Good, cheap barbera

[mamster]

When I'm out with friends or family at an Italian restaurant, I'm often elected to choose a bottle of wine.  Nine times out of ten I'll order a barbera from Piedmont;  it's hard to pick a bad bottle, and they tend to be high acid and low tannin without being weak-kneed like a lot of Chiantis and the like.  Barbera is probably my favorite all-around wine, and I'd be happy to drink some daily

Unfortunately, prices seems to have skyrocketed on this fairly ordinary wine.  Just a couple of years ago, I seem to remember, I could get an entirely satisfactory bottle for ผ and sometimes less.  Now that's closer to ม, with a lot of the bottles by "name" producers coming in at ฤ and some over ฮ.

Who's driving the price up on barbera?  Am I just shopping in the wrong places?  Most of the wine drinkers I know never heard of it before I mentioned it.  And does anyone know of a bargain label, a really good barbera still in the ผ range?  (Last year in Seattle, the grocery stores were blowing out a past-its-prime barbera for ű or so, but that doesn't count.)

(Edited by mamster at 3:19 pm on Dec. 5, 2001)