Best Wine For the Buck

[Cigarbutt]

Since we are a bunch of value conscious investors, I figure that our frugal ways should extend itself over to the way that we spend our dollars as well.  Wine is one of those things that I know nothing about and I think there are deep value in it.  Anyone has any suggestions to start out?

If you are interested in the topic and want to understand the product, you may consider taking a basic sommelier course. Sounds fancy and some courses are elitist but there are community-based courses which cover the basics and should appeal to you if value is your thing. You get to taste different grape varieties and often get to learn the basic accord principles.

 

A humble conclusion is that your appreciation of value may not correlate to the price of the bottle.

 

No commercial connection but I found this through a rapid search which may help to decide if that's the way to go.

[Jurgis]

I don't think Foreign Tuffett is a real deep value dumpster diver. He probably just rummages around a bit in the top layers of garbage, i.e. no moldy grapes, no stains in t-shirt. Can you hypothetically still be friends with him in that case? What if I accidentally throw a kitchen knife in the garbage can? Would you unfriend me if I try to get it back a day later?

 

It's OK if the kitchen knife had blood all over it.

[Jurgis]

If you are a REAL VALUE INVESTOR, this is what you should do:

 

1) Dumpster dive outside grocery stores until you find some old, thrown out grapes

 

2) Smash the grapes

 

3) Mix your new grape juice with the cheapest vodka you can find

 

4) Drink

 

I know someone who dumpster dive for fruit juice.  While I like a bargain, I like my dignity intact as well.  If you are serious, we can never be friends.  Dumpster diving is where I draw the line of people that I want to be friends with.  Because if you are financially secure, it is simply not acceptable in my books.

 

What if I was to tell you that I wear a snorkel when I dumpster dive? Does that make it more acceptable?

 

Only if you got the snorkel from the dumpster.

 

 

You all are not thinking like entrepreneurs.

 

Some time ago there was an ad in UK looking to hire skinny Lithuanians shorter than 5'5".

The job applicant was thrown into the charity clothes donations container. They had to get the clothes out of container to the entrepreneur waiting outside.

When they were finished, the entrepreneur left with the clothes and the job applicant was left in the container.

 

I'm sure you can make an outstanding business by employing someone to dumpster dive for you.

 

Especially if you give them a snorkel.

[BG2008]

If you are a REAL VALUE INVESTOR, this is what you should do:

 

1) Dumpster dive outside grocery stores until you find some old, thrown out grapes

 

2) Smash the grapes

 

3) Mix your new grape juice with the cheapest vodka you can find

 

4) Drink

 

I know someone who dumpster dive for fruit juice.  While I like a bargain, I like my dignity intact as well.  If you are serious, we can never be friends.  Dumpster diving is where I draw the line of people that I want to be friends with.  Because if you are financially secure, it is simply not acceptable in my books.

 

What if I was to tell you that I wear a snorkel when I dumpster dive? Does that make it more acceptable?

 

In all seriousness, the dumpster diving thing was just a joke. I actually obtained my collection of fine wines by searching alongside railroad tracks for bottles discarded by vagrants.

 

Well a snorkel changes everything. 

[rb]

The caveat is that I say this as a Canadian. In the US prices are different that Canada.

 

I'm not sure if this is true with wine too, but in Canada the European beer is taxed much lower than in the US.  A Belgian beer in Canada at the Ontario Liquor Store is 1/2 or less compared to the US.  At one point I purchased a 1L of Chimay for about $4, whereas the exact same bottle in the US was $13. 

 

My guess is imports, tariffs etc.

 

In PA French wine seems more expensive.  You can find bottles of Australian, Chilean, or Spanish under $10 with ease, but it's rare for French stuff to be under $10.  American wine is consistently under $10, but that's expected.

 

Like everyone else said, find your taste.

 

But if you're looking for a value play... We aren't huge wine drinkers, but enjoy it with certain meals.  You can get a Bota Box for $17, which is $5.6/liter, or about $4.20 per bottle.  It's table wine that is decent.  It's not bad like the cheap box wine, not awesome either, just average, and cheap.  We'll buy a box and have a glass with a meal.  For my wife and I a box will last a few weeks.  I have relatives that crush a box in a day or two, but if you were at that level I'm guessing you wouldn't be asking here.

