This article gives some advice about finding cheap wines for appropriate occasions.

Everybody needs cheap wine at some point in his or her lives. Maybe you are on a tight budget; maybe you are making cocktails. Whatever the reason, you want to get a lot for a little.

It is foolish to spend a lot on wine for such occasions as a barbecue or picnic, just as it is also foolish to bring a lesser wine to a dinner table where very good food is being served.

If you are having a cocktail party, you should serve both a red and a white wine. Chilean wine is your cheapest option for a low-cost varietal wine. Australia may be the best choices for one or two more dollars per bottle, assuming you want to spend the money. The Australians like to blend grapes at the low end of the price spectrum, and the result is usually better than the sum of the parts. Another good cocktail party red/white pairing is Spanish Rioja – red and white. Rioja is less fruity than the Australian wines. This makes it better with food, for some people’s tastes, but you may find it lacking if you aren’t serving munchies.

When you go to a wine store, choosing a $6-$8 bottle can be very tricky. In this range, you run the risk of buying a wine you do not like at all. Although the choices we listed above are usually safe, you will probably be confronted with more than one of each type of wine in that price range. Fortunately, it is in the wine seller’s interest to give you good advice. It will make you more likely to return to his store for wine, and more likely to want to drink more wine in the future.

If you are making a wine drink such as sangria, you are probably going to make a lot of it. Sangria has juice, spirits, sugar, and other ingredients, so you will not be able to tell good from bad wine. In this case, you need California jug wine, and a lot of it.

If you are having a reception and you want to serve cheap wine, but jug wine just is not good enough, you have some tough choices. Jug whites are easier to enjoy than jug reds. You could spend more money on your red wines. Another trick is to use cheese. Cheese makes almost all wines taste better, and this is especially true for cheap wine. So if you are serving wine at your reception, make sure you have cheese and crackers, not M&M’s and pretzels.