Quite easily the most frequent question I get asked is: “How can I find the wines you feature in your reviews/articles?”
I wish I had a simple remedy to the problem, after-all it would make my life a whole lot easier……but I’m sorry to say I do not. Well, actually I do, but you’re probably not going to like the answer!
In reality, the easiest way to get your hands on any of the wines I feature is to buy them online. Normally I’ll drop in a link to the e-commerce/winery website site that enables you to do so.
Trust me, I’m under no illusion as to the way the vast majority of wine drinkers buy their vino, and online isn’t it (yet)!
Since the wines available in each State varies, and the fact that no one document/website tells you which retailers are carrying which wines, there’s absolutely no possible way any blog/website will only be able to feature wines that you can readily find in and around your zip code.
In case you weren’t already aware, this website is part of a larger network of websites, all owned and operated by my good-self. BlogYourWine.com, JacksonvilleWineGuide.com, MiamiWineGuide.com, OrlandoWineGuide.com and TampaWineGuide.com all pretty-much feature the same material, however “city-specific” content is featured on the four city sites. I did it this way as I was sick of seeing wine websites post events that were completely irrelevant to me, based on their location. Therefore, if you live in one of those fine cities, follow that website. If you don’t, follow BlogYourWine.com
So with all of that being said, it stands to reason I should primarily only feature wines that I know are available in the state of Florida, since that’s my main focus, right? I guess that should make sense, but it doesn’t…
Interestingly, the highest traffic sources for JacksonvilleWineGuide.com are (in order) California, New York, Texas, Illinois and then Florida (based on my Google Analytics). In fact, just last week I got a call from a lady in San Francisco looking to try and get her hands on one of the wines I’d featured on JacksonvilleWineGuide.com. That’s the Internet for you!
Of course, it would make everything soooooooo much easier if I (as well as every other wine blogger on this planet) were to only feature wines I knew you can buy at, let’s say, Costco.
There is another glaring problem though! The obvious reason the wines in the big box retailers are so easy to find, is that they’re produced in huge volumes. Makes sense right? The problem is that wines produced in such big numbers generally don’t have as “cool of a story” behind them and are, as much as I hate to use this kind of rhetoric, less “handcrafted.”
Of course, you can always ask your local retailer to order you a bottle or three of one of the wines you’ve read about (whether it’s here or any other media source). Not to discourage you from choosing this route, but the results can be varied.
Just thinking out loud here, but I’ve actually been putting a lot of thought into setting-up an online subscription-based wine club for my readers, where you’ll receive a couple of the bottles I feature each month. The more I think about it, the more I really like the idea, as I know for a fact these types of services are the future of buying wine. We’ll just see what happens…
