2004 Chateau Haut-Rian

Bill Hogsett wrote in news:Xns976D5EB535581bhogsettwowwaycom@216.196.97.142:

It "appears" that New Castle Imports of Myrtle Beach is the importer:

though the link to the page is actually a different wine...

d.

enoavidh wrote in news:Xns976D613CD73ACenoavidhyahoocom@136.142.185.40:

Thanks!

Bill

enoavidh is right, my remaining bottle says New Castle.

I agree that's it's good to support local retailers. And shipping costs can make less expensive bottles a questionable idea. But....will your retailer really get you this without making you get at least a case? Most retailers require a case for special orders. If you've tried, great. But what if your tastes don't agree with mine?

Unsure if they ship to Ohio. But you might consider ordering a mixed case from Chambers Street Wine. Besides the Haut Rian ($8.49 before mixed case discount), they've got a lot of nice under $10 stuff, and LOTS of great stuff in the teens (in my opinion, probably the preeminent store for things like Beaujolais and Loire in the country). You could try a lot of things and then see if you could get your local to order a case of your favorite (or favorites).

As to shipping v. local- I too generally support my local stores (although my true local store has a current issue they need to deal with!). Unless there's a big price difference, or a wine I can't get locally. But as to the calculus of value- most of the retailers I deal with charge $24-35 for ground shipping a case , for freight and packaging (though with recent oil prices more are closer to the top). Figure $2.50 to 3.00 per bottle. Offsetting that, out of state retailers don't charge sales tax. In my case that's about 8%. So under $30 I'm probably better off locally for same price wines, over $30 better elsewhere. For a $10 bottling it would cost me $10.80 locally, $12.50+ from CA. For a $50 bottle it's $54.00 locally, $52.50 from CA.

cheers!

As goes this, what exactly is a "package store" and how does it differ from other venues that sell liquor for consumption elsewhere? In Connecticut, some twenty years ago, there was a campaign to "save our package stores" (against I suppose the big box retailers) but I never found out the difference that makes one a package store and the other not, and why a "package store" is superior.

Jose

Senator Joseph Lieberman said: "My dad lived in an orphanage when he was a child. He went to work in a bakery truck and then owned a package store in Stamford, Conn."

The week before, however, in a speech to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention in Hartford, Lieberman used the phrase liquor store. Crawford Lincoln of Brimfield, Mass., asks, "Was this a gentler locution to soften the image of his family's business for a national audience?"

I'd say yes, and thereby hangs a euphemism. A package store is a store, not a bar, where liquor is sold by the bottle and not by the drink and where the contents of the "package" is consumed off premises.

In 1880, Bradstreet's weekly reported active trade in package houses. In 1890, The London Daily News reported that "Judge Foster recently decided that liquor could only be sold in 'original packages,' which is construed as meaning one or more bottles of beer or whisky. The merchants . . . are not allowed to sell beer or whisky by the glass."

Our earliest evidence for the phrase package store, I am informed by Joanne Despres at Merriam-Webster, "is an entry in the 1918 Addenda to the New International Dictionary (originally published in 1909), where it is labeled 'cant, U.S."' (Cant means "jargon," and business euphemisms fall into that category.)

Let's face it: what the seller is selling is not a package but what is contained in the package, which is liquor. Why the squeamishness about that word? After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, state legislatures had the opportunity to license booze shops and saloons but did not want to upset the many "drys." That led to the linguistic prettification of saloons as taverns and of shops purveying the mother's milk of John Barleycorn as package stores.

Maybe the senator uses the terms interchangeably. But I have a hunch that some politically sensitive soul remembered that "drys" still exist and vote and changed the candidate for vice president's word from liquor to package. It shows a sandpapered-fingertip sensitivity to the shades of meaning of words.

In my more or less wide experience in the US, it seems that generally in States where the State owns or closely regulates the sale of spirits - down east, Washington, and so on, they are called package stores (or packies for short) In states that are more market oriented, they are called liquor stores - like California.

The Puritanism and greed of state legislatures in the US is well documented--upon the repeal of Prohibition as mentioned earlier, there was an opportunity to have truly free markets but a coalition of state legislators pandering to the drys and the former bootleggers, preferred a system that made every pint of booze go through a distribution apparatus now called wholesalers and distributors. This 3 tier system allows the distributors to make reward money flow to the legislators in the form of contribution and to the state in the form of taxes and licenses.

That was 70 years ago, today despite "Free the Grapes" or pressure from local wineries, the structure applies. Many distributors have gone regional & national and income to them is no longer used as a Laundromat-a scheme to make illicit money into legitimacy. The real owners of some of these enterprises have gone legit too, but the general ethos of the industry is how can I get around the rules and regulations concerning liquor and make an extra dollar. Its the consumer who is the poor schnook in all this. Paying at least 10% and often 40% more then more for their libation as if it went from supplier direct to the retailer.

While it is true wholesalers and distributors keep people employed and pay taxes, but as a practical manner would still be needed, after all Mr. Smirnoff is not going to go retailer to retailer to sell their swill, but small wineries with desire can enter a state without having to convince a wholesaler to sell their product.

Right now embedded in the 3 tiers, winery & suppliers deal with persons working for a winery or supplier who helps sell his clients product, this agent not only goes out in the market but gets the wholesaler to focus on his or her products. Some of these agents want to increase their income and find investors (In Maryland its at least $500,000) and open their own distributorship. Only a few of these survive 5 years and leave a lot of suppliers unpaid. So for a supplier its go with a big distributor & get paid or take your chance on a boutique wholesaler & get better sales but not income. The few small wholesalers who survive are bought by larger companies--or at least receive a capital infusion to keep them going. Believe me selling 49% of your business is not something most original owners look forward too. Often the wine person in ownership creates sales because of friendships formed with retailers or restaurants, when the company is "saved" that person usually drops out because they no longer have any control of their company, the original owners & new investors freeze them out. All the person who founded the firm is used for is sales and as a "figurehead". For any one under 60, this may be unsatisfactory and they are often taken back as a salesperson by some wholesaler.

After 15 years selling wine I've observed the consolidation of wholesalers; I don't have statistics but I'm guessing at least 1/2 of all wine sales are made by multistate companies. In some states larger independents have merged to avoid take overs, which of course narrows the opportunities for small suppliers and wineries.

The main difference from today and the days after repeal is, the computer and pen are doing what guns and arson did "in the good old days."