You hate Lawrence Taylor, and I hate you for it. Go 56.

would you call 2$CK wine or wine “drink”?

Dave Chapelle knows the difference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWPqHOeBdkk&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Evideosift%2Ecom%2F%3Fpage%3D5

Great Ep GV.. you looked like you were really having fun there!

Gary,

Thanks for tasting those, and getting that out of the way. Now can we get back to some real wine? You looked like a Martyr there in the middle of today’s show, grimacing like you were getting stuck with hot pokers. Can’t have been pleasant.

QOTD: In the early 90’s in California, SHOPPING AT TRADER JOE’S incidentally, I used to get a lot of great deals, not on $2-chuck, but back when they were really out there looking for good deals for their customers, second label stuff … I seem to recall getting some Stag’s Leap second label wines for about $4 a bottle, essentially the same wines that were going for upwards of $20. I don’t remember a lot from that period, though, so it could have all been crap.

But I was drinking Sanford Pinot, and long before Sideways!

Unfortunately the silly NY alcohol laws keep trader joes from selling the wine without a separate wine shop. So no trader joes wine out on Long Island

QOTD: Is it okay to mention beer on WLTV? Oh, well, here goes anyway. I recently got 2 doz bottles of Brooklyn Lager for â?¬5 because it had just gone past its best-before date. Tasted wonderful.

I actually do shop at Trader Joe’s quite a bit, so good ep GV. I’ve never actually tried their brand wines, for fear that this might happen. That said, they do have some excellent wines at good price points. The last two that come to mind, R.H. Phillips ‘Night Harvest’ Sauv Blanc 2004, crisp and fruity for 8 bucks. Also the Echelon 2005 Pinot Noir, at 11.99 (12 is the new 10), a very young wine, with some real potential. Solid cherry flavor, with a very intriguing nose, besides cherry I got dried apricots, maple syrup, mango. So, go to Trader Joe’s, just don’t buy their brand. Gary, any chance we can have a French wines for under 15$ ep in the near future?

great episode. I have to say, first time I’ve ever laughed out LOUD at a comment from Gary. The sugar water with the action figure in it. Really well done. Just like GREAT wine, GV gets better with time.

QOTD – this is really a tough one…I’d say it’s buying my first house for $180k, doing 5k worth of work on it myself with father-in-law, and then selling it three years later for $340k

Gary.. I DARE you… I say I DARE you to not say “let’s give it a whirl” for an entire episode of WLTV.

Hey Gary
Interesting episode today….I worked at Trader Joe’s in 2000-2004, so I was there for the Charles Shaw BOOM! I still have nightmares of people getting blood thirsty over these wines….just think, you wheel out a palate of wine and it’s gone within 5 minutes….people literally fighting for the last case…getting yelled at because we ‘don’t deliver wine’….it was like watching national geographic.
BTW…i don’t think that you can call what you did a bargain…smart and clever, but not a bargin…personally I call that ‘sticking it to the man’
QotD- Probably the best bargain I got was when I bought a case of decent merlot from a winemaker and he gave me 2 magnums of the stuff for free.

Thanks for the birthday shout out man. That was awesome. My first name is Joshua (very biblical), last name used to be Smithiwitz or something like that.

wine so bad you have to saw off your tongue…hilarious

Gary’s QOTD’s? (sounds like there were 2 this time)

1.What I think of 2 Buck Chuck: It totally sucks. What a rip-off! I wouldn’t still be drinking wine if I had started with that stuff. Yes, I’ve tried several “varietals,” and I hate that I wasted about $10 trying.

2.My best deal: Last summer, I bought a black and white laser printer that was only $49 after rebate. Yeah, I was down $180 for awhile, but the rebates came fast. Now I no longer yell at my kids about printing their cheat codes and other useless stuff all of the time–I highly recommend a black and white for primary printer and just print to your color printer only when you actually need to. Still on the original laser cartridge!

Gary’s QOTD’s? (sounds like there were 2 this time)

1.What I think of 2 Buck Chuck: It totally sucks. What a rip-off! I wouldn’t still be drinking wine if I had started with that stuff. Yes, I’ve tried several “varietals,” and I hate that I wasted about $10 trying.

