Top shelf wine
 

went out to dinner sat. place in alexandria va is tied to planet wine(a package store). shelf price +$5 to take the wine for dinner next door. everything red on the top shelf came in a big heavy bottle with a designer label, and was over $100. most were over $150. and i never heard of any of them before.

i have reduced my consumption, buy what we import, and started putting a big dent in the cellar(down to about 100 cases), so i have not been into a retailer store in 2-3 years.

i did recognize 2 wines. shafer hillside, and phelps insigna. now $120-150, and they do not even have fancy labels. i thought ca red cab was supposed to be cheap.

wonder if i can use miles to get a couple bottles.

Wow. I never realized that the quality of the wine was directly tied to the fanciness of the label.

There are plenty of single digit California red cabs. They won't be in the top shelve area of the store.

There are also plenty of California cabs that have a comma in their price. Some of them have fancy labels, some have etched bottles instead of a label, some have plain labels.

And I always thought French wine was supposed to taste good. ;)

I just checked my cellar. California cab is just shy of 20% of my cellar.

Average price is $95.

When I take out the $100+ wines, the average is ~$50.

May I recommend EMH, Myriad, and Quivet.

dh