Private label wines: the future is now

Sssh -- here's an industry secret. Private label wines are all around you, hiding in plain sight.

Many, many wineries now offer special deals on their excess juice to big grocery stores and wine chains. Sometimes it's the only way to ensure that the chain carries the winery's main product.

Moreover, these big chains are motivated to sell these wines because they're the most profitable -- so inevitably, they're the wines you see in handwritten signs as "the store's top 10."

Please don't misunderstand: there's nothing sinister about this practice at all. In the UK, private label wines -- many commissioned by supermarkets -- have taken over the bulk of the industry. People are not put off by buying Tesco Malbec from Argentina.

Moreover, I believe the bulk price for juice that will go into private-label wines is as fairly priced as anything in the wine industry. That makes intuitive sense: Take away the well-known winery's name from the label, and all it has to sell is the quality of its juice.

But here in the US, people still cling to the idea that they can get a "hand-crafted" artisanal wine for $11.99. Fat chance, folks. For the most part, wines in that price range are made from juice that was bought on some country's bulk market.

So retailers go to great lengths to hide the fact that their "special purchase" wines are, in fact, private labels.

Embrace it, folks. Private-label wines may not have individual vineyard character, but you've generally got to spend $20 or more for that anyway.

If you're only spending $12, you've probably had plenty of private-label wines already without even knowing it. Accept.