wct@mordor.UUCP (Bill Thompson) (01/09/86)
Continuing the Sauvignon Blanc recommendations with a tip for
winedrinkers on a budget in the S.F. Bay Area:
Last week we had a bottle of 1982 Chateau Launay (Appelation
Entre Deux Mers). It is a white wine from near Bordeaux,
primarily Sauvignon Blanc with a bit of Semillon, very nice
and crisp, a bit grassy--before we looked it up my wife had
correctly guessed the varietals--so it was true to form.
The real feature was the $1.29/bottle price. We're not talking
screwcaps or anything--but I bought it at a Pic 'n Save Store in
Lodi, Ca. Their stores are located in many western states--I've
seen or visited them in Ca, Nev, NM... They sell a mix of
junk merchandise and good stuff that is past seasons (in the case
of some clothes, etc.) or some sort of returns to a distributor-
e.g. some crystal glassware which might have a high number of
broken/chipped glasses due to handling might be refused at
Macy's or similar--rather than sort through for good ones the
distributor sells the whole lot to stores like this--so you can
sort through boxes to get a complete set of crystal wine glasses
at 80% off--
But I digress, the California stores also carry wines that
haven't sold for some reason. It varies from jug/pop wines to
good chateau/estate bottled wines from France, California,...
Prices generally range from $.99 to $2.49. Sometimes the wine
has obviously been returned because somebody left it for a month
on a railroad siding in Yuma, Az in August--but as often it
appears that a lot of wine just wasn't moving somewhere--e.g.
they also have a lot of Bottles of a Lancer's Dry White wine. I
don't remember the name--but for a bottle of Lancer's wine it
is quite dry--and probably didn't sell very well to their
usual market for somewhat sweeter wines.
In the past I've gotten some excellent bottles of a Zaca Mesa
Zinfandel, a Turner North Coast Burgundy, a nice J.W. Morris
white Table Wine....you get the general idea. The only tricky
part--most of their stores don't store their wine in any
reasonable manner--usually upright and frequently too warm--
so if you buy a bottle and find that its good and you want
more--get it now before they destroy it. I kept going back
for a Trentadue '80 Zinfandel for 6-7 months-but near the
end the bottles were about 1 in 2 bad due to spoilage or heavy
oxidation or both (still at 1.49/bottle that wasn't a total
loss).
In Ca. I know of stores in Sacramento (3), Lodi, Stockton, Modesto
Vallejo and San Leandro--probably more in the Bay Area I haven't found.
Bill Thompson
(usual disclaimers--no connections with these stores, these wineries...)
--
William C. Thompson III (S-1 Project, Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory)
U.S. Mail: LLNL, P.O. Box 5503, L-278, Livermore, Ca., 94550
Phone: (415) 422-0758
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