EVERY wine lover wants it. Every host has to have it. "A great $10 bottle is the holy grail of wine," says Randy Clement, an owner of Silverlake Wine.
That's because for most people who buy and drink wine, $10 somehow feels like the right amount to spend on a bottle most of the time. Sure, there are the serious wine aficionados who think nothing of spending $40 or $50, or even $100, on a bottle for Saturday night. But for most of us, $10 is what Kyle Meyer, wine buyer for Wine Exchange in Orange, calls "the magic number" -- the price that feels comfortable for purchasing everyday wines, weeknight wines.
From the retailer's point of view, $10 is the price at which people spend freely, buying cases instead of bottles. When there's a crowd, party planners stock the bar with $10 wines. And for wine geeks, who are always on the hunt for rare and precious wines, the trophy wine they prize most is the delicious bottle they bag for $10.
Curiously, less is not more. Things can be too inexpensive, says Clement. "People worry that if they spend less, they won't get quality." But at $10, people feel insulated from bad wine. That's why even occasional wine drinkers spend freely on $10 wines.
So what does the magic number buy you? That depends, of course, on where in the world the bottle comes from. Though $10 buys you a pretty interesting bottle of red from one of the up-and-coming regions of Spain, or a wonderful white from southern Italy, what you'll get from California -- or Australia or Chile -- will probably be merely drinkable.
Yet the $10 sweet spot is exploding. The fastest growing segment of the grocery store wine market is wine priced between $9 and $10, rising 13% from $181 million for the first six months of 2005 to $205 million for the same period this year, says Jon Fredrikson, a wine industry analyst with Gomberg, Fredrikson.
"Ten-dollar wine is more exciting than ever," says Meyer. "You get more than ever because of the increase in quality globally. Regions like Spain that for years have wallowed in mediocrity now are improving. There is not only more wine at $10, there are more great wines at $10."
Scouting for a $10 wine in the area, I visited 10 wine shops, including stores in Orange County, the San Fernando Valley and L.A. I asked buyers at each store to recommend wines priced $9 to $10.99 from regions around the world and tasted 86 of more than 100 recommended wines. As Silverlake Wine's Clement says: To find a great $10 bottle, "you've got to kiss a lot of frogs."
