With the arrival of cooler fall weather our tastes our definitely shifting towards reds.  And with the holidays around the core now is a great time to flesh out the wine collection before all the guests arrive.  We’ve reviewed three cabernets over the last few weeks and found two that definitely deserve your attention and one you should avoid.  They’re all available at your local grocery store (ours came from Vons aka Safeway) and all are under $15. Read the rest of this entry »

Two words on this one: wow!  Alright, disclosure time: 1. “wow” is not two words.  2.  This isn’t really a grocery wine (unless your local grocery store is in an extremely well heeled area of Australia).  We managed to obtain a babysitter awhile back and while sniffing around for a new restaurant to try out I came across a reference to a members only club in downtown San Diego.  On a whim, I picked up the phone and asked if I could come in for dinner.  After bouncing around to a few people on the phone the director of member services agreed to leave some guest passes for us with the hostess.  Sweet!  When we arrived, I was surprised to discover a jacket was required.  Huh?  Listen, you might think this makes sense what with the members only thing but this is San Diego.  Dressing up here means Read the rest of this entry »

We’d seen the J. Lohr Seven Oaks Cabernet on a few wine lists at local restaurants so getting it on sale at Vons for under $12 seemed like a no brainer.  We pulled the cork and Read the rest of this entry »

In our house the 4th of July means burgers will be hitting the grill.  With that decided we can devote all of our energy to determining what wines to have with dinner.  Usually, I’d stay up late for months trying to come up with the perfect pairing for our burgers (not really), tasting thousands of wines (I wish), eating hundreds of burgers (no comment).  This year though my fine friends over at Wine Spectator agreed to my request to write a couple of articles on the subject (I actually never spoke with them but I was thinking about it and then the articles were there so I still say it was my idea).  Included on their list of wines for the 4th are a few grocery store staples which you should have no trouble finding at the local Safeway, Kroger, Vons, Ralphs, etc.  Best of all there are a number of relatively cheap wines on the list with reds ranging in price from $11-$16 and whites from $9-$12.  Listed below are our picks from the Wine Spectator articles.  Enjoy and happy 4th! Read the rest of this entry »

Firefly Ridge wines have become fairly popular over the course of the last six months and so when it went on sale at Vons I was eager to try it and write up a review.  As it turns out the most interesting aspect of this California Cabernet Sauvignon is that it is named “Firefly Ridge” and as far as I know there are no fireflies in California (although virtually every kid growing up here wishes there were).  The Firefly Cabernet is just “okay”.  It’s drinkable – don’t throw it out if you already have a bottle – but seeing how it isn’t particularly cheap there are quite a few other cabs out there that warrant more attention than this one.

Interested in a better option?  Take a look at some of the other wines we’ve reviewed from Safeway/Vons by clicking here.