Alright, alright, alright—it’s 11:30 p.m. on Friday night. After three weeks of ignoring your calls, the hot sophomore from your 100-level math class texts you and asks about any plans you might have for the evening. After spontaneous ejaculation, you regain composure and invite her back to your apartment. There’s just one thing that needs some subtracting—you’re a dirt bag. Yes, you might be able to ditch the Gatorade bottle of piss (alright, the six-pack of Gatorade bottles of piss) from your bedroom floor, but are you really going to entertain her with a kegerator full of Icehouse (yeah, I didn’t know they did that either) and a bootleg rip of Paul Blart: Mall Cop that you illegally downloaded? No! Where’s the class, champ? Ah, yes. And that brings us to wine. Your parents drink it, your professors drink it, winos drink it. Some studies even report that red wine is a heart-healthy choice, in moderation. And yes, now, the broke-ass college student can finally take the next step into adulthood and trade in your Schlitz for Shiraz.

Deep pockets and short arms got ya down? Don’t fret! It is possible to be chic and cheap in the world of wine. Well, to some degree, at least. Keith Harding, one of the night managers at On the Rox liquor store on Bailey avenue in Amherst informs us that, “price is not always indicative of quality.” He explains that some inexpensive wine is of fair quality, and some higher-end wines might not be worth the extra cash. While a 40 of O.E. may pack a punch, a few bucks more might be able to secure you nearly two liters of wine with a heftier wallop and a heck of a lot more antioxidants. Harding recommends the Little Penguin, an Eastern Australian wine that is relatively new on the market, over the ever-popular Yellowtail. The Little Penguin offers a variety of red, white, and blush varieties and Harding offers a bit of guidance: “They have a great pinot noir which is a fruity red,” he says. “It’s not gonna be sugary sweet, but it’s easy to drink, and it’s still inexpensive at $6.99 for a 750 ml bottle.”

Here’s where things start to get tricky. Just like a $15 plastic bottle of Smirnoff, wine comes in a number of varieties, each one differing greatly in taste, color, and fragrance. From red and white and everything in between, the spectrum of libations is a vast one, and even if you are only looking to get a cheap buzz, it is always nice to know from the start what would be the best choice for the specific event that you have in mind. Harding states that, generally, you want to break into something that’s a little bit sweeter. “It’s more of a crowd pleaser if you’re going out to a party or something. It’s a little bit easier on the palette. The drier wines could be a little bit more of an acquired taste,” he attests, a drinker of dry red wine, himself. He suggests going for white wine over red if you aren’t a seasoned wine drinker because it is usually the sweeter option. A red wine is more-full bodied and complex, in favor, because the grape skins and seeds are not removed from the grape juice during fermentation while white wine does not contain these accessory parts of the grape.

Many wine drinkers feel that it is important to pair their meal, or course, with the proper wine. “One thing that you gotta realize,” says Harding.,“is that everything is subjective. What’s good to one person might be garbage to another.” While some might argue that white wines are only supposed to be drunk with white meats or seafood and red wines are old supposed to be paired with red meat, it really comes down to personal preference. If you want to accompany your ten-pack of Twinkies with a tall glass of pinot grigio, more power to you.

Generation staff, for example, has a wide variety of preference when it comes to wine. Jeff Froustet, our Supervising Editor, prefers to drink Sutter Home White Zinfandel out of a delicate wine glass, complete with two ice cubes. Sutter Home describes this wine, by setting a scene in the customer’s mind. “You savor the first hint of strawberries, hold the glass up to the light, and think, pink is definitely my new white,” says the website. Froustet pairs this particular wine with his Wendy’s cheeseburger deluxe, bacon cheeseburger, chicken sandwich, and French fries after a long day of cart pushing at Wegmans. This, he does not attempt without the proper precautionary usage of a coaster. Indeed, there are no tacky beverage rings on Froustet’s wooden surfaces, unkemptly decorated with the discarded dollar menu receipts of yesterdays. Lauren Ministero, our Senior Editor, prefers different wines for different occasions. When it comes to celebratory toasts and late-night pie dates, she prefers a sparkling Italian white wine like Asti Cinzano. It is made from white Muscat grapes and has a sweet and fruity flavor. At other times, she enjoys a Shiraz produced by The Little Penguin, the Australian brand suggested by Harding. She drinks this, in small quantities with cheesy pasta dishes and, in greater quantities, before experiencing music performances at local venues. All sets sound better when the songs melt together, ever so slightly. The lovely Michelle Matthews, Associate Editor at Generation, likes Yellowtail Shiraz, a fruity, bold, wine that is cheap, yet still far more reputable than Arbor Mist. Matthews also likes Red Cat, a wine from the Finger Lakes region that Harding sells a lot of at On the Rox. She enjoys drinking her wine out of a Big Gulp cup, sans straw. If she’s feeling fancy, she uses her souvenir cup from Superman: The Ride. This does involve a straw. No matter the vessel from which Matthews drinks, she usually accompanies this wine with a Choco Taco.

While Andrew Blake is also partial to the ever-affordable Little Penguin Shiraz, financial priorities often dictate cost over caliber, making him vouch for “any of that free shit” as his personal list topper. The crafty Editor in Chief has been spotted stumbling out of art openings in the CFA with purple lips and a plastic glass in hand. Blake likes to pair the wine with the gratuitous cheese that is arranged on elaborate-looking trays outside of said event. He likes the orange kind. After several glasses, he generally leaves drunkenly slurring about Brit-pop and Lichtenstein. The complimentary colors really start to fuck with his head. Can you blame him?

So now you know: Generation staff members are a bunch of Shiraz-guzzling culture sponges, but we’re great at it. If nothing else, we all have at least a vague fondness for a certain variety or two of wine that we’ve developed all on our own, through trail and error, without the help of fancy wine-tastings and several-hundred-dollar blow-away budgets. This is the best way to start out if you’re looking to find a wine that suits you, personally. Any liquor store that carries an assortment of wine should be able to lead you in the direction of an affordable white wine to start you off on your grape-tastic venture. Just don’t forget the corkscrew.