We refuse to be just a normal source for wine. We have a desire to be unique. Better yet, totally different. That's our new mission in 2009!

We believe that wine is a special gift. It is intended to be personal and a reflection of you. Therefore, we are intrusted to carefully evaluate and choose only the best  from literally thousands of choices, striving to bring you only  the most tantalizingly unique wines from dedicated artisinal winemakers.

We fanatically believe that wine should enhance our lives every day of the year. It should be an integral part of a committment to living a healthy and fulfilling life, to be uncompromisingly shared and surrounded by those we love.

No sacrifices. No compromises.

Wine should not be treated as just another commodity. Settling for mass-produced bland bulk wine out of convienence is a grave infraction, similar to using inferior ingredients to save money when cooking. We believe, as proven by the world's greatest wine critics, that only a small fraction of the tens of thousands of labels available really excel in style and taste. Simply put, if only one out of fifty wines is truly exceptional, why fight your way through the other forty-nine?  We'll let our competitors with thousands of random untasted selections have those. We'll happily select only the best, so we offer you only the best.

Our wines are hand-crafted by small-production vintners.  Each is dedicated to creating art within the bottle. Their wines are a reflection of their individual lives and are a tribute to their heritage. That's refreshingly real when you consider ours is an industry often driven by uninspiring ad agency-created name brands designed to line the pockets of investors, stockholders or mega-stack-it high beverage store owners, at the expense of your tastebuds.

Many of our wines are organic. Our vintners painstakingly minimize their assault on the planet. By doing so, they actually increase the quality of their wine. We realistically admit that our wines are intended for current consumption. After all, 95% of all wines are opened within 24 hours of being purchased. It simply makes sense. Therefore, we look for Earth friendly, fruit-forward styles. Our wines don't need years of ageing in dark, dingy cellars.

Simply refreshing. Simply uncomplicated. Taste the difference at The Wine Shoppe.

MEMORIAL WEEKEND SPECIAL...

We blew through 50 cases (in 24 hours) of this in the regular 750 ml size. When I was researching the wine, I stumbled upon magnums (1.5L) of this being available. These are much more limited than the 750ml. In fact, we won't be able to get any more of this terrific vintage, as the winery is sold out! Here's your chance to load up on the absolute best value of any "large size" bottle of pinot noir you will find this summer! Only 120 bottles available!

2007 CESARI Due Torre Pinot Noir              [was $25 / SALE $18 per magnum, net]  

Wine Shoppe: 92 points
A truly delightful, smooth northerneastern Italian superstar value from Verona. Brilliant, bright fruit. No barrel age (yeah!) Great expression of cool climate fruit; yet very rich, ripe and round. Terrific finish. Hints of crimson, cinnamon, cranberry, black cherry and strawberry. Round, somwhat plush for being from this region. All in all, a terrific bottle of refreshing and quaffable wine. Compliments lighter cuisine like roast loin of pork and sauteed vegetables. ITALY

Remember: MAGNUMS (1.5L) - equals two regular bottles, so you are getting this wine for $9.00 per 750ml by buiying this size. Our best price on the 750's, when we had them, was $10. Hope this makes sense. It's a heck of a deal for Italian pinot noir!

Sale starts Friday morning at 10:00 AM, while supplies last. 20 - 6 bottle cases available.

RSVP today!

“the quality of the 2008 vintage is excellent, thanks to the savoir faire of the vignerons."

..THIS THURSDAY EVENING...

BEAUJOLAIS WINE EXPERIENCE

Featuring Mr. Yann Bourigault, North American Export Director for Les Vins  Georges duBoeuf

JOIN US FOR OUR ANNUAL NASHVILLE DEBUT OF  2008 BEAUJOLAIS crus from Les Vins  Georges duBoeuf. This is our most popular wine tasting event each year. We will taste nine of the ten crus and determine the beauty and subtle nuances of each village!   The wines are bright, dramatic and flavorful.  Perfect for summer sipping and entertainment.   Those of you expecting the lighter Nouveau will been highly impressed by the serious quality and style of these wonderful wines.  12 wines.

