Bargain booze

You know I love a good deal, and coupons, and bartering, and well, a lot of things.  But most importantly, I love a good deal.

One thing that is hard to get a good deal on is wine.

My hubby is a wine lover and I am, well...a wine novice, and cheap. 

I only started drinking wine 4 years ago and I bring home $9 bottles with pretty labels from Trader Joe's and hope he likes them (sorry honey). It literally pains me to pay more than $10 for wine (I know some of you are wincing at that price, but its true).  $20 bottles are PAINFUL to buy.

So when I happened upon a little store called Grocery Outlet, I was intrigued by their wine selection.

The guy in the wine department was very friendly and although they don't have a huge selection, they once in a while have some awesome deals.

He explained that they purchase over-runs of wines that other stores over bought.  So if Safeway bought too much of one type of wine, that Grocery Outlet will buy the over run for super cheap and sell it at a huge discount.

So, he introduced me to some new wines I had never tried and encouraged me to take them home and try them.  For 5 and 6 bucks a bottle, I was willing to give it a shot, and then he tells me "and if you don't like the wine, bring back the empty bottle and we will refund you."

Uh, ok.

That sounds like a pretty fair deal to me.  I buy wine for $5 or $6 that is usually $15-20, I try it, and if I don't like it I get my money back?????  Done deal. (I have no idea if this policy is universal or if it was that store's policy)

We actually really liked both the bottles he recommended- score one for the Grocery Outlet guy.

Now the down side is, that they have such limited quantities, that you can't always go back to buy more- sometimes its all sold out.  He actually told me that wines sell out as fast as 48 hours, so if I wanted to buy more I should come back within the next day or so.

Unfortunately, Grocery Outlet is not exactly on my way home, or even close to our house.  It's about 15 minutes north of our house and I only happen to swing by there once a month (if that).  So I just hope that when I pop in there will be some good wine deals.

Over the weekend, I found what I am claiming to be, "THE BEST WINE DEAL EVER."

Could this be a bit of an exaggeration?

Almost 100% yes, but I was am SUPER excited about it.

They had St. Francis wine.

St. Francis winery is quintessential winery in Northern California with stucco architecture and beautiful landscapes.  While visiting Sonoma County a few years ago, we made St. Francis a stop on our wine tour and we had a blast.  My older sister and her hubby (also named Chris- I know it's weird that we both married a Chris, but its a story for another time) joined us and we had a wonderful wine tasting.  We actually made it to roughly 15 wineries in one day.... it was a blast.  I don't think we took a pic at St. Francis, but this was us on that trip.

I loved everything we tasted- possibly because it was or 9th or 10th stop and we loved everything at that point... either way, we have been buying and enjoying their wines ever since.

Sometimes their wines are more reasonable ($15-20 a bottle), and sometimes they are not as reasonable ($50+ a bottle).

So when I saw St. Francis Syrah at Grocery Outlet for $6.99 I got all excited.  Their Syrah retails anywhere from $15-24 a bottle depending on the vintage. Score one for me!

I ended up buying a case, so now we have tons of it.

Chris was extremely pleased with my purchase and I was extremely pleased with my savings; roughly $100 or so on the case.

Now... what to buy with that $100 I saved......