Costco Wine Blog

As long as I’m droning on about Costco, I should mention costcowineblog.com. It’s a real site, run by a man and woman in Georgia of all places. They say they have no relationship to Costco and just think Costco wines have value. You get on their email list and once or twice a week get a blast about a Costco wine he/she has tasted. Unfortunately, so far it seems about half the wines they have liked don’t seem to be at stores in this area (or maybe I’m going to the wrong stores). They generally like Kirkland wines. They often compare Costco prices with Total Wine prices and think Costco is better overall. Coincidentally, a Total Wine has recently opened 2 blocks from me, and I think the comparisons are a little off. On the wines they carry, Costco is definitely competitive and perhaps cheaper, but Costco does not have anywhere near the variety that Total Wine has. On the other hand, I think a lot of TW’s wines are like the ones BevMo carries that are just some unknown blend in a bottle with a cool sounding name and label. Anyway, it’s worth reading the blog. As for their scoring, I think they rate the wines about 3 points higher than they deserve. They do have some stuff somewhere on site where they explain about Costco pricing and which wines are especially cheap. Simplifying, any wine whose price does not end in a 9, is on some sort of sale or special or closeout.

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Total offers a staggering number of wines but to me the selection doesn’t reflect any sort of discrimination or selectivity. For example, what’s the customer benefit of carrying 43 Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs, or 15 under-$10 Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs?

Where do you live?

That’s how they can claim 8,000 wines.
But for a good selection and good wines, I find K&L and Wine House are superior.

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Playhouse district

OTOH, there are many underappreciated wines. But does any store have them? Opinion | Why You Should Be Drinking Weird Wines - The New York Times

Except for himbertscha, I’ve had all those grape varieties, most in the past year. They appear regularly at “natural” wine shops and bars.

I was going to order a bottle of Himbertscha, but with shipping it would have cost $103.

GoFundMe?

Haha.

What is that? Santa Monica / vine? You’re right by K&L

Playhouse District, Pasadena.

The benefit is that at least one or two of them isn’t going to suck! (As humbly stated by someone who dislikes or hates 90% of the NZ SB he’s ever tasted.)

You mean they are more conservative in their ratings than some of the professional paid reviewers working for publications that often seem to pass lower extremity gas out of their mouths when touting some wines?

I’ve found some very good values at Costco, but I don’t buy much wine there. I’ve also tried a few (unknown) duds. As far as the French Kirkland imports, I think you can identify the actual producer by some sort of code number on the label.

Actually, by 3 points higher than they deserve I mean 3 points higher than they deserve.

And not 1 Txakolina lol.

I don’t know guys. Whenever possible I buy small production wines, it doesn’t have to be expensive.

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