Who has the cheapest wine in town?
I can't type this in any way that doesn't make me sound like a whiterperson so whatever.
In grad school I lived in Italy and Spain for a summer. Good wine was 5 euros or less for a bottle.
Is there any place in town (booze store obviously) that consistently has drinkable reds for 5 bucks or less?
Thanks y'all.
M
I think you will be hard pressed to find drinkable red table wine for $5 or less. Wine is sold all over the place, even in drug stores, so if you look around you might catch a special. Sometimes you can catch a special with a coupon. Your best bets will be grocery stores and places like Walmart or Target.
If you want to get the most for your money, it is best to buy large bottles or box wine.
I can't attest to the quality, but the Wal-Mart liquor store constantly has large displays of red wine in the $3 to $5 a bottle range.
Total Wine at St. Johns Town Center has the largest wine selection in town.
We definitely lack the table wine culture that is a cornerstone of Mediterranean life. Pacific peak make a decent Merlot and Cabernet for around $5. They have it at Total Wine.
You're really pushing it at the $5 price point.
It's also this area, not the US generally, that has this problem. It's different in Cali and Washington state, where there are a bunch of vineyards everywhere. There are lots of locally made options in those places that are relatively inexpensive.
But here in big-box-store land, nothing is ever local, so you're paying the retailer's markup on top of the distributor's markup, on top of the manufacturer's markup, on top of whatever it took to ship and package. So your $4 bottle of wine in Washington is $20 here.
I will also say I'm annoyed at Publix. The same bottle of KJ sauvignon blanc I used to buy for $8 is now $15.99. Mumm's Cuvee Napa is now like $20+, where it used to be $14.99. They have almost doubled their wine prices for no reason. Their markup on wine must now be at or over 100%. So I've been buying at Costco lately, their prices are pretty reasonable, and they have a good selection.
Wine Warehouse is great, you'd be surprised by what they sometimes have for between $5-10. They are very helpful too.
I totally agree with Compound. Try their Friday night wine tasting. Remember Crush when they were a wine store? Lots of wine selections are the same at Wine Warehouse. Great prices and staff full of information.
Quote from: The Compound on July 16, 2009, 08:33:32 AM
Wine Warehouse is great, you'd be surprised by what they sometimes have for between $5-10. They are very helpful too.
Where is Wine Warehouse? Might give them a try...
Wal-Mart has their own label called Oak Leaf wine, they have a merlot, cabernet, shiraz as well as a couple of different white's all for $2.97. They're actually better than some imported wines that are in the $8-$12 range. Definately not anything complex but for just plain everday table wine it's suprisingly good. Apparently the online reviews back it up as other people who are avid wine drinkers seem to enjoy it.
Wine Warehouse...Mirimar(san marco - lakewood area)-Murray Hill (same side as Moon River) and Atlantic Beach before you hit 3rd street
www.winewarehouses.com
Everybody is forgetting that a 5 Euro bottle of wine is actually about $7.50. That opens up the choices considerably. There are some good wines coming out of Chile and Argentina in that price range. Taste around.
the real question is how close is the nearest Trader Joe's so I can get three buck chuck. . .
and 5 Euros when I was in Italy and Spain was about $6.25
of course, this doesn't even take into account the wine bar in Venice where 1/2 a liter of wine-on-tap was a Euro. . .
A large part of the cost of a bottle of wine has to be the bottle and shipping it. Wine-on-tap makes such sense, especially for restaurants. Maybe they would stop charging such ridiculously inflated prices for it.
ABC almost always sells $5 bottles of 750 ml Woodbridge Pino Noir, Cab, and Merlot. As far as cheap wine goes (Zin, Ecco Domani, Turning Leaf...) I find Woodbridge to be the best quality.
If you're going to buy that cheap stuff, just go ahead with the boxed wines, sheesh.
Yellowtail is good and reasonably priced. I'm not saying it is in the cheap wine category though.
kendall jackson is about as low as I can go and still be happy. Anything cheaper than that, and it really starts tasting acidic and overly fruity. KJ sauvignon blanc is like $8 or $9 at Costco, and will never disappoint.
Would that be $8 or $9 for the the 750 ml bottle or the 1.5 L?
Quote from: Bewler on July 28, 2009, 05:33:51 PM
Would that be $8 or $9 for the the 750 ml bottle or the 1.5 L?
Whatever the normal sized bottle is.
Publix used to had it for $8.99 regularly up until about 3 or 4 months ago, when it went to $13.
If you want to explore and experiment, European Street Cafes have a deal for any two bottles of wine for $12.00. Some are really good and some are not, but it's fun searching for the good ones in the bunch. There are a couple of real surprises in the group too.
One glaring missing player in this post is a Jacksonville Institution that has existed for decades and actually started as a Lounge with an entertainment slant. Bob Marandino had the foresight years ago to convert things to Wine and still is involved with David the current owner. He with his sons continues the tradition of somehow cramming this innercity store front with a zillion $'s worth of the best of wines available.
Yet even a cheapskate like me can always find a unbelievable bottle for under $10. They taste everything and since they are not a "Warehouse" they can buy something less than 20 truckloads. Seriously, some of the best I've had from there were from microscopic vineyards that only had a few cases arrive there. David and clan also put in a fine bar in the back that is probably the last hideaway for adults in 5 pts. They have great and regular wine tastings and also feature acoustic entertainment from some of the neighborhoods best musicians. They also were the host for the Riverside Wine Fest which was attended by thousands.
Keep your warehouse dolly and strip location. I'll take the friendly, familiar face any day.
5pts! Hush! Don't let other people into our secret about the bar in the back. It's already crowded enough. Hey folks, it's just for us adults, you wouldn't enjoy it because we talk to each other and it closes early.