2.My best deal: Last summer, I bought a black and white laser printer that was only $49 after rebate. Yeah, I was down $180 for awhile, but the rebates came fast. Now I no longer yell at my kids about printing their cheat codes and other useless stuff all of the time–I highly recommend a black and white for primary printer and just print to your color printer only when you actually need to. Still on the original laser cartridge!

Awesome Show… HILARIOUS! The look on Gary’s face when he was drinking the gamay was priceless…

QOTD: Free shipping from Wine Library 🙂

My Best Deal So Far: Matua Sauvignon Blanc from Australia. I find it as exciting, but not quite as complex, as the Kim Crawford. But it is $3-$5 less. Also Bluefish Riesling ($9) And Selback-Oster Riesling Kabinett ($15)

Way to go Gary – the thing that gets me about 2 buck chuck is the inverse snobbery when people try to convince you that its not that bad really and you should just give it a chance…

QOTD – a couple of years ago when WL gave free shipping almost every other week. Seemed like a great bargain until I realized that you’d turned me into a wine geek.

Two Buck Chuck reminds me of Dennis Miller’s quote regarding cheap “buy one get one free” men’s suits: “Hey folks, two of sh-t is sh-t. If they really want to screw you they’ll give you three of them.” Even though I’ve had plenty of enjoyable eight to twelve buck wines, does that makes me a two buck snob?

Great episode and about time. The Trader Joe’s Shiraz is the everyday wine in our house. It tastes bit watered down and if you don’t decant it (not just opening the bottle but pouring into a decanter) for about an hour it doesn’t have much aroma or flavor as you noticed. Also, unlike other wines, this wine will not stay overnight. If you don’t drink it right then, it is not consumable the next day. I don’t know why, but we’ve learned to throw away that night what we don’t drink. And since it is $2.50 down here in Jawja, it’s the cheapest wine I’ve bought. Heck even Cold Duck was $3.99.

Hey, we had a wine tasting last week and it was my turn – I chose Australia. So I served Vegemite. It didn’t go with any of the wines but with Men at Work on the stereo and vegemite, I thought I had it made. Just thought I would throw that out there and tell you not to try it when drinking wine – even Australian wine. Someone described it as a beef bullion cube soaked in soy sauce. And I had to agree.

# number, numreo, & so on

GV,
First time I didn’t learn anything from WLTV. Wait, no, I did learn something. Not to waste my time on Trader Joe’s wines. Not sure why we went there today, but if you made someone happy, so be it.
QOTD: Best deal I ever got was 5 dozen Precept Laddie Extreme golf balls for $70 bucks on eBay. I can lose them guilt free!!!
JW

GV,
First time I didn’t learn anything from WLTV. Wait, no, I did learn something. Not to waste my time on Trader Joe’s wines. Not sure why we went there today, but if you made someone happy, so be it.
QOTD: Best deal I ever got was 5 dozen Precept Laddie Extreme golf balls for $70 bucks on eBay. I can lose them guilt free!!!
JW

In 2000 I sampled of the Shaw and found every effort except the sauvignon blanc to be terrible and I only used the sauvignon blanc for cooking. One thing I don’t understand about the whole 100 point scale thing is if it doesn’t taste like wine how can it even get a score? 67 points? What’s up with that? I wouldn’t even bother with a score and if I did it would be in the low teens. That said consumers were lucky during the wine glut because there was a lot of good wine out there with a decent QPR. I seriouly think people who drink Charles Shaw on a regular basis don’t like wine at all, but like sipping on something while watching reruns of The Love Boat or Magnim P.I.

QOTD: After returning from a local wine store with a whole bunch of bottles & realizing that they mis-priced 2004 Ch. Lagrange @ $1.79/ea. (FYI – Not from Wine Library!)

I received the Vayniac wristband yesterday. Thanks!

interesting Three Bill Swill episode….the only TJ’s brand that I have ever tasted was the Shiraz….and that was right before I mixed it into Sangria (with spiced rum & fresh fruit) for 20 people. They loved it!!

I’ve never been to a Trader Joe’s, but this was a good episode!

The best deal I ever got was on a used Les Paul guitar. I don’t think the kid knew what he had!