Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God Dionysus? 

The truth -- unbiased by expectation or pretense -- is what food and wine critic Robin Goldstein seeks to present in his wine guide, The Wine Trials 2010. Updated to include the latest vintages, the guide catalogues 150 standout wines that meet the market’s new top priority: a price point of $15 or less.

Fifteen dollars is the new $25, this new pain threshold reflecting today’s recession-era mentality and values. The bad news is there’s a lot of loathsome stuff out there under $15. Case in point: the unmemorable spatlese riesling from Trader Joe’s that a friend “treated” me to last night. However, the good news is that, with help from wine guides like this one, “cheap” no longer has to be a dirty word.

By aiming for the truth, Goldstein’s methodology is simple: the wine trial judgments are determined from blindtastings and are made by a cross panel of judges that includes not just sommeliers but also importers, wine writers and everyday consumers. And there’s no cutting corners, like in some tastings where panelists are allowed to know the price range or the region. Everything is brownbagged and jumbled together. These kinds of controls allow the brain to correct for our pride and our prejudice (sorry, had to slip that in!)-- i.e. what we expect the wine to taste like based on variables like the label, price point, region, country, and of course the producer. 

We’re all guilty of allowing our biases to trick us into ignoring our tastebuds, and especially so for beginner wine drinkers. Like when the friend from yesterday bought a bottle of Mondavi, exclusively because he saw a “92 Points!” shelf-talker sitting next to it. Or, another friend who waxed poetic about the 1989 Chateau Haut Brion he’d recently had the opportunity to try. “Erica, you can really tell the difference [with a $1500 wine],” he insisted. I wonder if it’s a defense mechanism -- like, “Oh shit, I just paid a small fortune for this wine, so it’d better be good or else I’ll feel like a real douche” or “I’m no wine connoisseur, so since Wine Spectator says it’s good, well then, this must be what ‘good’ tastes like.”  

In an interview with Leonard Lopate a couple days ago, Goldstein offered the “placebo effect” as a reason for why sometimes we physiologically enjoy the more expensive wines so much more. We all thirst (pun intended) to share in this fantastic experience that we’re promised by critics or by price points or by reputation, so sometimes we trick ourselves into believing the hype. 

Sometimes not though. Sometimes the hype or the price is well-deserved, and other times the wine really is just horrendous -- at any dollar amount. And of course when you start skimming the “under $15” bins, you begin to wonder what exactly you’re giving up in order to save a few dollars. People with more wine training demand acidity and, above all, balance (no fruit bombs here), while laymen more often crave the affable, fruitforward wines that please the palette immediately. Goldstein believes though that his 2010 winners appeal to the cross-section. Something I’d be willing to (unscientifically) test -- which Goldstein of course encourages. (More book sales for him.) 

I do think he’s misguided in his conclusion that an easy $10 rosé, that satisfies on a summer day by the shore, somehow deserves 100 points from Spectator. First off, assuming that Spectator (or whatever guide you’re using) is reliable, if I’m munching on a lobster roll on the beach, you can bet your bottom dollar that I want a quality rosé -- and if I’m using points to help me pick one, then I want to be sure I know what I’m getting. I want my critic to grade the wine based on its quality, not on what he thinks I expect from it. After all, not everyone wants the wine version of a “beach read.” Besides, if you give a simple poolside rosé 100 points, how do you rate the other rosés that do have the complexity and structure to pair with other foods or in other seasons? Maybe the answer is not to change the criteria, but rather to understand what your critics’ biases are and to better understand what their ratings mean. Because a rating of 88 points isn’t necessarily bad. Maybe 88 points is fine for the beach, and maybe 88 points from a critic like Parker just means it’s not fruitforward.

Anyway, the bottom line: don’t expect these wines to be as impressive as something at a higher price point, because there certainly is a difference in quality (how great that difference is, is up to you). But if you’ve only got $15 and you want to be sure that you don’t get stuck with a lemon, this is a good source to check out for ideas.