Finding Wine Spectator's Top 10 by Seeking out Dusty-Bottled Retailers Off the Grid

Looking to find wines from Wine Spectator's Top 100 list? Especially for wines in the Top 10 I've found Wine-Searcher.com -- usually the most convenient and efficient way to find specific wines -- to be less effective than usual due to listings that lag fast changing inventory. A better approach, I think, is to seek out dusty-bottled stores off the grid and make phone calls.

Some might call the pursuit of the Top 10 wines to be a fool's errand. I disagree. In choosing their Top 10 wines, their senior editors get together and taste a bunch of candidates wines and come to a consensus on the Top 10. This is different than how they normally taste whereby a single editor determine's a wine's rating. So you've got a lot of respected palates agreeing on the top wines, so as long as you don't pay a premium for the Top 10 wines you're getting some of the better values in wine today.

But how do you find them? You've got to act fast and, I think, you've got to employ unconventional techniques. You've got to look where deal hounds aren't looking.

A friend tipped me off that a retailer about 20 miles away had the #7 Shea Willamette Valley Pinot Noir for $44.99 before 15% off a case. $38.29. I wonder how he found it because the retailer does have an e-commerce site, but it's not listed on wine-searcher. Making matters worse for this wine, Shea supplies grapes for a lot of other producers so listings for other wines make it hard to perform a precise string match.

They did indeed have a listing on their site for 11 bottles of 2009 Shea Pinot Noir, but during the course of the week the listing changed to the 2010. Vintage variation being a real thing in Oregon I thought it was a mistake that was corrected after they got a lot of calls about the 2009. But they also had a listing for the 2009 Anderson's Conn Valley Reserve for the impossibly-low price of $23.99. I had to go down there and see what was going on.

So I get there and wouldn't you know it, there's 11 bottles of 2009 Shea Pinot Noir on the shelves for $44.99! I load up a basket and start eyeing other bottles to round out my case. The 2009 Anderson's Conn Valley was, sure enough, a listing for another wine - the Prologue. Good thing I didn't order a case for delivery and then have to get into an ugly discussion about returning it (including shipping costs).

Then I spotted a stack of 2009 Beringer Knight's Valley Cab for $21.99/btl before discount (not the reserve, but still a 91 point WS wine). High volume retailers are on to the 2010s by now so it was great to see the 2009 still for sale. Again Wine-Searcher doesn't turn this one up, but it's because the wrong vintage is listed on their site. They list the 2006 but it's the 2009 they've got stacks of!

I asked the wine director there what the heck was going on with the inconsistencies between the store and the website. He says he runs the bricks and mortar wine business and someone else runs the website.

So I'm thinking I may be on to something. Even for a retailer with an e-commerce site there's all kinds of hidden gems popping up because of inconsistent vintages being listed. Imagine the gems that might be out there for retailers without e-commerce sites. Heck, without websites! The way to find these wines is to look in wine shops off the beaten path. Off the grid. Away from Wine-Searcher types like myself.

Of course, just as I say this I happened to find a bottle of 2008 Shafer Relentless via Wine-Searcher at a nearby MA retailer for $35.99. A $60 release price wine, it was correctly listed as being Wine Spectator's Wine of the Year. But also, incorrectly, from France. (?) After some quick back and forth with the retailer we discovered quite a mix-up of SKUs. They actually had the 2009 Relentless (not the 2008) but it was $74.99. The $35.99 listing was for a bottle of 2008 St. Cosme Gigondas (hence the part about the Relentless being from France). Crazy stuff.

I don't get mad about mix-ups like these at this point. I actually find it interesting. So long as I don't get into a sticky situation where a jerky retailer ships me the wrong stuff then get contentious about rectifying the situation.

One strategy this makes me consider: Use Wine-Searcher to find retailers who list availability of back vintages who might not have updated to newer vintages yet. Then pick up the phone and call them. You never know what a retailer has, and neither do they it seems, until you have it in your hands.

Wine online: What a fun and chaotic circus.

Wine Spectator is set to release their Top 100 list today (in addition to their reveal last week of the Top 10). They have free site access through November 27th, 2012 so check it out.

Question of the Day: What tips and tricks have you found work well for tracking down hot wines like these?

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$8 vs. $108

Our Scoop the Spectator 2012 contest runs for another week so you still have time to get your guesses. We're playing for a $200 gift card. $200! Check it out and if nothing else you'll find some great wine picks.

I've updated each of the entries (hit the comments and look at the replies for each wine) with wine-searcher.com links to make it easy to check retail availability of each of the wines. I'm sensing some panic buying occurring for wines like Donjon with folks sensing they want to buy their favorites before they might win and prices shoot up. Combined with Parker releasing his 2010 Rhone ratings yesterday these 2010 CdPs are hot.

If you're like me, you buy wines at all price points. Sometimes you might feel like you need to spend more than $30 to get a memorable bottle of wine. Other times you find a tasty value wine and you wonder why you'd ever consider spending $50 on a bottle of wine.

