Science Marches On

What all of us want is a drinkable $5 wine, don't we? Or maybe what we want is a woman who won't sneer at us when we open a $5 wine.

Wines that inexpensive are not for sniffing or scoring. They don't require a 100-point rating scale. They're strictly pass or fail. They're for gulping, and if you've forgotten how to do that, it's time to stop pondering the meaning of $100 Chardonnays and relax.

Recently I tasted six different $5 wines from Gallo, all of them bottled in standard 750-milliliter sizes. My stash of Gallo Family Vineyards Twin Valley wines included three reds (Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Hearty Burgundy), two whites (Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc), and one sweet rosé (White Zinfandel). I cooked up a couple of burgers to find out which wine matched up best.

I have to say, not one was great with an unadorned burger on a bun. The food was just too bland for the wines and exposed their flaws—yes, all $5 wines have flaws. I pressed on with my experimentation, motivated by a deep commitment to science. I added ketchup.

In doing so, I believe I made one of the great discoveries of my lifetime. Two elemental culinary forces—Hearty Burgundy and ketchup—are made for one another.

Hearty Burgundy, once the most cherished of all American jug wines and now elevated to Twin Valley status, is not Burgundy and is only hearty in comparison to, say, a Volnay, which is a Burgundy. In today's world of mammoth red wines, it's a middleweight. But it seems to have been around as long as wine has been in existence. Gallo is an old Italian name, and I wouldn't be surprised if Hearty Burgundy was the house wine at the Roman Coliseum.

Ketchup, of course, is pure Americana, salsa for the midwest. When I realized that it went perfectly with Hearty Burgundy, I felt like Isaac Newton discovering gravity. Ketchup and Hearty Burgundy are strongly similar in sweetness, flavor profile and body. They go best when the wine is slightly chilled, like the ketchup.

I have discovered the secret of Hearty Burgundy's longevity: It's America's ketchup wine.