(Forbes) - A casual reader of these columns might assume, not without justification, that my preference veers to the European over the American but, as John Kerry was wont to observe, the situation is more nuisanced than that.

It is true that the greatest wines still come from Europe – the best Burgundy, white and red, Bordeaux, German whites, Rhône whites and reds , Brunellos, Barolos and Riojas, surpass all but a very few American wines.

But, and this is a very big but, European wines are all too often a huge disappointment too. An huge, expensive disappointment.

America’s great virtue in wine is consistency, but rarely brilliance, while European wines’ strength lies in their individuality, their personality. When they’re good, they soar, but too often they under deliver big-time.

This was bought home to me the other evening when I pulled the corks of two bottles of red when evaluating contenders for an upcoming column on Thanksgiving wines. One, an expensive Barolo, the other a modest red blend from Sonoma.

The Barolo, the 2001 single vineyard Prapo from Bricco Rocche, about $80, was excessively acidic, even after 13 years aging. Being generous, one might say this is a wine with personality; to me it was undrinkable.

On the other hand, the Buena Vista 2012 red blend, $20, while certainly not the apogee of winemaking art, was at least potable.

Even when boringly generic, over-ripe, over-extracted, over oaked and lacking subtlety the minimum one can say for American reds is that, for the most part, they are accessible. They avoid the sins of some European wines – aggressive acidity, aggressive green tannins — even if they over compensate in the process.

This compensation leads to big, opaque, jammy reds that lack a sense of place, but are, at the least, smooth and pillowy, easy to drink. The Buena Vista, while being guilty on all counts, was saved from anathematization by a perceptible sense of structure and grip.