An ongoing tasting of wines under the $10 mark, accessible in Vancouver, that we will post about regardless of whether we loved it or it was absolutely putrid. We will wade through bottles of bad plonk to find those hidden gems around town and hope that in doing this, you won’t have to do the same.

Trapiche Astica ’08  Merlot/Melbec – Cuyo, Argentina $7.99

I found this bottle at the poorly stocked BCLDB in Castlegar, and it looks to be commonly available across the province. Those of us from BC know that you don’t really pay less than $7.99 for a bottle of wine around here, so that makes this about as cheap as they come. How do they get that wine all the way here for only $7.99? Well, for one, Trapiche owns around 2500 acres of vineyard land. The whole of British Columbia has 9100 acres of vines planted. Economy of scale may help…

The wine is probably much lighter than most you’ve ever seen with Malbec printed on the bottle. Tangy red fruit – raspberry and cherry, with a slight green brambly character. Dry with low tannins. Overall it’s fairly nondescript – it tastes like red table wine that could be from anywhere. It is a touch stemmy and has a slight cherry cough candy character that I’m not thrilled about, but I wouldn’t consider it awful (or even bad for that matter). In fact, I used it to wash down dinner and I’m still drinking it as I type this. Suggested Tagline: Drinkable Wine for $7.99. There’s also a Sauvignon Blanc/Semillion blend for $7.99 that I’d be interested to know if anyone has tried.