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 MILNET: wct@s1-c or s1-a UUCP: ...!decvax!decwrl!mordor!wct