Battle of the Supermarket Cheap White Wine: Best White Wines Under $14

Hi, I'm Colin and welcome to another Make It Fast Monday. Today I'm joined by my wife, Rachel, and it might not be so fast because we have 10 wines to try. Why are we trying all twist-offs? The other day I was cooking and I needed wine like now. I didn't want to have to get out the corkscrew and convenience, and I was like, twist-off has gotten as bad rap as being cheap and I didn't believe that. So of course I YouTubed it and it's not. Twist-offs are good for crisp whites. Look up sommelier stuff. Well, I don't know much, but I know this is a good one. So let's throw that out there. We are not wine experts. We don't really know a lot about wine. I am an expert at drinking wine. So we have biases towards some of these. I think that the name Josh for a wine just sounds stupid and I hate that label. This one's hideous. But we have sentimental value on Coppola. We visited the winery on our baby moon and it was very sweet and Rachel got Joshed. That sounds bad. She tried little sips. Okay. We went to Southern California on our baby moon and yes, I was very pregnant and we went wine tasting, but I spit it back out, which is apparently what fancy people do when they're going wine tasting anyway. I don't have a spit bucket for today. I'm not pregnant, so let's go. Okay. So since we have established that we have biases, we're going to try to do like a blind taste test round robin bracket tournament thing, which I don't really know how those work. So I'm not really a sports person. So I had to do some Googling and apparently 10 is like a bad number to do this with. It doesn't give you the best results, but we can't afford more wine. Yeah. This is pricey. Now on that note, all of these wines are pretty inexpensive. I can't remember how much the most expensive one was, but I'll flash it across the screen because I did write down how much I got all these for. When Colin told me that he wanted to do this, I was like, sure. And then he came home from grocery shopping and I was like, wait, because I assumed that we were spending $200 on wines. No, it was only including other things. It was only like 90 bucks. So all of these were chosen specifically for Chardonnays cause that's what we prefer. And when we're having Chardonnays, typically we're looking for Oakry and buttery because that's what someone describes and then we liked once as, uh, and we really like, um, crisp and refreshing and we like to not spend a ton of money. So I think all of these are under $15 a bottle. I think 15 is the max. Some of these were $7.99. So the, the, the criteria was Chardonnay and cheap. And we bought all the ones from the grocery store that had twist off minus two. The other two, I had heard about those specifically as being un-oaked and I'm not knowingly going to go down the un-oaked lane. I bet you some of these are, but it'd be interesting to see if like, it'd be really funny if we choose an un-oaked as our favorite. It's just bad design. That's the problem. Okay. Let's cure your bad design woes and get the drink in. Okay. We're ready for our first bracket. You want to try them at the same time? Sure. Number one. Cheers. I don't love that. Kind of like grassy, woody. Really tastes like a peach to me. The second sip was peachier, but like with a, like a, with a grassy undertone. I don't taste grass. You're on grass. Stay off the grass. Okay. That one's a lot sweeter. It doesn't have the earthiness. It's more acidic. These taste exactly the same to me. I should not be doing this. This one's like much more bright and acidic, fresh. We should get some crackers or something. Cause they literally, I'm like, I don't know. Two on that one for me. What about you? We're doing our separate brackets because we tend to disagree on flavor things often. So we're going to see which one wins out between the two of us. They're the same. Okay. Which one are you going to go with? You got to choose. They're definitely not the same. You're crazy, but you got to choose. Two. Should we get some crackers to clear, cleanse our palate? Should we? Oh, veggie straws. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. It's the only thing we have close to crackers. I'm going to sniff them for us this time. Oh yeah. We didn't do that. See, we are total wine noobs. We don't know anything. What a noob. I mean, it smells like chardonnay. Yep. Oh, this one smells the number five. It smells like cat pee. I have to ignore your comments because. It smells like cat pee. Okay. You just did four. That's pretty bland. Well, they do taste different than one and two, but they taste like each other. What do you mean? Like these two taste the same? No, this one's got, it's like green apple. It's got like green apple on number five. See, this one's so bland. It has a lot of acid. Like burning acid. Yeah. This one has more flavor and character going on, but I don't necessarily like the flavor and character. Whereas this one, it's kind of bland. So I don't know which one to choose. Should I go with the one that's more flavorful? That's more interesting, even though it's. I'm going with four because number five tastes like acid in the back of my throat. Yeah, but at least it has some flavor. Yeah. I don't. You just finished both of them? No, I could drink more of four. I would be done with that pretty quick because of the acid level. Yeah. But I don't like very tart wine without food. That's the other thing. Yeah, but these are for sipping on the beach and the boat and backyard, whatever. So are you drinking alcohol? I honestly don't remember. I would say consider it without food. Six is kind of watery. Yeah, I'd agree with that. Seven is nectarine. Yeah, I like it. And honey. I want, yeah, seven. I would say seven too, but the aroma is not pleasing. You smell that? What is that? I have a runny nose. I have rona. It's a joke. But yeah, I do not like the smell, but the taste is really good. It's very off-putting at first. Maybe it's just in comparison to the other ones. It's so fruity that it doesn't smell like the other one. So it's like, oh, where'd that come from? I think it's just like, I'm interested in the ones that have more character because some of them just taste exactly the same to me. Because I have no palate for wine. Ten smells like a butt. Nine doesn't smell good either. Ten tastes good though. That's the first one that I'm like, that tastes oaky. You're