Whining about my wine budget

Date night was cancelled last Saturday because my mother was sick. No problem, I thought. We'll just do a cheap date-in. I went to the State Store and was confronted by a $30-ish bottle of Sauternes with my name on it.

$30 was technically a good price for the bottle. It's hard to find Sauternes for less and this was about $10 less than its usually price, still...it was $30 I didn't have.

So here, I will harken back to my 20s - a time when I went from believing that anything that cost $8 or more HAD to be good (oh, college years) to my realization that certain things aren't worth the price. My brother and I once polished off a bottle of DP with a bag of baked Lays celebrating recent job offers. We were underwhelmed.

I was guided into making better selections by the fountain of good cheap wine information - The Wall Street Journal on Fridays. Sadly, but not surprisingly, the people at the WSJ are $$$$$$$ driven. Their Friday Tasting column is only available to subscribers. You can, however, get a 2 week free on-line subscription at www.wsj.com and download like crazy until your time is up.

Alternatively, the far more generous (although perhaps less knowledgeable) folks at Wine Spectator have made their value recommendation available for free. Thanks, guys. http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Free/Value_Wines/Value_Finder/0,3793,,00.html