90 Points of Costco Wine, written on June 9, 2009, turned out to be the most popular WineZag post yet. Untold sums of people search multiple forms of a “Costco Wine” phrase every day and the post drives a high volume of “wine aware” organic search traffic to this blog. Some of those vistors poke around […]
Top Three Wines Of September
Tom Matthews, Wine Spectator Executive Editor, left an intriguing and somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment today on a WineZag post that I published earlier this week which featured some thinking stimulated both by Terry Theise’s new book and my palate’s evolution over the last twenty five years. Here is Tom’s comment that he left today: “The ‘quiet […]
Open Offer to Taste My (Malcolm's) 1982 Vieux Chateau Certan
I consider myself “wine fortunate”, acquiring wine and friends over the years that fuel hedonistic and intellectual wine passions. One of those friends is Malcolm. I don’t see Malcolm regularly, yet each year for the last 15 we manage to find opportunities to get really silly and drink ridiculously excellent wine together. It was great to see […]
Wine Makers and Mortgage Makers Reverse Greedy Paths
I recoiled and pushed away the crystal stemware wondering if some savory syrup was masquerading as wine, and that maybe its destiny was to spread like jam on slices of peanut butter slathered Wonder Bread. This sensory collision with high alcohol and unrestrained ripeness was triggered a few years back cracking open a 2005 Mollydooker The Boxer screw top, a wine Robert Parker awarded 95 points to […]
One-Word Buying Strategy and a Must-Have Wine
I look forward to hearing from Matt Kramer in his regular Wine Spectator column. He delivers “regular guy” sensibility with intellectual strength wrapped in an entertaining style. His cut-to-the-chase humility combines with child-like amusement when discovering sources of fairly priced, quality wine that are messengers for their place of origin. I mean wines that unleash vineyard identity, maybe […]
90 Points of Costco Wine
It seems legitimate to me that Costco, operating at an incredibly low 0.2% retail margin, seeks maximum turns and sales volume for its entire inventory. As a big box, non specialty retailer chasing lowest possible SGA expense in a declining sales environment, Costco leans on merchandising advantages like brand names and informational signage as strategy elements to turbo power sales volume. So, if Costco wine […]
When Lafite Meets Jiaozi
In case your catalogue never arrived, you can rest assured that the first fine wine auction ever held on mainland Chinese soil went off without a hitch this weekend in Beijing. A case of 1989 Petrus and 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild sold for 320,000 yuan each ($US 47,000) and an imperiale of 1979 Chateau Latour sold for 32,000 […]