Introduction

      As Thomas Jefferson said, "Good wine is a necessity of life for me."  The joys of wine tasting and wine drinking are endless. 

      Wouldn't it be nice to have unlimited resources and buy whatever wines you'd like, however expensive they may be?  But if your wine budget is limited (like mine is), how do you get the best "bang for your buck" when purchasing wine?  The purpose of this blog is to throw out some suggestions for very good, value-priced wines. 

      I love wine, and I'm especially pleased when I find very good to excellent wine at reasonable prices.  Although it takes some time and effort, my experience has been that it's possible to purchase a wide variety of wines to suit almost all tastes.  And it's not necessary to pay extravagant prices to enjoy very good to excellent wine. 

      During the past two years, it appears that a major change has occurred in the wine industry.  As a result of the economic recession and other factors, high-end wines are on the wane.  Many persons are searching for value-priced wines that taste good and where quality if high.  If you can find wines that you think are excellent and priced reasonably, so much the better. 

      The term "QPR" in the title refers to "quality-to-price ratio."  A high QPR means that you believe the wine is very good (or excellent), and it has a relatively low price, compared to similar wines that are available. 

      It takes time and effort to identify wines you really like that are priced at a level where you believe they are solid, high-QPR wines.  But I think it's definitely worth the effort -- you can easily double the number of bottles you purchase (with little or no degradation in taste or quality) for the same, fixed wine budget. 

      In this blog, I'll try to (1) explain my personal tastes in wine, and (2) discuss specific wines (high-QPR wines IMO) that can be purchased.  Please feel free to add comments, ask questions, or provide critiques of wines that I have discussed (or other value-priced wines that could be considered). 

      From my perspective, this blog will be successful if it provides information to increase enjoyment of the wonderful world of wine by identifying very good wines that are reasonably priced under $25 a bottle.  I'll try to focus on (1) very good wines under $13, and (2) excellent wines priced from $13.00 to $20.00.