 

Last thought. In my experience it's really difficult to taste differences in similar tiers of wine.  But you can definitely taste a difference between tiers.  For example, most $7 bottles are about the same.  And a $7 bottle is tough to differentiate from a $11 bottle.  But a $7 bottle tastes different than a $19 bottle.  And a $19 from $50 and $100 etc.

 

I've had some really expensive bottles and they were spectacular. I'm not sure they were worth the price, but the taste was much more complex and rich vs average bottles.

Yea, it's weird how it all breaks down. I think in the the US there's a lot of latitude on how the states tax the stuff. In Canada we're supposed to be the high tax and all that, but alcohol at least in Ontario I find is cheaper than a lot of the states.

 

Here's how it works. Over here we have excise taxes on alcohol. But it's a tax on volume, not on value. So the higher you go on value the lower the tax is percentage wise. In addition we have a monopoly/monopsony. Most of out alcohol (except some beer) is bought and sold by one government owned company - the LCBO (or Liquor Control Board of Ontario). The LCBO is one of the largest purchasers of alcohol in the world. So they negotiate huge volume discounts and have a lot of variety.

 

In the states from my experience offer and value vary from place to place. I can't speak of PA because I didn't buy alcohol when I was there. But I can say that Illinois and Iowa are quite cheap. But verity in Iowa sucks. I was expecting wine to be cheap in California since they make it and all that. But I was shocked by how expensive it was. I recently came back from Arizona - republican and low taxes, etc. Alcohol was at least as expensive as in Ontario and selection was generally way worse.

[rb]

There it is BG. It's great for making soup.

[sys]

costco usually has a pretty good price to quality ratio.  selection varies dramatically by store, but i can usually find a bottle or two that are to my taste.

 

trader joes does not curate for quality, they sell some good wines, but also lots of complete swill.  if you find one you like though, the price will usually be pretty good.

[Spekulatius]

The Reverse Wine Snob https://www.reversewinesnob.com/ does a good job of reviewing wines that cost less than $20.  It has continuing recommendations for wines from Costco & Trader Joe's. Buy a group of singles of some of these, figure our which ones you like, then load up on the favorites. A quick & easy way to become a junior wine expert.

 

The reverse wine snob looks pretty good, I have tried several wines he recommended and for example the Kenwood / Jack London Cabernet is outstanding. I like most of the Jack London wines from Kenwood vineyards and I can recommend to put yourself on their mailing list - thrynsent out good offers 2-3 times a year with low or no cost shipping and decent discounts. I could get the bottle of Cabernet that was listed for $20 as the lowest price in the US for less shipped to my house recently.

 

When I lived in CA, the vineyard was just a few miles from my house, so I am partial to them.

[SHDL]

One thing I might add to this very important discussion from a slightly different perspective is that it can actually make a lot of sense to get some excellent glassware.  I used to scoff at this type of thing, but I changed my mind after someone gave me a pair of Zalto glasses and I did A/B tests with a few bottles of wine from Costco that I normally consume.  Boy did they make a difference.  By my estimate, switching glasses (from some generic ones) alone made the wine taste at least 30% better.  So for me the payoff was like > $5 per bottle and > $260 per year.  Now of course I got them for free, but even if I had paid the seemingly high retail price of $60-100 per glass, the IRR from “investing in” these glasses would have been excellent.

[Gregmal]

I've seen Costco mentioned a few times and actually concur. I'm not positive about their wine, so I'll take others at their word here, but do know that Costco liquor is a sensational bargain. Their vodka is essentially Gray Goose for 1/3 the price, and I was shocked to find out that the Kirkland Scotch is Macallan 18 just private label. More or less Costco has a contract with Macallan where they buy the excess, and that is then sold as Kirkland 18. You can pay $160 for the Macallan, or $60 for Kirkland...

[Gamecock-YT]

One thing I might add to this very important discussion from a slightly different perspective is that it can actually make a lot of sense to get some excellent glassware.  I used to scoff at this type of thing, but I changed my mind after someone gave me a pair of Zalto glasses and I did A/B tests with a few bottles of wine from Costco that I normally consume.  Boy did they make a difference.  By my estimate, switching glasses (from some generic ones) alone made the wine taste at least 30% better.  So for me the payoff was like > $5 per bottle and > $260 per year.  Now of course I got them for free, but even if I had paid the seemingly high retail price of $60-100 per glass, the IRR from “investing in” these glasses would have been excellent.

 

aerators too