Under-$20 wine recommendations - June/July

It would appear that Mr. Williams has had a HUGE influence in this group...

Abeja Beekeeper 2005, Walla Walla $20.00

Nice list. Is this the white ESJ Los Robles Viejos? Agree re the Gobelsburg GV, Brun, and Vissoux. Have the L-P Allees, but haven't opened yet.

Sorry I forgot it was my job to start this list every month or two!

For summer, I'll list 2 crisp whites, 2 fresh roses, and 2 light reds:

No, more like Mark got on the Chambers St mailing list!

I checked out Chamber Street Wines and saw exactly what your talking about! Don't get me wrong I do love to have French wines, but not every night! When I saw that there was only one Argentinean Malbec and only two Australian Shiraz I knew this mailing list wouldn't be for me. I would love to find a wine mailing list that was WIDE OPEN! This is the one quality that separates most wine drinkers from most domestic (US) beer drinkers. A Bud drinker is a Bud drinker and nothing else.

Sean

No, more like Mark got on the Chambers St mailing list!

Yes, but what does that have to do with beer? :)

Jose

Well said!

There are basically two categories of good wine shops IMHO- the bigger operations (Zachys, WineLibrary, K&L, Winex, Sams, Astor, etc) that try to do some of everything , and the more boutique styled operations such as Chambers. The latter don't try to be all things, but concentrate on the type of wines they particularly enjoy.

I'm on mailing lists of many shops, of both types. The difference is that with Zachys etc I tend to watch mailers for wines I already know, while with Chambers I might be more likely to take a chance on an unknown wine based on their notes(as I know David's and Jamie's tastes tend to match well with mine, at least in Loire, Austria, Beaujolais, etc). If your tastes are closer to Australia or Argentina, you might try to find a boutique wine shop with those as areas of concentration (Garagiste or Southern Hemisphere perhaps?).

One size does not fit all! :)

By the way, if Malbec is a fave, today (Tuesday) is 15% off day at Astor (astorwines.com). It's often not practical to pay shipping on less expensive bottles (the $1.69 Lost Vineyards will be more than $5 with ground shipping). But if your state typically charges sales tax on wine, non-taxed out of state bottles usually have a breakeven point where shipping is less than sales tax.