Screaming Deals And Things That Make Me Want To Scream!



Guarding my wine buy like any good prepper!



I hear from all over that one of the things my readers like the most is when I tell you about some really screaming deal.  Well, here is one thing that you won't want to miss.

My son got married about a month ago, and believe it or not, we ran out of wine at the rehearsal dinner!  Oooohhh!!  Bad wine guy!  (Truth is people were stealing the bottles because they were custom labeled with my kid's cute pictures on them.  The wine was pretty good too, but not good enough to steal.)

The wedding was in  Uniontown, Washington, just down the street from Pullman.  Well, being a good host, I ran down the highway back to Pullman and into the WalMart store.  As I quickly perused the shelves I found a couple of bottles of Columbia Crest Vineyard 10 blend for $2.97 per bottle! 

Hmmmm...I thought.  Well, WalMart is known for screwing up prices on things.  When prices are entered in Bentonville by some data person there, the scan tags for the prices come up in the store thousands of miles away.  Even though the distributor and the managment may scream, the price may remain off for months before they can fix it.  Believe me, I've sold truckloads of stuff that way in my past life as a distributor.

So, when I came home I made my way into the wine isle in my own WalMart and found the price to be the same.  Bwaaahaaahaaa!!!  I bought the shelf clean.  (This is really good juice by the way.)

A week later I walked to the back of the store to get some half and half for my french toast and found an entire end stack of this wine at that price.  Now, it is starting to make me think that something is going on.  I purchase a case and resolve to do some homework.

I talked to my friend Sabrina Greever, who manages Mid Columbia Wine and Spirits in Richland.  She said that there was a wholesale clearance on the stuff and they had brought in several cases on a bulk buy.  Their retail was running at $2.95 (cheaper than WalMart by 2 cents.)

I called an inside source at Columbia Crest who told me that indeed Ste. Michelle Wine Estates was clearancing the label for Vineyard 10 blend and had blown all of the wine out of their warehouses in an unprecedented sale.  The wine no longer exists at Columbia Crest and won't exist again. 

So, what's a self-respecting wino supposed to do?  Run to the stores and buy some of this stuff up. 

This is a wine that sold for $11.99 a few months ago.  The retail is several dollars cheaper than the wholesale was just a few weeks ago.  (Did I mention that this is awesome juice???)  The catch is you better buy it right now or forever hold your peace.  When the Zombie Apocalypse occurs you will be left without!  I picked up a few cases myself and am guarding it with my pitbull and AK47.

Now, onto crap that makes me crazy. 

Over the past few months, and increasing over the past few weeks, I have been receiving a ton of spam crap through my blog.  Somebody with really crappy english is trying to get you to look at their penis enlargement webpage by posting compliments on my blog.  What a bunch of lowdown scumbags. 

I only tell you about this because if you comment on my blog and it doesn't pop up for a few hours or days it is because I'm investigating every blog comment.  I've never really been one to care if you agree with me or not.  I don't even care if you tell me my blog is full of crap or you hate me.  (example:  my last blog about Grocery Outlet.) 

You just need to know that whatever you post, it will get read first and deleted if it's a spam.  I figure if anyone is going to buy a penis enlargement tool from anybody it needs to be from me.  By the way, you can use a wine bottle as a vaccum pump by heating it up, attaching it to the area you wish to suck, and running out into cold air.  It could work.  Just not willing to experiment on myself.
Love and Cheers!

Where Good Wine Doesn't Come From

Beautiful places in the world may be fun, but don't expect
them to have awesome wine.  If grapes don't grow there,
you're probably not going to find great local wine. 

Sometimes things are just a little more evident than you want to admit. Things like just knowing that you should tie your shoes so you don't trip and fall. Another example that I learned at an early age is that you probably shouldn't trust canned food that doesn't have a label on it. Otherwise, your canned beans could actually be tuna.

In the wine world there are things that aren't so obvious on the surface, but when you really think about it you realize that wine that comes from certain parts of the world probably isn't the best wine. Chances are, it probably isn't even good wine.

I only say this because as I travel around the country, and see wine news and information from around the world, I see lots of places where wine probably shouldn't be getting made. I don't want to mention any particular wineries or specific regions, but let's think about this for a minute.

At the same time, wine grown and made in certain parts of the world really make sense. A few of those regions of success are Napa, Sonoma, Walla Walla, and Dundee. If you look at a label and it has one of those places noted on it as the area of origin you are pretty much looking at a good wine. Granted, bad wines happen from any area. But, the odds are in your favor.

What I'm talking about here is those times that you are driving through North Dakota and suddenly you see a roadside sign for Chateau Fargo. I'm not telling you to not stop. Heck, it probably is going to be a lot more entertaining than some giant ball of twine. However, please remember that you haven't just pulled into a farm in Bordeaux. You can't expect some deep dark Cabernet Sauvignon with lots of depth and structure.

Really, the same holds true of all the wineries that you experience as you drive along the British Columbia and Washington State coasts. So many times, when I'm in those areas, I see hundreds of cars pulled into these tasting rooms and lots of cases walking off the properties. When the wines are tasted though, the wine just simply lacks the ability to be called great. I know I'm going to get a lot of hate mail and letter bombs for saying this, but frankly you can't expect anything great from these wineries.

What can you expect from a winery from one of these areas? An “experience”. Nothing more and nothing less. You can't expect great wine. However, when you do experience great wines from these places you should shout about it.

One such vintners that I luckily found a couple of years ago was San Juan Vineyards. The Merlot there is time and again as good as any wine in the region. At the same time, I've found wineries such as the NOLA winery in New Orleans that offers great fruit wines from anything but grapes.

So, the next time you're traveling through Pennsylvania and you see road signs for a winery, go ahead and make a stop. I'm sure that the Amish make great wine from some alfalfa or something. Just don't expect the wine to taste like a fine Rhone. If it does, get the winery to send me a bottle. I'll taste it and if I agree I'll eat my words!

Cheers!