--- title: Snob on a Budget: Shopping for Wine | TIME description: If you love wine but don't have endless cash to spare, choosing a bottle can be tricky. The problem isn't a lack of low-priced options: The wine industry is growing rapidly and new inexpensive wines show up on wine shop shelves all the time. canonical: https://time.com/video/Y4f3MUsg/ og:title: Snob on a Budget: Shopping for Wine og:description: If you love wine but don't have endless cash to spare, choosing a bottle can be tricky. The problem isn't a lack of low-priced options: The wine industry is growing rapidly and new inexpensive wines show up on wine shop shelves all the time. og:url: https://time.com/video/Y4f3MUsg/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Y4f3MUsg/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Snob on a Budget: Shopping for Wine twitter:description: If you love wine but don't have endless cash to spare, choosing a bottle can be tricky. The problem isn't a lack of low-priced options: The wine industry is growing rapidly and new inexpensive wines show up on wine shop shelves all the time. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Y4f3MUsg/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Snob on a Budget: Shopping for Wine > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Snob on a Budget: Shopping for Wine [Watch (HLS stream): Snob on a Budget: Shopping for Wine](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Y4f3MUsg.m3u8) (2:25)  _Published 2015-06-30. If you love wine but don't have endless cash to spare, choosing a bottle can be tricky. The problem isn't a lack of low-priced options: The wine industry is growing rapidly and new inexpensive wines show up on wine shop shelves all the time._ --- Jul 27, 2023 6:29 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Snob on a Budget: Travel Tricks](/video/OYB7Z6X7/) ### Snob on a Budget: Travel Tricks [Snob on a Budget: Wine](/video/S3HXksQd/) ### Snob on a Budget: Wine [Great New Wine Discoveries: 'The World Wine Atlas'](/video/Jo0QWUux/) ### Great New Wine Discoveries: 'The World Wine Atlas' --- ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] So I'm here today with Ray Isle, the Executive food editor at Food and Wine Magazine and I just had a few questions about how How to get a luxurious tasting wine, but on a budget. I've heard things like, you're never supposed to order the second- cheapest wine on the menu, because really it's gonna be the most marked up, and actually you might as well just get the first. So, the second- cheapest wine doesn't actually mean anything. It's, at this point, it's probably Like everything else. It is true with good restaurants that particularly with you know restaurants with really good wine programs. The cheapest wine on the list is likely to be really great because a restaurant like that is going to get offered hundred of wines you know to put on his list and he's never going to put something bad on that list so in some ways. Kind of a secret steal, because he's going to want to put something on the list, at this point that not anyone else has. That's a great thing to know, and then I've also heard about this Chardonnay tax. Can you explain what that is and if it's real? Yeah, it's kind of real. What it is is that with any restaurant there are the wines that we People are automatically gonna buy this. Like Napa Valley Cabernet, big Chardonnay's from California. And, they know they're gonna sell them, there's always an audience for them, so you're gonna be paying top dollar for the really familiar regions and some of the really familiar wines. Just pick a region that just doesn't have quite the same prestige. Again, you're gonna find some great. Deals, just paying that one notch less for them. That's great to know. And then, what if you're walking, not into a restaurant, but a wine shop? And, I have a nice little local wine shop in my neighborhood, for example. And, there are wines that are as cheap as $ 10. 00 or not that expensive, up to $ 30. 00, let's say. How do I even begin to choose? Well, it's funny, any wine shop you go. To whether it's a giant grocery story where's there's small wines there. You're still looking at hundreds of wines in there. And it is daunting. If you have a wine shop like that. If you don't have one, find one, but forge a relationship with it. Talk to the staff, because wine shops are the ones always staffed by wine geeks that people will, man or woman, people who really love wine, and ask them what they're excited about. You know, those little stores that have their, sort of, secret favorites. It's like having an expert opinion right on the corner of your block. And that's really handy, I think. Cheers to that. Cheers. Thank you. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Snob on a Budget: Shopping for Wine","description":"If you love wine but don't have endless cash to spare, choosing a bottle can be tricky. 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