Nectar of the Gods

Yesterday afternoon, listening to 702 (as you do...) Richard Glover was wittering on about $2 bottles of plonk. Now I love a bottle of wine... And I love a bargain, but I'm thinking, $2???
Apparently they're drinkable... quaffable even. But I'm not drinking wine as some cordial-replacement, I'm drinking it because I enjoy the taste, the compexity, the inherent personality of the wine.

Personal gripe: Rory (Glover's producer) was waxing lyrical about how fabulous these cheap wines are. When he was living in the UK (blah blah blah) he used to be able to get a bottles of Bordeaux for 2.99, and they were great, and this is the same here in Australia. Now. 2.99 GBP does NOT equal AUD2.00. It actually equals about AUD8.00. And we all know you can get a decent bottle for 8 bucks. Rory is an idiot.
So sayeth Actonb.

Wine-making's not about squashing grapes and sticking the resultant mess into a bottle (although I do have that Simpsons episode when Bart does an exchange trip to France in mind sometimes). I realise there's a grape glut, because of the unusually good run of harvests, but surely this trend towards the cheapening of the product isn't doing much for the market? It lowers expectations for one thing. And makes me cranky for spending $10 on a decent bottle, when we're 'supposed' to be economising. And don't get me started on the whole Coles/Woolies using this as an opportunity to gobble up even more of our spending dollars...
At the moment I'm loving the Brown Brothers Everton range. I know it's not an expensive range, but I love the fruitiness of the CabSav/Shiraz. And the White isn't bad either- I love an Unwooded, although I usually tend to steer away from the x+y+z with whites.

I poured a glass for Dad ( the original wine and coffee snob) the other day....
"Mmmm, this isn't bad, what is it?"
I showed him the bottle...
"WHAT!!!!!..... What crap are you forcing me to drink etc etc???" looking at me with a interesting expression of flabbergasted disgust. Actonb had managed to overlook her heritage as a 4th generation Liverpool supporter... whose mortal enemies are... Everton.
Bugger.