• GEORGES DUBOEUF Brouilly, 2008
• GEORGES DUBOEUF Chiroubles, 2008
• GEORGES DUBOEUF Chenas, 2008

• GEORGES DUBOEUF Regnie, 2008
• GEORGES DUBOEUF Fleurie des Quartes Vents, 2008
• GEORGES DUBOEUF Julienas Chateau de Capitans, 2008
• GEORGES DUBOEUF Morgon Jean Descombes, 2008
• GEORGES DUBOEUF Moulin a Vent, 2008
• GEORGES DUBOEUF St Veran Val Valmartinien, 2008

Additionally, we will taste the following previous vintages of:

relax...it's only wine!

I have to admit that I love rainy days. Don't you? Not to often, though. The rain on Friday was certainly relaxing, even though our tyrannical distributors cannot learn that we don't have 10 million square feet to stack a bunch of wine on Friday when it's so jam-packed busy around here. Yep, we received a mountain...make that a mountain oasis  of great wine... that we really don't have room for. Truthfully, it's more my buying addiction and inability to say 'no', even if the juice is stellar!  This is good for you. (see offer below.)

CONTRABAND

We have 12 cases of this weird Gramière wine sort of from Cotes-du Rhone. It's unreal. But, really it's de-listed Cotes du Rhone. The Appellation d’origine contrôlée State Police or AOC control(freak) agents in France decided that this wine did not meet their govern-mental  standards.  The American vintners who made this monstrosity sort of didn't play by the one size fits all rules. After all, they used to work for that famous importer/non-conformist infidel S. Kermit Lynch, who has ravished their land culling out great wines otherwise never allowed to be shipped to this country. Those pesky kids ventured out of the box of conventional Crayon colors and created a renegade wine that certainly couldn't come from within the Cotes du Rhone lines.  Should they be banished from France? Perhaps. Burned at the wine stake? Possible. I know, maybe they sold wine glasses and corkscrews in their wine shoppe instead of brandishing guns in a honkey-tonk full of PBR. Wait. Oops. Wrong state.  All I know is, irregardless, my tastebud's didn't fall out of my nose when I tasted this alleged fraud. They, or its (my tastebuds) embraced this wine for it's complexity, brilliant taste and delightful style. I didn't even think about the wine breaking the tradition of following the prescribed taste grid. I would have liked it even more. Wait, I did like it already more, before I knew that.

Now those pesky A.O.C. police regulated this wine to vin de tabola. Simple common table wine. They can't use the words "Cotes du Rhone" from whence the grapes were grown. Why??? It didn't taste like the other 160 trillion bottles of wine from the area, I assume. In Italy, it'd be called an IGT and sell for $500 a bottle. They could call it a super rhone.

Seriously, we have loved this wine since the second it landed on our doorstep and into our non-breakable plastic 'glassware' way back in January. Friday, was bittersweet. Our last 144 bottles of PURE PLEASURE piled in along with, oh, a couple hundred other cases of exceptional juice. End of the road for this vintage. Sure, there will be a new vintage. Maybe it'll be a Cotes-du-Rhone.  I sort of hope not.

I suggest you come by and grab a bottle or two of this vino de tastier than normal mass produced swille for your table or floor. The brave and thrifty will simply trust us and collect a few more bottles or cases. Josh almost cried when we tried this. Then again, after his surgery, he cries at most anything. Really! Except mountains of good wine we have to climb.

A cloudy Saturday is a much more passionate day to buy real wine, made by real people for real people. Drink different! ~ Ed

 - 2006 LA GRAMIERE RHONE RED - WAS $25    TODAY ONLY: $16.95 - 

La Gramière is a fruit driven wine, lush with notes of blackberry and cassis mixed with hints of licorice and spice.  It is medium to full bodied with well structured tannins and has an ageing potential of 5-10 years.  Our wine is great with hearty meals such as roasted lamb or  BBQ and also goes really well with spicy foods such as Mexican or Indian.   --- from the La Gramière website!

From Kermit Lynch Imports

what we're tastin' with breakfast...

Flor d'Englora Negre Jove (Montsant, Spain)    was $20, SALE $18

Wine Advocate: 92 points

"The 2006 Flor de Englora is a candidate for best red wine value in my Spanish tastings. It is a blend of 63% Garnacha, 32% Carinena, and the balance Syrah and Merlot aged in stainless steel. Purple-colored, it offers a captivating bouquet of mineral, black cherry, and black raspberry. This is followed by a plush, rich, layered wine with gobs of sweet fruit and no hard edges. It exhibits superb balance and a long finish. It is all about pure pleasure. Drink it over the next 4-5 years."