7 Red Wines That Are ROBBING You Blind (And 7 That Are WORTH The Money!)

Seven red wine brands are robbing you blind. Seven are actually worth the money. Let's make some people mad. I'm John Allis. I'm a certified sommelier. Here's my criteria, and it's simple. I'm not hunting for cheap wine. Some cheap wine can actually be pretty honest. I'm hunting for the gap between what you pay and what's actually in the bottle. And on this list, that gap is borderline criminal. Number seven, Ménage à Trois. 10 bucks, cute name, and I'll give it this much credit. It's honest about what it is. It's the we still had two hours before last call of red wine. Zinfandel, Merlot, and Cabernet all thrown into one fermenter like a group project where no one wants to do any of the work. And the result tastes like fruit punch that took one wine tasting class. It's not the worst thing on this list. It's here because somebody somewhere is paying 20 bucks for it at a restaurant markup and calling it their wine, or worse, our wine. Hey, at least it reminds you of Hawaiian Punch. Number six, Apothic. Oh, this is a wine that got your ex-sister-in-law through a rough year. Dark, syrupy, faintly purple in a way that should concern your doctor. Apothic Red tastes like red wine and a Werther's original got into an argument and both of them lost badly. It's owned by Gallo, one of the largest cheap wine producers on the planet. Engineered by a team of flavor scientists who would taste identical in every single bottle forever. Which, I'll be honest, is an impressive feat of industrial food science. It ain't winemaking, it's soda with a cork. A fake cork. If Menage a Trois is Hawaiian Punch, this is alcoholic Kool-Aid. And the headaches from both, they're legendary. Number five, 19 Crimes. Snoop Dogg's face comes alive on the label through an app, which is genuinely the single most interesting thing about this wine. And I say that as someone whose job is to find interesting things about wine. That augmented reality gimmick cost motor developed and the juice inside cost to make. You're paying 13 bucks for a red blend and about 12 of them bucks are going toward innovative marketing technology. And maybe 50 cents toward grapes that saw a vineyard at some point, possibly through a car window. This stuff belongs as a decoration on your shelf, not in your wine glass. So nasty. Hey, but at least the bottle's cool. Number four, Conundrum by the Wagner family. Yes, that Wagner family. They're gonna keep showing up today. Consider this a spoiler. Conundrum is a mystery blend, which is winemaker speak for we're not legally required to tell you what's in this. And I promise you the mystery ain't rare grape varietals. Mystery is why this costs 17 bucks. It's soft, it's sweet. It's crowd-pleasing and about as complex as an ex-girlfriend's group text. The Conundrum is how anyone could drink this liquid equivalent of mystery meat. Number three, Bella Gloss. Now look, we're into some real money here. 50 bucks a bottle for a Pinot Noir that's been over extracted, over-oaked and ripened into something that tastes less like Pinot Noir and more like it's much louder and cheaper cousin, Conundrum. Another Wagner family beauty built specifically to win blind tasting judge on bigger equals better. And it does exactly that. It just has almost nothing to do what Pinot Noir is supposed to taste like. But hey, at least it has a cool red wax seal on top. Hopefully to keep what's inside from getting into your wine glass. The bottle ain't as cool as Snoop. Don't know. Number two, me, oh my, me, oh me, oh my God. Eight million bottles a year. This is not a winery. That's a beverage factory that happens to use grapes. Founded by Joe Wagner, another Wagner. I did warn you. Me, oh my, me, oh me blends a splash of Syrah and Grenache into its Pinot Noir which depending on which Appalachian rule book you're reading is either creative winemaking or why is my Pinot Noir sweeter than my nephew's juice box? Who else remembers Capri Sun? That stuff ain't bad. Me, oh my, me, oh me. Oh my God, it's horrible. It's the most successful case of turning delicate, war-driven grape into candy that this industry has ever produced. And I genuinely respect the business degree behind it. The same way I respect a really well-run pyramid scheme. This is a truly villainous wine. Something to serve to somebody you don't like if you're in a really bad mood. It is awful in a way beyond description. And number one, the final boss. The reason I became a sommelier in the first place just so I could say this with credentials behind me. Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon. 90 bucks a bottle, 90, more in a restaurant for a wine so ripe, so jammy, so aggressively big that it's been engineered. And I mean that as a compliment to the chemistry not the winemaking. To taste identical to itself, vintage after vintage regardless of what happened in Napa Valley that year. Weather doesn't matter, terroir doesn't matter. You could tell me this was made on the moon and I'd believe you because Caymus, it doesn't taste like a place. It tastes like a decision made in a focus group that drank a lot of Caymus before deciding. It is the single most safe, expensive wine on earth. And safe is not what 90 bucks is supposed to buy. You can drink a lot of Snoop Dogg for that with much cooler looking bottles. Okay, enough of these villainous wines. Let's talk about the good stuff that actually earns your money. Real red wine, in my professional opinion as a certified sommelier does three things these seven don't. It tastes like where it came from. It changes in the glass instead of hitting you with the same note for two hours straight. And the price on the shelf roughly matches the work that actually went into the bottle. It delivers an experience, not a flavor assault. Here are seven that actually pull that off. Hey, quick pause. If you're finding these useful, hit subscribe. I'm a certified sommelier and I put out entertaining wine education every week. And if you know what hypes are and