Where do y'all generally buy your wine???

[hotwine]

Welcome to the board.

I buy most of my wines at Costco these days, due to convenience, their low margin (</=14%), rapid turnover and selection. Visit at least weekly, but only go to a discount retail shop monthly, and the high-end shop maybe semi-annually.

Wine recommendations: distribution is so erratic across the country, the odds of you being able to find a particular wine that I might suggest are only marginal at best. Sure, many of the big producers have broad distribution networks.... but I'm not a big fan of their offerings, too often finding them to be over-oaked, high in alcohol content, and over-priced. In general, I prefer European wines - those from Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, especially. And even with the high value of the euro vs the dollar, there are still plenty of bargains to be found, as you'll find in the threads below on Italy and Spain. Look for the words "old vines" on the front label to indicate the wine will exhibit concentrated flavors from small berries. I also favor an alcohol content of less than 14%.

An excellent resource for study is the Larousse Encyclopedia of Wine, available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Seems like it's in the $50-$60 range, but worth it.

You'll need a good storage facility, and you'll need it more quickly than you can imagine. Build a cellar, or buy a good wine fridge.... see the thread below on storage.

It's not an inexpensive hobby, but we promise you'll have fun!

[This message has been edited by hotwine (edited 07-31-2007).]