Wine deals: what’s the best buy now?
Lifehacker ran a piece that urged readers to buy wine after Thanksgiving and during the first two weeks of December to “lock in pre-holiday bargains.” Really? Perhaps I live under a rock but I hadn’t noticed seasonal discounting that disappears as the holidays approach. Have you? Instead, I see a parade of deal-of-the-day web sites and closeout offers from wine shops–constant sales, rather than seasonal. Or the old “mark it up to mark it down” type of “sales,” which also never go out of season.
Lifehacker attributes their seasonal nugget to Food & Wine editor Ray Isle. Queried via Twitter, Ray pointed me to this original story from whence this wisdom came. He asked Jeremy Noye of Zachys for some suggestions for deals and his seasonal sale advice was limited to Champagne, not wine in general as Lifehacker stated. I have noticed some of this Champagne discounting, but it is generally later in the month, *closer* to the holidays, when stores might sell well-known brands just above cost simply to get people in the store. Anyway, if you do see Champagne on sale that you like, plug it in to wine-seracher.com and pull the trigger if it is a real deal. (Especially, eegad, what if there are shortages next year?)
I do find that it is a good time of year to buy wine accessories and stemware, as retailers smell the competition and reduce prices. I still like my Schott Zwiesel “impact resistant” glasses ($60 for a 6 pack on Amazon) and, in fact, need to reload after some met the maximum threshold of their resistance. Well, it had been a few years…
