Wine: Ten Favorite White Wines Under $15

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10 Good White Wines For Under $15/Bottle

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There was a lot of views of my posting on recommended red wines for under $15 so I am following that up with my recommendations on 10 white wines for under $15. These are again table wines, good for a family dinner or a casual party with friends with or without food. They are also very good choices to cook with and can complement some very good wine you want to serve with the meal. Again, “Likes” are greatly appreciated and Comments very welcome.

Martellozzo Prosecco: This wine is similar to Champagne only in that both have bubbles.  Like all Italian Prosecco, it is bulk produced in tanks.  But at $7 at Trader Joe’s it provides a very pleasant sparkling wine for simple celebrations or to enjoy with a meal.  If you are serving it as a cocktail, e.g. Mimosa, Bellini, or Kir Royale, it is a great choice and why spend $50 on something where you are trying to change the taste with strong fruit additions?  Some people love the taste of French Champagne, Beth and I are in this group, but some do not care for it.  This is made from a single grape, the Glera, that is pretty much exclusive to Italy, so the pear and golden apple flavors are very different from the blend of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Meunier that are used in Champagne.  If you want a really nice traditional method sparkling wine that has a different taste than Champagne, try a Cava from one of the small producers in Spain like Barres Balta or Albet a Noya.  For under $30 you can get some very high quality sparkling wines.  For something simple under $10, this one is hard to beat.  Martellozzo does not sell exclusively to Trader Joe’s but the generally have it in stock and at the best price.

Sauvignon de Seguin: This is another great buy at Trader Joe’s at under $10 and almost always in stock.  It is a White Bordeaux that fits nicely into the discussion of Table Wines that was part of the earlier Red Wines under $15 post.  I plan to do a future post of White Bordeaux with three or four wines in the $16-22 range that we really like.  This much less expensive wine from that same region is a great table wine with everyday fish or poultry dishes.  It is also our go to cooking white wine, especially if we are serving one of the better White Bordeaux with the meal.  It is 100% Sauvignon Blanc fermented in chilled stainless steel tanks.  It has pleasant green fruit aromas with a taste of green apples with a splash of lime.  Just a really great table wine.

Domaine Guillaman Cotes de Gascogne:  Bordeaux, where the previous wine is from, is the premier wine region in the province of Gascony (Gascogne) but there are very good wines made in Gascony outside of the Bordeaux region and this table wine is an excellent example.  Often on sale for $10 and always in stock at Calvert Woodley in DC, it is pretty widely available on the web.  Domaine Guillaman has been producing excellent wines at very good prices for 6 generations and makes 8 different wines.  We have had this blend of 80% Colombard and 20% Sauvignon Blanc in our cellar for over 20 years.  They do low temperature maceration with full skin contact for a few hours before pressing and let it mature on the lees to produce a wine with excellent crisp flavors of yellow fruit and lively acidity with some more complexity than the wine above from the same general region.  Wine Enthusiast has it as a Top 100 Best Buy in 2021.  A lovely food wine, great to serve for cocktails at a party, and a very good cooking wine.

Indaba Chardonnay: We are long time members of the ABC Club – Anything But Chardonnay.  The heavily oaked chardonnay from California just does not appeal to us so we have had no chardonnay in our cellar for years.  A few years ago I tasted some White Burgundies that were in the $20-40 range and enjoyed the flavor but not the price tag for a white wine.  I have found some others from France and Oregon that are worth that price, but that is another blog.  A friend of ours set up a tasting of South African wines with a very knowledgeable importer and we found two white wines that we really enjoyed that were in the under $15 category.  This Indaba Chardonnay is 90% fermented in stainless tanks with only 10% in new French oak with weekly battonage.  It is then aged on its lees for several months to add complexity and a softer texture.  The result is a wine that celebrates the Chardonnay grape instead of trying to find ways to change it like lots of oak.  If you love the heavy oak chardonnays then you have lots of choices for under $15 and you can skip this wine.  If you are an ABC member, give this a try and you will find it provides a very nice change of pace to your other white wines and for $8-10 it is a great buy.  Frequently but not always available from Wine.com and carried by a number of other web stores.

Picton Bay Sauvignon Blanc: As ABC members, Sauvignon Blanc became our primary white wine and there are three of them in our cellar at under $15,. not cou8nting the earlier White Bordeaux   This first one is a Trader Joe’s bargain at just $7 and it is Beth’s go to wine.  Life would not be worth living if she ever goes down to the cellar and cannot find a bottle of this wine 😊.    This wine comes from the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, the Marlborough region that makes much of the great red and white wines that New Zealand has.  It is not a Sancerre, but it does have a nice lemon and lime taste with a dry decent length finish.  It is an excellent table wine at a great price. Some other resellers carry it but at prices around $11 so Trader Joe’s is your best bet if you have one near you that carries wine.