how to use them, hey, throw a few my way. Let's get this video in front of a few other wine lovers. All right, number seven, worth every pity. Cake bread sellers. Family owned in Napa Valley since the 1970s. Still run by the people who grew up walking these vineyards instead of people who bought the winery as a tax write-off. Their Cabernet Sauvignon isn't trying to knock you unconscious with ripeness. It's structured, it's balanced. And it actually changes in the glass over the 20 minutes it takes you to finish it. Which sounds like a low bar until you remember that half the list we just went through can't even say that. It's a good, honest wine and your friends will enjoy it too. Number six, Forniente. The name literally translates to without a care, which is either the most relaxed or the most sarcastic name a Napa winery has ever chosen because the amount of care that goes into this wine is, well, it's actually borderline obsessive. Precise, restrained, built for people who want a Napa Cabernet Sauvignon that tastes like fruit and oak in balance instead of fruit and oak in a professional wrestling match. You're paying for craftsmanship here, not a marketing department. Forniente also owns Nickel & Nickel. Their labors look very similar and Nickel & Nickel consistently delivers great value too. Their Chardonnay and their dessert wine, Dulce, are really great value. Number five, Ridge Vineyards. Yes, yes, yes, I know, I know, I know. This is way too low for Ridge. This is the winery that puts the actual ingredient list on the back label. Grapes, yeast, a little sulfur, done, because they don't have anything to hide. They just have a lot to offer, which after the last seven wines we discussed, should feel like a plot twist. Their Montabella Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the most historically significant wines in California. It beats top Bordeaux estates in blind tasting that wine critics are still arguing about decades later, and it tastes like it came from a mountain, not a marketing meeting. Look, their Santa Cruz Cab is one of the great values in wine, as is their Zinfandel. Honestly, this list of seven could be all Ridge, and no one's gonna complain. Number four, Tablas Creek. Passos Robles biodynamically farmed and started with cuttings brought over, legally mostly, from an actual Chateau Neuf de Papa estate in France. These are Rome varietals, not a classic Cabernet, but I'm including it because it's the exact opposite of everything on the villain's list. Hand farmed, been manipulated, it tastes different every single vintage, because, and I cannot stress this enough, that's supposed to happen. That's called weather, that's called terroir, that's called wine. Yes, Passos Robles is known for Cabernet Sauvignon, but those in the know buy it for their Southern Rome style blends just as much. Number three, Chablis Mountain Cuvée. Oh, what a great value. Grown on Pritchard Hill, some of the steepest, most unforgiving vineyard land in Napa Valley, all the things that make a vineyard manager cry and make a wine taste like something instead of nothing. For 40 bucks, this wine over delivers. You're in and air out. Introducing you to their higher end wines specifically, as well as California Mountain Fruit, something vastly different from the sweet blackberry jam gloop that comes from the valley. Hey, since you watched this far, I've got a gift for you, my magical wines guide, a list of wines that have been magical for me and for others, constantly updated. All you have to do to claim your copy is go to wholebottlereviews.com forward slash email. The link is in the description and in the pinned comment. Back to the show. Number two, Chateau Femme Plagat Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Classé, fountain of plenty from the right bank in Bordeaux. Oh, if you want a real value Bordeaux, for 50 bucks, you can drink this young, you can drink this age. The Femme Plagat always over delivers. This is the wine that pulled me into Bordeaux back in 2018, and I drank every single vintage starting with the 2015. Femme Plagat is structured, it's savory, it's built age for decades, but you can drink it young upon release and it costs less than Caymus, far less, while doing something Caymus has never once attempted, expressing an actual place on earth and delivering you a true magical wine experience. Plus, like any good Bordeaux should, it has a line drawing of a Chateau on the label, so it looks classy and sophisticated because it is. Put the empty bottle on your shelf next to your full Snoop Dogg bottle and you'll have a great look. And number one, worth every single dollar, this one's gonna surprise y'all a little bit, the wine I'd put in front of anyone who's only ever tasted Miomi or Bella Gloss and think that's Pinot Noir. I'd give you Rose Rock by Maison Joseph Johene. This is one of the most respected burgundy houses on the planet. Four generations over a century of making great Pinot Noir the hard, patient, old world way. And they brought that exact philosophy and skill to the Eola Amity Hills in Oregon. It's restrained, it's savory, it changes in the glass for an hour. It is everything Miomi and Bella Gloss are pretending to be made by people who've been doing this since before your grandparents were born. This is what Pinot Noir is supposed to taste like. And for 40 bucks, it's a dead bag winner. Look, Johene also makes burgundies that sell for over $2,000 a bottle. And for only 40 bucks, you can get a taste of their winemaking skill. The crazy thing is you can find this in any grocery store and it always delivers. They may make a lot of it, but this is not industrial wine. It's just well-made, great value Pinot Noir that introduces you to what the grape is really all about. And then you can go from there. Now you know what to drink for yourself and what to tell your friends to stay away from. Here on Magical Wine Experiences, you always get the brutal truth about wine. And I have even wilder, bruter truth video for you. Tap or click to watch right now.