Joel Stein set out to taste one wine from all 50 states — a patriotic experiment to see if good wine can really be made anywhere. He looked for bottles that cost from $15 to $20 to make it a fair comparison (and to keep TIME from going under). “I rated each wine Excellent, Good, Bad or Undrinkable,” says Stein. “As for the methodology, wine critic Gary Vaynerchuk, my wife and I tasted 10 randomly selected wines. Another 20 were downed at a wine-tasting party with a dozen friends. One wine I tried while visiting the state that made it. And my wife and I tasted the rest together. By doing so, we gained an appreciation for the country. The country, in this case, being France.” Read the story.