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.

Well, was the $7.99 price tag for the Benvenuto 2008 IGT Barbera, right from the ankle bone of Italy, too good to be true?

Um - pretty much, yeah.

Sure.  It tasted, initially, like Barbera.  Low acid and a mix of cherries, blackberries with a bit of an olive and earthy thing going on.  Initially I thought I had a bit of a find here.  But then mere minutes into drinking it, the floor fell out from underneath the thing (oxygen is not a friend to this wine).  It became thin, insipid and the acidity seemed to rise, no longer being cloaked in rich fruit.  I detected an increased note of pine needles and one of those hangy-tree-car-air-freshener things.

So I promptly did the Nigella Lawson trick to salvage what was left.  I grabbed an empty ice cube tray, filled the squares with the leftover wine, threw it in the freezer, and will pop out a cube or two any time I need some red cooking wine.

It would also be fine for Sangria or perhaps a rolling pin or sturdy paperweight.

I guess at $7.99, you get what you pay for.