The greatest sport in fine wine is not coming upon some high-priced beauty. Anybody can do that. Instead, the real sport – the true challenge – is uncovering the bargain beauty.

This is not as easy as it seems, if only because with wine, as in so many other things, you do usually get what you pay for. There are reasons why better wines cost more money.

First, there’s supply and, especially, demand. The world’s best wines are no secrets. With powerful wine publications such as Wine Spectator and Robert Parker’s the Wine Advocate, there’s almost no such thing as secret wine greatness. The word gets out mighty fast. Such publications are arsonists of demand, inflaming the market. In another era, wines could languish in obscurity for decades, generations even, before becoming known. No more. So that affects price.

Then there’s the reality of production costs. Truly fine wines cost more to create. Vineyard yields typically must be lower for fine wines, which costs more. Superior winemaking equipment such as small oak barrels and stainless steels tanks are capital-intensive. Then there’s the cost of rigor: eliminating lesser-quality lots of wines; identifying and segregating superior sites; choosing superior clones or strains of grapes and replanting accordingly. It takes patience, knowledge, ambition and, of course, capital.

All that acknowledged, there’s still no denying what you likely already suspect (or know): there’s always a deal. And you’re right. Sometimes the deals come from distress such as grape gluts or business problems at any level of the wine business, from winery to importer to wholesaler to retailer.

But such deals are transient. You get ’em while you can and hug yourself with smug pleasure. But the real deals are wines you can return to repeatedly, “secret” opportunities that emerge because of an unusual alliance between low-cost vineyards and high producer standards.

That is precisely the (rare) commonality among the three wines to follow. All are amazingly good wines – fine wines, in fact – for the money. All cost less than $12 a bottle. Finding wines this good at this low a price is the greatest wine sport of all.

HERE’S THE DEAL

ALTANO “DOURO” 2001

If you’re of a playful (or malicious) bent, this is a red wine you want to serve your guests in an elegant decanter, while neglecting to tell them anything about the wine. “Oh, it’s just something I picked up that I thought you might like,” you might say in your best Cole Porter manner.

The odds are powerfully in your favor that your guests will like Altano 2001 – a lot. And they will be astonished when you tell them that it set you back $8.99. (You will tell them, right?)

The skinny on Altano 2001 is that it comes from Portugal’s Douro region, which is famous for port wine. However, in the last 15 or 20 years, port producers have been striving to create nonfortified red table wines with increasing success. Altano is one of those successes – and at a bargain price.

The brand is the creation of the Douro district’s most prestigious, and perhaps largest, producer, the Symington family. They own a raft of famous port names including Warre’s, Dow’s, Smith Woodhouse, Graham’s, and Gould Campbell, among other labels in Spain and Portugal. In short, they’re a powerhouse in the region. They’ve got the grapes, the capital, and not least, the standards necessary for creating truly fine wine.

What makes Altano so inviting is that it’s composed of grape varieties previously used only in sweet, fortified port wine. But there was never any reason not to use them to make table wine. It just wasn’t done.

Altano is a blend of 60% tinta roriz and 40% touriga franca. The resulting wine is surprisingly refined, with whiffs of herbs, minerals, and spices delivered more gracefully than one might otherwise expect, knowing how burly port wines can be. Altano is, instead, medium-weight, a true table wine. This is just the ticket for grilled meats, melted cheeses, or just a good pizza or pasta dish. $8.99.

CETAMURA CHIANTI 2003, COLTIBUONO

Another red wine deal, this one from Chianti. Cetamura is a proprietary name created by the famous Chianti estate Badia a Coltibuono (literally, the abbey of the good harvest). Using grapes purchased from around the Chianti region, Badia a Coltibuono has created impressively tasty Chianti of a sort we haven’t seen from the zone in years.

The problem, you see, is the Chianti has lost its way in recent years. Too many wines are (legally) blended with cabernet sauvignon, merlot, or syrah, the better to make a wine that tastes, well, like every other wine. Real Chianti is a creature of Tuscany’s great indigenous red grape variety sangiovese, along with other local blending grapes, such as canaiolo or mammolo.

Cetamura 2003 is 90% sangiovese and 10% canaiolo. And it tastes just like an early-drinking, everyday Chianti should: fruity, intense yet quaffable, and accommodating to just any food that goes with a zippy dry red wine. At $8.99 a bottle, it’s a benchmark wine of its type.

HERMANOS LURTON “RUEDA” WHITE WINE 2003

Finding genuinely interesting – which is to say not bland or insipid – dry white wine is the trickiest challenge of all. The reason is that white grapes tend not to be as intrinsically flavorful as red grapes. Exceptions exist, such as riesling or muscat, but the generalization holds up. So it’s rare to come across inexpensive dry white wines that offer real flavor. This one does.

A dry Spanish white wine from the Rueda district, which is about 100 miles northwest of Madrid, it’s the creation of the Lurton family of Bordeaux. The two Lurton brothers – hence Hermanos (brothers) Lurton – have taken the world as their wine province, with wineries in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Australia, Spain, and southern France, as well as their native Bordeaux. From what I’ve tasted, their wines are good value, handsomely packaged, well distributed, and usually no more individual than a Fig Newton.

However, to give credit where it’s due, their Spanish white wine is a marvelous exception. A blend of two local white grapes, verdejo (60%) and viura (40%), it’s a joy to drink. With a nose-twitching scent of almonds and peaches allied to a surprisingly full, thick-textured taste – almonds again – along with a slight edge of palate pleasing honey in the finish, this is impressively good, original-tasting white wine. Lovely with food, it’s full-bodied enough to serve as a sunset sipper or aperitif. A bargain for the quality. $11.99.