Two Buck Redux

I was surprised.

Went to a Grocery Outlet tasting yesterday.

A Franzia offering - Harlow Ridge. Now, I know a lot of folks consider Fred a barbarian, but I think he has been good for the wine business.

I bought a mixed case of the 2003 Petite Sirah and Cabernet. I think they are both quite quaffable.

And although I live here in the heart of the best pinot noirs being made in America, the price on all the best is prohibitive for daily drinking. I watched the price point for the best move over $100.00 per bottle since I moved here. The best are now running between $30.00 and $150.00.

With the case discount I paid $43.09 for the case.

[Jenise]

The Grocery Outlet in McMinneville hosts tastings? That's pretty swank. But you get some nice wines there--when we were down there last October, some in our group stopped by there and paid $5 a bottle for a wine that others had purchased for quite a bit more at Van Duzer just the day before. And I've heard tales of bargains in Napa and environs too. Seems the closer you are to wine production, the better your chances of good wine bargains. The GO in our town is obviously too far, but there are occasionally some nice buys on microbrew beers.

Yeah, about once a month they have a tasting at 5:00 PM on Friday. Whatever featured wines they taste are on sale for about half price that day and they do have some good ones stashed here and there if you really want to splurge and spend, say, nine or ten dollars a bottle.

I envy you, Pastafarian. In my experience, the winery is the MOST expensive place to buy wine, unless you're a retailer. But no loss in the case of Van Duzer which is not in the top rank of Oregon pinot noir (great label, though!) It's too bad, because the only way I can get New York rieslings is to buy from the winery since no one on the West Coast seems to stock them.