This year should provide a great opportunity for finding wine values and bargains. The word in the wine biz is that, with huge inventories building, wine distributors are being very selective of clients, and with many wineries on the brink of financial disaster we should see many a bargain wine out there. Good wine deals go quickly and the old adage “You snooze, you lose” could not be more true than when it comes to wine sales. If you want to take advantage of these coming wine deals, you need to become a wine sleuth.

How to Become a Wine Sleuth

Always peruse the wine shelves wherever you shop. Learn your wine prices. Last week Safeway stores had an amazing sale on Domain Chandon sparkling wine for $10 a bottle or $9 if you purchased a half case. I saw that same wine earlier in the week at Lunardi’s grocery store. The cases of Chandon were displayed like it was a huge sale. It was selling for $21.95 a bottle. Remarkable! Read the rest of this entry »

This is the time of the year for wine sales. This year more than any other, wineries are in need of selling a lot of wine and so wine sales should be plentiful. So how do you know if you are really getting a good deal or not on a bottle of wine? For example, you might see this sale: Edna Valley Chardonnay on sale for $11.99, regular price is $14.99. Ignore the regular price figure and compare the sale price to other wine retailers. The easiest way is to do this is use one of these three Websites to comparison shop.

I use the Wine-Searcher, WineZap, and Snooth. With each of these Websites you can simply enter the exact wine you are interested in comparing and you get a list of wine prices for various wine retailers. I usually do nothing more than compare prices. I rarely take the next step and click to go to the online retailer to buy the wine.

For a 2008 Edna Valley Chardonnay, I entered that exact Vintage into the three sites mentioned. I found the lowest price to be $8.49 and the highest price to be $15.99. I basically use these websites to compare wine prices and then shop locally to find the wine. There are two advantages to using Snooth. You can plug in your ZIP code and narrow the choices to local wine shops. Secondly, wine drinkers who have registered with Snooth can write their own reviews of the wine.

These three wine comparison sites do not always have the latest wine prices nor do they have prices from some of the biggest discounters of wine like Costco and Trader Joe’s.

Another way to keep up with bargain wines is to join Good Cheap Vino. This is a social Website that we began in order to search for the ultimate wine bargains. When a member finds a great deal, they post it on Good Cheap Vino for the other members to know about.

One last thing, a disclosure about Snooth. On the right column you will notice a Snooth Widget. Every time one uses the widget to search for wine, I get a couple of pennies put into my account.

Once again the Vintage Wine Tasters discover yet another amazing wine bargain. This time, a Pinot Noir wine for $17 from a wine-growing area in California unknown to almost any wine expert or critic. The Vintage Wine Tasters met on this past Wednesday and tasted six highly-touted bargain Pinot Noir wines. We wanted to see if we could find a delicious Pinot Noir for under $25. Any Pinot Noir wine lover knows what a difficult task this is as prices have soared ever since the “Sideways” movie glorified Pinot Noir and knocked poor Merlot for a loop. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve tasted all the wines I purchased at the Grocery Outlet, so I am now ready to make some comments and evaluations about searching for the ultimate wine bargain at these stores. In my first blog post on the Grocery Outlet, I explained how the store buys wine from wineries and distributors and what types of people shop there for wine. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey all you wine treasure hunters. Have you been to the Grocery Outlet in search of the ultimate wine bargain? There are 133 Grocery Outlet stores across six western states. If you are near one, think about going in and checking out the wine department. You will be rather amazed at the variety of wine labels and the prices of the wine.

I met with Doug Due who heads up the Wine & Beer department for all the Grocery Outlet stores and who is responsible for seeking out wineries and distributors who need to clear wine inventory. As you can surmise, these opportunities are more common these days as the wine consumer has changed their purchasing habits and are buying fewer of the high-end wines.

Each day, Doug and three other Grocery Outlet employees taste and judge the wines that are under consideration for purchase. They taste a set of white wines at 11 am and a set of reds wines at 4 pm. The criteria for judging the wines are quite simple. There are four categories, ranging from must have to don’t want. Sixty percent of the wines they taste are judged to be in the latter category.

The clientele at the Grocery Outlet seems to be of two types. Most of the customers are lower income people that are stretching their food budget as much as possible by finding brand name products reduced by as much as 60%. The second clientele, as Doug puts it, are the wine treasure hunters. Doug marks down the wine on average between 40 and 70% and sometimes even more. He mentioned one wine deal where he purchased an inventory of Sonoma Chardonnay. The price of this Chardonnay was $40 at the winery and the Grocer Outlet sold it for $5. The entire inventory of this wine was sold out within a week. Doug often sees wine treasure hunters in the parking lot sampling wine they’d just purchased so if it is a standout they can go back in and purchase the wine before the word gets out. Wine bargain news seems to travel fast among the wine bargain seekers.

I purchased a mixed case of wine that I will be judging with wine friends over the next week. Doug was kind enough to walk me through the wine section and point out wine that he considers to have a great quality to price ratio. I will report back on what I find.

In my locality, the Trader Joe’s in Millbrae and San Mateo are carrying four terrific wine bargains. Watch for these wines at your local TJ’s, they may carry them and if not ask why not?

2003 Lorca Pinot Noir, Gary’s Vineyard $14.99
Gary’s Vineyard is located in the Santa Lucia Highlands in Monterey County and is owned and managed by two guys named Gary. They sell Pinot Noir and Syrah grapes to several premium wineries and their grapes are in high demand. Their client wineries include Copain Wines, Kosta Browne, Siduri, and Testarossa. The Lorca label is that of winemaker John Bolta. John is the winemaker for Conundrum Wines and Caymus. My feeling is the Lorca Pinot is equal to or better than many $30 Pinot Noir wines. You will be hard pressed to find a Pinot Noir any better at this price.
Read the rest of this entry »