Don't laugh... Wine Clubs

I went on a winery tour in Santa Barbara, CA -- was a lot of fun.

 

OK, lot's of good ideas...but I'm happy to share with you a great way to not only expand your knowledge of boutique wineries, but also not break your budget on shipping. You'll instead break it on the wine, which is the idea in the first place!

There is a website called http://wine.woot.com/

Go check it out. It's free. There is no membership to join. There are two offerings a week. One starting Monday at 12 am that runs until Wednesday at midnight (unless it sells out first). The second is Thursday 12 am until Sunday at midnight (or until it sells out).

You can buy 1, 2 or a max of 3 of whatever the offering. Example: They may have a trio of reds for $39.99. You can buy 3 bottles, 6 or 9 bottles max of that offering. Get this...no matter what, shipping is UPS Ground and $5 no matter what quantity you buy. They bump it to $7 for summer shipments, and have small "ketchup" frozen packets in the shipment.

We have ordered the following from the website and NEVER had a bad bottle of wine:

Robert Craig x 3 - Scott Harvey Trio x 2 - Epiphany Trio x 3 - Dusted Valley Trio x 3 -Bravo Farms Cannonball x 1 - RH Cab x 2 - RH Chard x 2 - RH Merlot x 2 - Penfolds Bin 28 x 3 - Cycles Gladiator 4pack x 2 - Ty Caton 3fer x 3 - Ty Caton #2 x 3 - Ty Field x 3 - Dry Creek Fume Trio x 3 - Twisted Oak Trio x 3 - Little Vineyards Cab x 3 - Tøøthstejnn 6 pack x 2 - Stuart Cellars Temecula Trio x 2 - Three Sisters Cheese x 2 - Andretti Chard x 2

Right now, they have Andretti Chardonnay (yes, THAT Andretti) 6 packs for $39.99 plus the $5 shipping. For this specific offering, you can only get 1 6 pack or 2 (a case). You won't get full names from the above, but you can go into the blog to see all the reviews. It is a very knowledgable and FUN group! There are full blown collectors, to first time joe's and everyone in between, and the info is wonderful as well as humorous.

Go check this out, you will thank me. Until you too, become addicted like me, and then you will be cursing me, and your VISA will have weekly charges. My advise to you is this...as far as storage, buy something at LEAST triple what you think you could ever fill. I was going to buy a 100 bottle cooler and a good friend talked me into his 640 bottle cabinet. That was 6 years ago, and I protested I could never fill it. Guess what...looking for a second one now.

Good luck and PM me anyone, if you want more details on wine.woot.com I am in no way affiliated with them (other than owing a sh*tload of $ from purchases) but have been doing this since March and it is sick!

 

OK, lot's of good ideas...but I'm happy to share with you a great way to not only expand your knowledge of boutique wineries, but also not break your budget on shipping. You'll instead break it on the wine, which is the idea in the first place!

There is a website called http://wine.woot.com/

Go check it out. It's free. There is no membership to join. There are two offerings a week. One starting Monday at 12 am that runs until Wednesday at midnight (unless it sells out first). The second is Thursday 12 am until Sunday at midnight (or until it sells out).

You can buy 1, 2 or a max of 3 of whatever the offering. Example: They may have a trio of reds for $39.99. You can buy 3 bottles, 6 or 9 bottles max of that offering. Get this...no matter what, shipping is UPS Ground and $5 no matter what quantity you buy. They bump it to $7 for summer shipments, and have small "ketchup" frozen packets in the shipment.

We have ordered the following from the website and NEVER had a bad bottle of wine:

Robert Craig x 3 - Scott Harvey Trio x 2 - Epiphany Trio x 3 - Dusted Valley Trio x 3 -Bravo Farms Cannonball x 1 - RH Cab x 2 - RH Chard x 2 - RH Merlot x 2 - Penfolds Bin 28 x 3 - Cycles Gladiator 4pack x 2 - Ty Caton 3fer x 3 - Ty Caton #2 x 3 - Ty Field x 3 - Dry Creek Fume Trio x 3 - Twisted Oak Trio x 3 - Little Vineyards Cab x 3 - Tøøthstejnn 6 pack x 2 - Stuart Cellars Temecula Trio x 2 - Three Sisters Cheese x 2 - Andretti Chard x 2

Right now, they have Andretti Chardonnay (yes, THAT Andretti) 6 packs for $39.99 plus the $5 shipping. For this specific offering, you can only get 1 6 pack or 2 (a case). You won't get full names from the above, but you can go into the blog to see all the reviews. It is a very knowledgable and FUN group! There are full blown collectors, to first time joe's and everyone in between, and the info is wonderful as well as humorous.

Go check this out, you will thank me. Until you too, become addicted like me, and then you will be cursing me, and your VISA will have weekly charges. My advise to you is this...as far as storage, buy something at LEAST triple what you think you could ever fill. I was going to buy a 100 bottle cooler and a good friend talked me into his 640 bottle cabinet. That was 6 years ago, and I protested I could never fill it. Guess what...looking for a second one now.

Good luck and PM me anyone, if you want more details on wine.woot.com I am in no way affiliated with them (other than owing a sh*tload of $ from purchases) but have been doing this since March and it is sick!

 

I echo the above comments - with 15 wine woots under my belt, only one that I didn't like and it was a varietal that I had no experience with before anyway (Syrah Rosé - Saxon Brown). Like Ferrari chat there is an active discussion community with overall wine discussion as well as good helpful discussion on each offerring.

Just bought 2 woots of the Andretti Chardonnay - I used to be in his Wine Club after visiting the Vineyard, but shipping to NJ killed that as the pricing got out of hand. Not many Woots available for NJ, but I just Wootleg it in from NY (ship to office).

One other I just found (through a Woot Chat) is Wines til sold out: http://www.happyhourspro.com/store/wtso/html/store/index.htm - so far I've ordered from them 3 times - this one changes much more often than woot - and much greater variety of wines.

Good luck - I've got lots of learning to get my sniffer and tasting in tune, but certainly enjoying practicing!

 

I was in Gold Medal for years. Great club. I definitely recommend it.