The best way to look at it, is to find wines that are not in the generic liquor stores. You know what those are. They carry all the typical brands and you're paying for their advertising and marketing budgets in each bottle. Look for small production, small batch, artisan winemakers from Italy that hand harvest grapes from low yielding vines. I've done the dirty work for you.

Italy is actually one of the few places on earth where you can find quality wines under $30 and the reason is simple. The work ethic in the small artisan vineyards is all about family and friendship and so a lot of people help out because it's a community activity. They love being under the sun they love working with their family and friends, and they're just more careful with their costs, and that value gets passed on to you.

The problem is that I could tell you that vermintino from Sardinia, for example, is a good value white wine, but it really depends on who makes it and where the Vineyard is located. It's very likely that you could find on this website for example, an artisanal Vermentino that you love and then, when you go to a generic store in your area and buy a different Vermentino from a different producer that you're gonna think, "oh, I don't like this wine. I must not like Vermentino." Don't forget to stick with the artisan versions. Just because you don't like the mass produced version doesn't mean you don't like the grape. It means you don't like the winery and you don't like their vineyard. It really depends on who makes it and where the Vineyard is located.

It's very important who makes the wine and where the vineyard is located and how they make the wine. It really comes down to origin, craft, and culture. Something that I'm always talking about. The origin is the Vineyard. The craft is how it's made; the culture is about the people who make the wine. The artisan hand harvests and selects the best grapes at the perfect moment of maturity. They live in their vineyards. They drink their own wine. They share their wine with family and friends. Mass producers machine-harvest at the same time, picking the ripe, unripe, rotten, and insects along with it. Mass producers intervene with the wine in the cellar like plastic surgery. Adding and subtracting components and artificial additives. They spend heavily on marketing and advertising and give you the sense that because their wines are everywhere, that they must be good. But you're paying for that advertising budget, not the wine. Stick with artisan Italian wine under 30 dollars and you'll be drinking like royalty. That's the big secret.