I thought it would be fun to compare two seemingly incomparable wines. A $100+ Tuscan red and a well regarded sub-$10 value play from California.

2006 Setti Ponte Oreno
96WS/$110 Release Price/3,250 Cases Produced
Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sangiovese

This shows shades of brilliance but at its core it's still a Tuscan red: Brooding and relatively reserved aromatically, especially in its youth. Layers of aromas -- inviting dark fruit, tar, bay leaf -- reveal themselves bits at a time, but this may need more time to come out of its shell. Rating it for now.

91 WWP: Oustanding

CellarTracker
Wine-Searcher


2011 Apothic Red
Zinfandel, Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon
Around $8

Sweet fruit, brambly berries, and a hint of briar patch dustiness on the nose. This continues on the palate but are joined by a touch of appealing earthiness, hard candy, and caramel apple. The skeptic might sense some artificial influence here. But if it's manipulated, it's well manipulated.

88 WWP: Very Good

CellarTracker
Wine-Searcher
Purchased At


You know what? I may have enjoyed the $8 a bit more at times. Lots of delicious flavor. No fuss. No guilt. I'm not saying the Apothic Red is better than the Oreno. I'm just saying that sometimes $10 is all you need to spend for a perfectly enjoyable bottle of wine. And if you don't find yourself in a situation to truly enjoy a wine like the Oreno it may be a waste of money.

Footnote: What's up with the price of Oreno in Massachusetts? It sells for over $100 here and I regularly see it offered in other states for around $50. Even as low as $40. And often in California - further from Italy. I know it's different distributors offering it at different prices in different states so retailers aren't to blame. But c'mon - how can consumers be expected to buy from local retailers with price disparaties like this?

What do you think?

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WBW 74: Value Sparkling Wine

Sparkling wine is thought of by most American’s as a luxury to be consumed on special occasions like weddings, graduations and New Year’s eve parties. And that’s a shame since sparkling wine is so versatile at the table, pairing with a wide variety of food, made all over the world and available at every price point. Perhaps [...]

WBW 74: Value Sparkling Wine originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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Bordeaux chateau demolished ?by mistake?

A Russian businessman bought a fixer-upper chateau dating from the 18th Century among the vines of Bordeaux. He ordered some renovations, went out of town, and returned to find the entire chateau a pile of rubble. Reports vary on the size of the fixer-upper, but the rental site for the chateau said you could have [...]

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Starts Now! Scoop the Spectator 2012

Update: This contest has closed and we're waiting to see who Spectator names Wine of the Year!

This post serves as the official beginning of Scoop the Spectator 2012. This is the third year we've run this contest. The idea? To guess Wine Spectator's Wine of the Year before they announce it and prices for that wine shoot through the roof.

Demand for Wine Spectator's Wine of the Year often skyrockets, perhaps irrationally. Last year's winner -- the 2009 Kosta Browne Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir (95WS/$52 Release Price) -- now sells for upwards of $200.

This year we're playing for a $200 Amazon.com gift card - sponsored by New York wine retailer Grapes the Wine Company (mystery shopper store review).

The Spectator unveiling begins Monday, November 12th 2012. Our contest runs from right now - Monday, October 29th 2012 at 9:00 am Eastern to Friday, November 9th 2012 at 11:59 pm Eastern.

Here are the rules we're playing by:

  1. Guesses are submitted as comments to this blog post. Select a specific bottling and include the vintage. For example, one of the past winners was the 2005 Columbia Crest Columbia Valley Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. Another was the 2007 Saxum James Berry Vineyard Paso Robles. Here is a link to previous years as a reference. And here's what some of the guesses were last year.
  2. One guess per person.
  3. The first person to guess a specific wine "owns" that wine as their entry.  Subsequent guesses of the same wine aren't useful so look at the previous comments before submitting your entry.
  4. If nobody guesses the Wine of Year, the guess with the highest position on the list will win the prize.
  5. Not that they'd try, but Wine Spectator editors aren't allowed to enter.  And if you have inside information please don't spoil the fun for others by entering.  But if you do know please E-mail me and let me know. ;)
  6. The winner will receive a $200 Amazon.com gift card.
This contest is sponsored by Grapes the Wine Company - a fantastic New York wine retailer. Sign up for their newsletter. If you like wine deals like I do you won't be disappointed. My thanks to owner Daniel Posner for this sponsorship.

Subscribe to The Wellesley Wine Press to receive email notifications as the contest unfolds over the next few weeks

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WBW 76: Barossa Boomerang

Not too long ago I drank quite a bit of Australian wine, particularly Shiraz. Given that this grape, also known as Syrah, expresses greatness in the Barossa Valley I could not pass an opportunity to revisit this region for this months’ Wine Blogging Wednesday. Our host, Adam from Wine Zag, proposed we look for any [...]

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