Dependable House Wines (& a house whine)

[essentialsaltes]

bellwethr's continuing adventures in lousy French wines from TJ's got me thinking...

What are the dependable cheap-ish wines that you go back to over and over? Post your favorites. Off the top of my head, these are things I go for with a good quality/price ratio at TJ's. Of course, for many of them the price is so low, the quality doesn't have to be that good to get a good ratio...
Some of these have definitely had off-years, but whatever's on the shelf now is acceptable.

Cline Zinfandel
Castoro Cellars Cab
Honeymoon Viognier
Lorca Pinot Noir
Trader Joe's Reserve Petite Verdot (a recent find)
Santa Rita Cab and Reserve Cab
Any of the Domain Ste Michelle sparklers
Piper Sonoma sparkling white

I used to like the Italian wines from D'Aquino Gaetano, but they've been kinda crummy for the past couple years, in my opinion.

There used to be an Australian GSM (grenache, syrah, mourvedre) that I loved, but I haven't seen it in ages.

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The good news: the county doesn't think our house has lost that much value.
The bad news: that means they won't be reducing our property taxes.

Comments

[arcane-nitehawk.livejournal.com]

For sparkling wine my mother swears by the one in the black bottle with the gold text. Personally I like local wines and smaller vineyards. As these are often tax shelters, so you can get quality wine dirt cheap.