{"id":6075,"date":"2011-11-22T16:59:35","date_gmt":"2011-11-22T16:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/?p=6075"},"modified":"2013-01-21T14:18:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T19:18:00","slug":"if-you-have-champagne-tastes-but-a-boones-farm-budget-get-rich-slowly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/if-you-have-champagne-tastes-but-a-boones-farm-budget-get-rich-slowly\/","title":{"rendered":"If You Have Champagne Tastes but a Boones Farm Budget? – Get Rich Slowly"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>More than one million wineries currently operate worldwide. Each produces at least three different wines, and plenty of them stomp out 20 or more.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot of potential hangovers. But if you sip responsibly you can enjoy the taste, the history, and the geography of the grape without any concurrent headaches.<\/p>\n

And if you have champagne tastes but a Boones Farm budget? Buy the fruit of the vine online. A discount comes in handy at this time of year, given the expenses associated with the holidays. In the next couple of weeks you might be:<\/p>\n

\u2022Having people over for your only fancy meal of the year, which surely calls for a grown-up beverage<\/p>\n

\u2022Making mulled wine or glogg for a holiday open house<\/p>\n

\u2022Looking for a good deal on bubbly for New Year\u2019s Eve<\/p>\n

Or maybe you\u2019re just an everyday wine enthusiast who likes a glass with dinner. No matter what your reason, there\u2019s no need to pay through the nose, so to speak, for a decent bottle. Thanks to increased competition, better technology, and smarter winemaking, there\u2019s never been a better time to be an oenophile, according to wine critic Natalie MacLean.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a wine cheapskate at heart. Why pay more than you have to for pleasure? These days you can get a wine that tastes twice as expensive as it costs,\u201d says MacLean, author of Unquenchable<\/strong><\/a>: A Tipsy Quest for the World\u2019s Best Bargain Wines.<\/p>\n

Although talking with an experienced wine seller can be a pleasure, not everyone is lucky enough to live near a wine store, or even a liquor store or a supermarket that sells wine. And let\u2019s face it: Your local booze emporium or grocery store probably doesn\u2019t have the space to devote to a truly huge selection of vino.<\/p>\n

Online sites like Wine.com and WineExpress.com have deep cellars, and sell enough of the stuff to offer discounts. Specialty sites exist, too, with somewhat smaller lists but interesting back-stories \u2014 and competitive prices.<\/p>\n

Kissing vinous frogs<\/strong><\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t just the discount that\u2019s attractive, but the chance to try dozens (or hundreds) of vintages you might not find in the local carafe-a-teria.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t know where to start? The online sites make it easy:<\/p>\n

\u2022You\u2019ll see sections like \u201c90 under $20,\u201d i.e., bottles that have received 90 points or more from wine critics.<\/p>\n

\u2022You can search by price point, by region, by type of wine \u2014 or even by clearance sales.<\/p>\n

\u2022When you click on a wine title, the next screen may also include suggestions \u00e0 la Amazon.com, \u201cCustomers who bought Mad Dog 20\/20 also bought\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Another way to find new varieties: Natalie MacLean and other wine critics have Facebook<\/strong> pages and Twitter<\/strong><\/a> feeds, as well as homepage<\/strong><\/a>s. There you can learn their hottest (and cheapest!) new discoveries. MacLean tastes at least 30 varieties per day. Nice work if you can get it, huh? Yet as she puts it, \u201cI\u2019m kissing a lot of vinous frogs to find those princes for you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than one million wineries currently operate worldwide. Each produces at least three different wines, and plenty of them stomp out 20 or more. That\u2019s a lot of potential hangovers. But if you sip responsibly you can enjoy the taste, the history, and the geography of the grape without any concurrent headaches. And if you have champagne tastes but a Boones Farm budget? Buy the fruit of the vine online. A discount comes in handy at this time of year, given the expenses associated with the holidays. In the next couple of weeks you might be: \u2022Having people over for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-unquenchable","category-wine-picks"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6075"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12616,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6075\/revisions\/12616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}