Don Day: Five French and affordable wines. Here in San Miguel

Published February 20, 2024

Back in the early seventies, I got a big job in a big city with a big company and some reasonably big bucks. But, in order to be successful, I had to make some unreasonably big changes in my life. I had to become something I’d never been before. I had to become sophisticated. I had to forget wines with names like Zing and Ripple and Thunderbird and I had to learn new words like Burgundy, Beaujolais and Bordeaux.

Why only French words? Well in those days, French wines stood head and shoulders…or perhaps that should be neck and shoulders…in status over bottles from the rest of the world. And knowing a little about them made me seem a little more sophisticated and, yes, perhaps a little more pretentious.

Times changed. People changed. Tastes changed. Wines changed. I left my big job with the big bucks (and the big expense account). I drank fewer and fewer French wines.

In the eighties, I switched to more Spanish and Italian. In the nineties, it was more Argentinean and Chilean, then Australian, South African and New Zealanders. In the 21st Century, I added wines from the much closer to home USA.

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