wine.com

Wine.com Launches Flash-Sale Site WineShopper.com

It is about time that the members-only flash sale has come to the most popular virtual source for vino. What Tablet Hotel's private sales are to lodging, Wine.com's has launched WineShopper.com will be the same for premium wines and champagnes: a place to buy the finest fermented elixirs at up to 70% off during a 72-hour window... or until they sell out. Wine.com's offering joins other wine sales sites such as WineTwitsDeals and the joyously named WineWoot.

Standard procedure would be to register at the site to receive daily e-mails on sales, but you can also get Twitter notifications or find out the scoops on Facebook. Last we checked, a bottle of Veuve required just $29.99, and a Silver Oak Alexander Valley Cab set you back $49.99. WineShopper is even offering a gift of Riedel glasses if you recommend enough friends to the site, but be sure to think that through – your friends might just make the deal you were after sell out more quickly...

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Tags: champagne, flash sale sites, liquor, wine, wine.com, wineshopper.com

Of Wine and Wall Street: Wine.com Announces Bordeaux Futures Program

by Jonathon Ramsey (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

If you're a fan of Bordeaux, numerous vintage reports have ranked the 2009 vintage as being superb – one commentator went so far as to ask if it weren't the best vintage in 60 years. Your job now is to make sure you can actually get one of the finer bottles, and help has arrived in the form of Wine.com's 2009 Bordeaux Futures Program.

The site worked with Negociant Patrick Baugier of Capital Millesime and visited 400 chateaux, finally settling on a range of 2009 Bordeaux from 50 chateaux both big and small, including Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Chateau Pavie, Chateau Leoville Las Cases, Chateau Cheval Blanc, Chateau Olivier and Chateau La Couspaude. The list itself was curated by Anthony Foster, who has 40 years of experience in the region and is Master of Wines for Wine.com.

The initial list of futures will be released shortly, with more becoming available on a rolling basis. You'll be able to buy futures by the bottle or the case, bottles are sold on a first come, first serve basis. You allotment will be delivered as they are shipped from each chateau, projected to be Fall 2011, and you can keep up with your Bordeaux on the Wine.com site.

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Tags: bordeaux, futures, wine futures, wine.com

Wine.com Publishes Its Top 100 Wines of 2009

by Jonathon Ramsey (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

It's not that you could ever be accused of running with the herd. However, when we're talking about the choices of several million people, and those choices concern several million bottles of wine, well, it couldn't hurt to lend one little ear to the vox populi.

The masses in questions are those ordering bottles from Wine.com, and after having tabulated the scores the site has released its Top 100 list for 8,000 different wines sold in 2009. You might be fatigued from the news that "value is clearly the running theme this year," but your offshore account will be glad of the fact that 75 of this year's wines slide in under $20, and only two exceed $100 even though the average list's average price rose compared to 2008. Your palate will rejoice as well: 93 of the wines are rated higher than 90 points, and the top wine is Cambria Julia's Vineyard 2006 Pinot Noir, with two 90-plus point ratings. That also happens to be Wine Enthusiast's #1 wine of 2009. And yes, it's less than $20.

Feel free to peek, and we won't tell anyone you bought something only because you saw it on a Top 100 list. But if you do, at least you'll have very good company. Lots of it.

[Image: Wine glass courtesy of Delphaber via CC2.0]

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Tags: top 100, Top100, wine, wine.com

Wine.com Makes the Crimson Elixir "By Appointment Only"

by Jonathon Ramsey (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, Wine

Many a gift is made that much more compelling by the addition of a bottle of wine. So when the opportunity arises to give a gift that is sprinkled with phrases like "private" and "VIP" and "Napa," and that gift comes with not one, but three, bottles of distinguished ambrosia -- well, it begins to look like a little bit of attention might be in order.

Wine.com's By Appointment Only will stuff your mailbox with a package of cabernets from Quintessa, Chateau Montelena, and Caymus. Yet those are merely to get you in the mood. The feature delight comes the next time you visit Napa: private appointments at each vineyard, during which you'll tour the facilities, sample as-yet-unbottled selections straight from the barrels -- so bring a straw -- and if Madame Nature plays fair, a tour of the vineyard

These are no rush jobs, either: each group is just four people, and each visitation lasts up to 3 hours. Which means that when you've finished your preliminary samplings and you want to know what makes Caymus so subtly capricious, Chateau Montelena so delicately moving, and Quintessa so.. just plain divine, By Appointment Only is your peek behind their veils. Oh, and priced at $500, it also has a superb finish: it's good until the summer of 2011.

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Tags: by appointment only, ByAppointmentOnly, caymus, chateau montelena, ChateauMontelena, napa, quintessa, wine, wine.com