smelling like the wood. Yeah, it's very woody. Very oaky. Nine tastes good though. Hold on. I'm crushing your audio with every bite of these veggie straws. I can duck it, but it's gonna be a pain in the butt. This one's just much more acidic, which isn't our jam. So yeah, ten wins. There's two. It's pretty acidic. Oh, I mean, I'm ruined. They're similar. This one's a little bit more tart and acidic. This, they taste the same, except for this one tastes a little bit more watered down. So I'm gonna go for the more flavorful one. Don't tell me which one you're going for. Hold on. I'm just gonna go with three. I went with three. Because, yeah. Okay, seven and eight. Oh, there's that one. This one, seven smells like cat pee to me. You're saying cats did this to you? But I chose it to go on for some reason. See, eight has a much better aroma. All right, let me taste it again. It's that nectarine one again. Yeah. Oh no, eight crushed that. Eight just crushed that. Here's my suspicion. What? Seven is probably the cheaper one. I'm in my head because I want to pick out the most expensive one. Colin's like... It's not about that. I know. It's about if you like it, it doesn't matter the price. The price is marketing. It's arbitrary. But I feel like if I don't choose the Coppola, I'm broken. No. It means that you like something else and that's fine. It doesn't matter what you like. Like what you like. But I want to win. You win. There's nothing to win. You're losing. There's always something to win. You're losing if you choose a label over what you think actually tastes good. Like, aren't you losing if you spend... And by the way, the Coppola was not the most expensive one. Oh, it wasn't? Was it Josh? Why don't you tell me some good things about Josh? I don't know, but I know it wasn't Coppola. I was surprised at how cheap Coppola was because in our heads, we haven't built up to being this thing because we went there. But they're very affordable. I think I'm going to choose eight. That's what I did. Because I'm in my head about that seven. Okay, now we're getting into where we're going to... It's the semi-finals. Yeah, semi-finals. Semi-finals. Yeah, it's sports. We're good at sports. All right, it's three versus four in the semi-finals. Playoffs? Don't talk about playoffs. Not really anything there. Hmm, they both have a similar lack of aroma. Four is definitely a little bit drier. It's sweeter. Hold on. Do you just have it mixed up? No. Yeah, four is definitely smoother and sweeter. I'm picking four. Like three is fine, but it just doesn't have as much like flavor and character as four did. Three does feel a little bit... No, three feels like a little bit like brighter. Does that make sense? I mean, I'm going to go with four because I actually like it better. I don't prefer bright. Ten doesn't really have an aroma. It does. It's just very light. I like it. So... That's very woody. Ten, yeah. Ten is... Okay, so these are actually very different. Like really different. There's a little bit more fruit on eight and ten is mostly just wood. Yeah. Which is hard because I really love the wood flavor because I think it helps balance out the sweet acidic nature of a Chardonnay. But having a little fruit, having a little life of fruit in there is good. I'm doing ten. I don't know. Because I feel like... We don't have to match. Well, it's not because we're matching. These are competing for what I like. I want them all in one. What if I just mix the two? People are just crying behind the camera. It's just the fruit is in this one and the wood's in this one. I just want both characteristics in one. No. Oh, I'm definitely choosing eight. Great. Is that what you chose? No. Oh, you chose ten. Yeah, I think ten. It's just too far into the woods for me. It's like lacking anything other than the wood flavor. Okay. Okay, whoa. This is like the finals. The finals. This is the final final. Determine the winner for both of us. Well, it should come up with a sports reference. This is the... What's the biggest basketball team that you can think of? I grew up in Chicago in the 90s. So Chicago Bulls. I was about to say the same thing. But I'm sure that they're nothing now. Are they a thing? I don't know. Oh, pour one out for Kobe. Oh, stop. Don't pour it out. Oh my God. You just made me sad. I don't even watch basketball, but that made me sad. Well, now we have to cut all of this out. Anyway, number four. Gave that to Kobe. Hope it wins. Oh, I don't think so. I don't know how it got this far for me. I don't love that. Oh, yeah. That one has something on the back end, though. That's pleasant. Not as pleasant as eight. Yeah, eight. Eight is my winner. I think. I can't say yet. Hold on. It's just the right amount of acid. It's delicious. I'm going to go with four. Interesting. Now you should try eight again and pair it against four. That's what happens when in 10 minutes you try 10 wines multiple times. I'm going to stick with four. Okay. Let's see what they are. Deal in three, two, one. Did I choose the cobbler? Oh my God. I did. I just need you all to know. Why do you feel like that's a badge of honor? Okay, now let's just be frank. I hate this label. I think this is super ugly and I probably wouldn't have bought it had it not been for the fact that there were only 10 twist offs to choose from. I don't love it, but I can't get over that I just won. You didn't win. You're having a moment here. I'm having a moment. I love it. Me too. Oh, it's from Australia. How much did this cost? There's no price tags on them. Garbage. Can you believe it? You know what? It actually made me respect it a little bit less. Knowing that there's so many I like more than that. Excuse me. You were supposed to say that made me respect you a little bit more. No, not respect you. I respect this one less. Why? Well, just because of how much more I like this than that. And this is like, I've never heard of these people. They don't have the prestige of a couple. Let's back this up. I just want to say I am feeling a little tipsy. Okay, so I'd say the moral of the story is almost any of these are good with the exception of a couple. So buy the twist offs for ease and convenience so you can enjoy on the beach or your backyard conveniently and safely and responsibly. On the beach. Some beaches you're allowed to go to in some states. Listen to your governors. Be respectful. Stay six feet away from people. Be responsible. Till next time. Cheers.