to fill out a case of wine that one faithful reader asked us to select for her sight unseen.
This reader and her husband, who have enjoyed our recommendations in the past, took a particular liking to a Spanish rosé we trotted out at one of our neighborhood Friday night happy hours. One day she handed over $100 cash with the request to “just pick out some wine you think I might like.” No further guidance was offered.
That was mid-summer. So after procrastinating over this little shopping errand for months (and sitting on her $100), we decided to do more than just find eight nice bottles of $10 wine for her. No, we set out to engineer a full, 12-bottle case of wine without breaking the $100 budget. At least that way we could pretend that it was a painstaking selection, months in the making. And that’s where the $5 ‘chicken wine’ comes in.
After scoring some nice Spanish and French rosés in the $10 to $12 price range, adding in a few unoaked chardonnays and finding a good pinot noir and Beaujolais on sale – classic wines for introducing reds to white wine drinkers – we were four bottles short with only $20 to spend. November’s sale at Chevy Chase Wine & Spirits on La Vieille Ferme for $4.98 a bottle was the answer. (See A $5 Rhone wine you can serve with pride.)
We reviewed the mixed case with our neighbor when we finally delivered the wine, but didn’t detail pricing. And sure enough, as the authors of the Wine Trials series would predict, her favorite was the least expensive of the bunch: the La Vieille Ferme Cotes du Luberon white.
Now, the $4.98 sale on La Vieille Ferme (both red and white) is back at Chevy Chase Wine, albeit with the new, 2010 vintage of the chicken wine, which is every bit as good as past vintages. Like the Italian reds we recommended this week (Falesco Vitiano and Monte Antico), La Vieille Ferme is remarkably consistent from year to year. The 2010 hasn’t yet been reviewed by the major wine critics, but the past five vintages have all earned 86 points from Wine Spectator, and the scores from Wine Advocate for years 2003 through 2009 were: 86 points, 85, 86, 87, 86, 85, and 86 points for 2009. Not bad for a wine that typically sells for $7 to $8 a bottle and now can be had for less than $5.
See the slideshow for prices around town or Compare prices and find this wine online or at a store near you.
A blend of Rhone Valley grapes – equal parts grenache blanc, bourboulenc and ugni blanc, with a 10 percent splash of roussanne – is a “crisp, citrusy, refreshing, light-bodied, flavorful white is meant to be consumed in its first year of life,” according to Wine Advocate’s Robert Parker. So if you have a few bottles of the 2009 that you picked up at last fall’s $5 sale, it’s time to drink them up and replenish for the summer with the 2010. You won’t be disappointed.
Cheers!
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