Banfi Natura Cabernet Sauvignon

Start with the number: $9.49, the price we saw in our September 2026 checks. Behind it is Cabernet Sauvignon, a grape that grows across a wide stretch of wine country.

Variety guides call Cabernet a red that usually builds a firm wine, and they reach for black currant, cherry and plum as the common fruit comparisons, with a real grip of tannin and a little spice where oak is used. Ripeness, climate and the choices in the cellar, those guides add, can move it from lean and herbal toward broad and ripe. We do not have a shopper rating for this wine.

Among the reds we track, few carry a lower price. Banfi says the Mariani family founded the company in New York City in 1919 and still owns it.

Banfi's technical sheet for this wine adds real specifics: the grapes are 100 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, organically grown and hand-picked in mid-April from Central Valley, Chile, where the vineyard soil is alluvial with good drainage. The finished wine lists 13.7 percent alcohol. The winemaking notes describe a cold soak in temperature-controlled stainless steel before fermentation, followed by a second, malolactic fermentation that softens the wine's sharper acidity into a rounder feel; a producer-attested 20 percent of the wine then spends six months in oak barrels, while the rest stays in tank. The sheet's own tasting language describes the bouquet as "aromas of red and black berries with a touch of chocolate" and calls the palate "fresh and juicy" with "good structure and sweet, smooth tannins," the producer's words, and Banfi states the wine carries Ecocert organic certification and a score of 90 points from the critic James Suckling in both the 2021 and 2022 vintages.

Our call: this is the bottle for a shopper who wants the paper trail before the crowd; Banfi discloses the grape, the vineyard practices and a 90-point score from the critic James Suckling, and the price sits among the lowest of the reds we track. Pass if a shopper rating is what you buy on; none has reached our record for this bottle yet.

The Grocery Store Wine Desk · written Sep 16, 2026 from our research file for this wine. Numbers reflect our latest checks.