When I grow up, I want to be just like Eva!

One of our favorite wineries is Tablas Creek up in Paso Robles. They have an amazing variety of Rhone style wines, including some relatively unique varietals such as picpoul and tannat. Their reds are great, but I just love the selection of whites. A particular favorite is their Bergeron style Roussanne, which is just amazing with seared scallops. I can’t recall if it was the ‘03 or ‘04 Roussanne that we served with Thanksgiving turkey, but it was so different. As it started to age, it took on hints of nutmeg. Particularly as a VINsider, their wines are a good value for the quality.

For good value cheapies, we like Rabbit Ridge Allure de Robles. They sell it at TJ’s, but by the case as a club member, it’s like $3.50/bottle and is excellent to have on hand for pizza night. I’m not fond of their whites. They do a Syrah Cote Rotie style (adding in a little bit of Viognier) that is really interesting. The 2004 was awesome, but the ‘05 didn’t have the same result.

I absolutely fell in love with the Torrontes grape down in Argentina. There was a $1.99 cheapie at TJ’s that we kept on hand while they had it, but having tasted some truly great ones, I don’t think I could touch that one again. In fact, I’m heading over to Hi Times this weekend to pick out a few. I can’t remember the ones we had down there, but they were so incredibly inexpensive.

Just got this in an e-mail from TIC:

Total Wine & More will become the new destination for every wine connoisseur, coming to The Market Place this fall. Specializing in fine wines, the wine superstore will offer more than 8,000 varieties from every wine-producing region in the world, as well as over 2,000 spirits and 1,000 beers. Irvine & Tustin shopping is now better than ever—offering unparalleled convenience for all your shopping needs.

I wonder if this will go in the old Ikea storefront. 

**With this news, the Seraphim household rethinks moving out of North Irvine.**

8,000 varieties or not, Hi-Times can’t be beat.

I asked hubby about Wine Exchange and he said it was similar to Hi Times in knowledge and inventory, but because of the distance he prefers Hi Times. Then I showed him the Rose WinEx is featuring this month and he just planned out how to work in a detour next week

Here are my thoughts on Hi-Times, Wine Club, and Wine Ex. I might be a bit biased, since Wine Ex is closer to my home, but I will try my best to be unbiased in evaluating the wine shops of OC.

Wine Club - Great selection of new releases. Fantastic prices. One of the best places to purchase Bordeaux, Sauternes, and other highly regarded foreign wine futures. Small vintage collection. Saturday and Sunday wine tastings from the new releases, wine makers, and staff selection is hard to beat. The staff is knowledgeable, but the turnover is very high there. Don’t expect the person who helped you with your holiday wine selections be there the following year. Sadly, the SF and Santa Clara stores do not have the same problem. No hard alcohol.

Wine Ex - Awesome selection of new releases, as well as a diverse selection as a whole, with many hard to find wines. Fantastic prices, that only one of the largest internet retailers could ever achieve. A good place to buy futures. Not much of a vintage collection. Tastings on the weekends. The staff is extremely knowledgeable, and the turnover is so low… I could swear that some have been there since I was a kid when my dad would drag me there promising to buy me a toy later if I behaved/put up with him scouring their selections. I have never been steered wrong here, and EvaL can attest to some of their recommendations of their’s that I have had. Great hard alcohol selection, with great prices.

Hi-Times - The best selection of wines, with some of the hardest to find wines in OC. You do pay for that premium here. Decent place for futures. The best vintage collection I know of. Great tastings on the weekends and during the week. The staff is very knowledgeable, and the turnover is low. So, if you find someone who gives you good picks, then when you come back they will be there to do it again. Amazing hard alcohol selection, but their prices are higher than most.

Another place not mentioned is Dome Liquor in Fullerton. I have found Lazy Creek’s pinot and Lamborn’s zin there. None of the above had either of them.

Good write up Graph, and far more analytical than anything I would have written.  All I can say is this:  When shopping at Hi-Times, the most we have ever spent was $150 and the most number of bottles we ever bought was about eight.  At Winex we seem to have a harder time controlling ourselves, oohing and ahhhing over much more and filling the basket with up to 40 bottles.  It very well may be that it is simply because Winex is physically easier to navigate (one floor, reasonably wide aisles) and I can use a rolling cart, whereas HiTime is just itching to get hit with an ADA lawsuit and you have to carry a small basket.  They are about equidistant from our place, but it seems that traffic going north on the 55 is easier to navigate than traffic going south on the 55.  That said, if I lived near Hi-Time, I would shop there without thinking too much about it.

I’ve been to Wine Club a couple of times, and while interesting, I find their wine displays not very easy to browse with the eyes.  I’m not sure why that is.

Perhaps some marketing expert can be let loose to discover why I can easily drop bank at Winex and not at the other two.

Memphis has put out word on its wine dinner for August.  See below.