Amazon local: $25 for $50 at Wine.com


Another Wine.com social voucher - this time from Amazon:
http://local.amazon.com/denver/B006MH4BN2

There's been quite a run of these vouchers lately. What more can I say about them?

The value of the voucher can't be applied to shipping, and unless you're part of their Steward Ship program the cost of shipping first bottle can be quite costly (around $12.95). And don't get any funny ideas about stacking the voucher with deals like site-wide $0.01 shipping - the voucher can't be combined with other promotions. Some of their prices can be quite high. But if you're disciplined, catch Steward Ship when they offer it for $25, and have patience - you may be able to find some pretty good deals. Sometimes.

Happy hunting!


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/2wmnyiUp9hU/amazon-local-25-for-50-at-winecom.html

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Wine is a thread running through our lives

Last evening I participated in a Twitter tasting of Bordeaux wines. One of the producers in the tasting had acted in a short film and a link to it was tweeted out. I bookmarked the link and returned to it today for a look mostly out of curiosity and was pleasantly surprised with what I [...]

Wine is a thread running through our lives originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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Scoop the Spectator and Win a Kindle Fire

We're a little over a week away from Wine Spectator unveiling their 2011 Wine of the Year. As we have the past couple years, we're running a contest to see who can guess the top wine ahead of time.

This year we're playing for a Kindle Fire ($199 value!) sponsored by New York wine retailer Grapes the Wine Company.

Here are the Rules:

  1. Submit your guess as a comment on this blog post.
  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 2011 Wine Spectator 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. Since the Kindle Fire is US-only at this point, a winning entry from outside the U.S. will receive a $199 Amazon.com gift card.
Wine Spectator describes their criteria as follows:
  • Quality (represented by score)
  • Value (reflected by release price)
  • Availability (measured by cases made or imported)
  • An X-factor we call excitement.
    But no equation determines the final selections: These choices reflect our editors? judgment and passion about the wines we tasted.
Last year's winner was the 98WS/$67 2007 Saxum James Berry Vineyard Paso Robles. With only 950 cases produced this wine was never in play for folks not on Saxum's mailing list which made the wine a surprising pick to me.

The year before, the 95WS/$27 2005 Columbia Crest Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley Reserve was more in line with what I think makes Spectator's Wine of the Year interesting. The wine was widely available at warehouse clubs in the high $20s prior to the announcement and now sells for over $100 at auction.

To be successful, I think you need to have a sense for what category the publication would like to make a statement about. After the Saxum announcement heavy coverage came out about Paso Robles, and Saxum seemed to capture the essence of what's going on in the region. With the Columbia Crest Reserve the sentiment seemed to be value.

What will they choose this year? 2009 California Pinot Noir? (best vintage evar!) 2006 Brunello? Bordeaux (2005) and Chateauneuf (2007) seem to be in a lull until 2009/2010. Napa Cab hit a peak in 2007 and didn't make the cut last year. Is there a new region they might like to highlight?

The thing is - and sometimes this is forgotten when crunching the numbers - the wine needs to stand up to the scrutiny of all the Spectator editors. Not just the person covering the region. That's where I think there's some merit in tracking down wines in the Spectator Top 10. They tend to be pretty darn good wines if you can get your hands on them.

Interesting side note: Last year's winner went on to do some freelance writing for Wine Spectator. Demonstrate your savvy here and you could work your way into a wine writing job in the big leagues!

Ready, set, GO! Leave your entry below as a comment.

Drop me an email (wellesleywinepress@gmail.com) or hit me up on Twitter (@RobertDwyer) if you have any questions.

And let's let Grapes the Wine Company's Daniel Posner know we appreciate his making this contest more interesting by signing up for his mailing list (he offers some amazing deals) and/or giving him a shout-out on Twitter (@grapestwc). 

Contest closes Friday, November 11th at 11:59 pm Eastern.


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/3mN7dCXZwYo/scoop-spectator-and-win-kindle-fire.html

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Massachusetts Governor Supports Direct Wine Shipments

Deval PatrickDan from Franklin gave Massachusetts wine enthusiasts a nice little Christmas gift by giving Governor Deval Patrick an opportunity to publicly proclaim his support for direct wine shipments on a radio call-in show Thursday.

During an interview on 96.9 Boston Talks, Patrick said "I would sign that bill if it came" in response to a question about why direct wine shipments haven't become a reality even after appeals were exhausted in early 2010.

The bill he was referring to is House Bill 1029 which was introduced in 2011 but never made it out of committee. The state legislature operates on a 2-year session however so perhaps this publicity is just the nudge needed to force some action on this important-but-non-urgent issue.

At around 35:00 minutes remaining in the audio archive (it's pretty entertaining - I'd recommend giving it a listen when you have a chance) Patrick said "Dan, you're killing me here" when asked why shipments still couldn't happen - as if to say he too has been annoyed that he couldn't ship home wine when visiting California and New York.

Patrick then went on to describe his familiarity with the issue saying he understands the concerns of state retailers and wholesalers as well as concerns about underage access. For Patrick to sign the bill, it needs to be voted out of the Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional License, and passed by the legislature - which will hopefully happen in 2012.

There's an excellent text summary of the situation by Kyle Cheney of the State House News Service posted on The Boston Herald's website. Thanks to Gary Curtis (@wineblogman on Twitter) for the heads up.

And thanks to Dan from Franklin for raising the awareness of this issue in such an effective way.

If you haven't already, now would be a good time to ping your state representative asking them where they stand on this issue and encourage them to support the bill. Don't know who your legislators are? Use this website to find out.

Want to keep up to date on progress in Massachusetts wine shipping laws?  I'd love it if you subscribed to The Wellesley Wine Press.

Hope you all have a safe, healthy, and very happy holiday season!


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/5EB1mDc7pk0/massachusetts-governor-supports-direct.html

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European Wine Bloggers Conference Begins October 14, 2011

This evening we set off to Italy for the European Bloggers Conference IV. We are very excited because the agenda of conference sessions and wine country excursions are ?molto fantastico.? We can only wonder how we will be able to manage the consumptions of so much fine wine and food that the Italian wine consortiums have in store for the 216 wine bloggers that will attend this amazing wine soiree. The conference headquarters are in Brescia, Italy, which is situated in the heart of the Franciacorta wine territory, notably known for its fabulous sparkling wine. Continue reading

Source: http://www.winecountrygetaways.com/napablog/european-wine-bloggers-conference-begins-october-14-2011/

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