“…these three offer great value. I mean, look at that price!”
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My wife Kim* has a pet name for easy-to-drink, value oriented wine; she calls them “porch pounders.” She’s the first to admit that it’s a borrowed term, but it’s an apt one. After all, who doesn’t like a good quality, inexpensive quaffer?
We picked up three such bottles during a visit to Plum Market a few days ago, and they all qualify as QPR (quality-price-ratio) All-Stars. We’ve been fans of the Perrin family’s various product ranges for a long time, so we thought we’d compare these three with their current La Vieille Ferme offerings that we recently reviewed.
2021 Famille Perrin Luberon Rosé, 13% alc., $6.99: A pale pink in color, but there’s more here than the hue might suggest. Racy and a little earthy, with plenty of active acids driving the stony watermelon strawberry flavors right along. This middleweight contender is a quintessential porch pounder, and a good choice for afternoon soirees and the like. It does everything a good dry rosé should do, and the price is certainly right. Find this wine
2021 Famille Perrin Luberon Blanc, 30% Bourboulenc, 30% Grenache, 30% Ugni blanc, 10% Roussanne, 13% alc., $6.99: Clean, medium straw color, and medium-full bodied, with good weight and presence. Straightforward apple and white peach flavors are underscored with some earth and mineral. Seems a little tame when tasted right after the racy rosé, but there’s ample acidity here to make it quite user friendly. A good southern Rhône white for everyday drinking and parties. Find this wine
2021 Famille Perrin Ventoux Rouge, 14% alc., $6.99: Deep, dark color, not quite opaque; substantial weight and structure, with a bit of an astringent pucker on the finish. Earthy mineral and deep dark black fruit shaded with black olive set the tone here. The ample tannins and acids suggest that it will age well for at least a few years, but there’s no reason you can’t open and enjoy one tonight. Find this wine
Kim likes these better than their La Vieille Ferme counterparts, while I prefer the LVF models. Still, these three offer great value. I mean, look at that price! Geez!
*Kim was the brains behind Gang of Pour. She picked up Lowell Boileau’s original site design and ran with it, masterminding both the evolution of that web presence and the transition to a blog format. I dragged her out of retirement to help me get this site up and running, because I could not have done it without her knowhow. Kim’s “So You Want To Make Vinegar From Leftover Wine, eh?” pages garnered more hits than any other feature ever published on the old Gang of Pour site. We’re looking into reprising this instructive vinegar-producing feature here, so stay tuned…
Reporting from Day-twah,
Bastardo