Excelsior Sauvignon Blanc:  This is the other South African white wine from the tasting we did last year.   In the $10 price range it reminded me of a Sancerre in some ways, which we believe is where God decided the best Sauvignon Blanc on the planet would come from.  This is not equivalent to a $30 wine from that region, but it has flavors of citrus and gooseberry with none of the heavy grapefruit taste that some Sauvignon Blanc wines have.  It is a terrific food wine, especially with seafood.  When Beth gets a glass of Picton Bay to deal with a tough day, I will turn to this wine for my escape valve.  Generally available from Wine.com but not always and available from some other web outlets at a slightly lower price.

Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc: The Nobilo family has been making excellent Sauvignon Blanc in the Marlborough region of New Zealand’s South Island since 1970. This is their entry level white wine and it has a nice blend of tropical fruit flavors like pineapple and cantaloupe.  Enjoyable on its own as an aperitif, or pairs well with many food dishes with its balanced acidity and a generous finish.  Nice low alcohol at 12.5%.  It goes very nicely with spicy dishes as well as most chicken dishes.  Widely available including Total Wine and Wine.com and is often on sale for under $10.  Each of these three Sauvignon Blanc’s has enough difference in taste that we keep all three in the cellar to give us some taste variations on our go to white wine.

Picpoul de Pinet: If you can remember this name, and reasonably pronounce it when you go to the store, you will be rewarded with a lovely wine that gives you a real change of pace in a white wine.  For several years it was the house white wine at the Inn at Little Washington, Michelin 3 stars and one of the top 10 restaurants in the world.  From the Languedoc region of France down on the Med to the west of Marseilles, the Picpoul grape loves the sandy marshes and produces a medium body bone dry wine with very high acidity that stands up to very flavorful dishes like Bouillabaisse or oysters, mussels, or crab.  It is also great with sushi or Pad Thai.  On a hot summer afternoon it is also great just to sip a glass of Picpoul de Pinet on the deck and watch the sun set.  This is from the HB Pomerols vineyard and imported by Kysela Pere Et Fills.  It is only $12 at Total Wine which also has other Picpouls are in the $20-30 range, but I don’t see any reason to pay that price. 

Martin Codax  Albarino: We have become huge Albarino fans in the last two years and will be tasting a number of them in September as part of our 15 day group tour of the northern Spain wine region.  Rias Baixas is a DO region in the northwest corner of Spain, right on the Atlantic.  The Albarino grape is the primary grape of this region and the dry Albarino wines are rapidly becoming very popular.  They are great food wines, especially with seafood as the vineyards are right on the Atlantic.  The aroma has both citrus and green fruit tones of lime, pear, and grapefruit along with a little briny note from vineyards proximity to the ocean.  Silky and expansive on the palate, it offers energetic fruit flavors with nice acidity that that tightens up and turns spicier through the long very harmonious finish.   Widely available including Total Wine and Wine.com at $14.  We also love the La Cana Albarino but only occasionally can we get it on sale for under $15 so at $18 it does not make the cut for this list. 

Chateau Ste. Michelle Columbia Valley Dry Riesling: I could have a whole blog just on Riesling wines and that might be a good one to do in the future.  Riesling wines are made in an incredibly broad range of tastes, especially in terms of sweetness, so it is hard to make a general comment that covers all Riesling wines.  If you think you don’t like Riesling wines, you may not have been introduced to one that would really appeal to you.  Chateau Ste. Michelle in the state of Washington is the largest producer of Riesling wines in the world and their web site has a whole page of different ones that they make.  At the entry level price point they have three different ones that generally retail for about $10.  Warning – the prices on their web site are much higher to protect their resellers.  These wines are widely available including Total Wine and Wine.com in the $10-12 range.  The three wines are the Dry Riesling, Riesling (off dry), and Sweet Riesling.  It would be fun at a party to offer all three and see what people think.  Our staple is the Dry Riesling but we have a few bottles of the other two because some members of our family like the sweeter wines, if only as a change of pace.  The Dry Riesling has crisp apples and peach aromas and is truly dry.  I really like it with the spicy dishes I make like Penang Curry or Basil Fried Rice.  Like the Picpoul de Pinet and the Albarino, it offers a totally different flavor profile from the typical Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc for dishes that I want to have a white wine with.  At $10 it is also a good choice for cooking when a white wine will accompany the food. 

I hope you try some of these wines and enjoy them as much as Beth and I have.

We have a handful of Roses that we really like and as we head into the Spring and Summer It might be a good time to share our recommendations on these wines but they are in the $15-25 range. Would this be of interest?