Wednesday, December 30, 2015

PLCB Provides Value? Don't Bet On It

The Wine Spectator put out their list of the top 100 value wines broken down into 6 categories.  You can see the lists here. Who wants to guess how well the PLCB at selecting those wines?

Read on.

Now I didn't check all 100 but took the top five of each category and went from there.  Even with the PLCB's new and improved search function I checked most of them multiple times to be sure but that doesn't mean one or two were entered in some weird way that only the PLCB can understand. I will say this, only a few were above the suggested retail price.

1. Light White
  • 1 in stock,  Don't get too excited the one in stock is in less than 20% of the stores
  • 2 available SLO
  • didn't stock 2

2. Rich White
  • 1 in stock (at 5% of the stores) 
  • didn't stock 4

3. Elegant Reds
  • 1 in stock
  • 1 maybe in stock but the PLCB didn't list the vintage
  • 1 available SLO
  • 2 not in stock

4. Big Red
  • 1 maybe in stock but again, the PLCB didn't list the vintage
  • 4 not in stock

5. Rose
  • 1 in stock
  • 4 not in stock

6. Sparkling
  • 2 in stock!
  • 3 not in stock
Remember that in PA not in stock means your are never going to see it not that they happen to be out at the moment.

Extrapolate that out and our State Controlled Monopoly with all that buying power and supposedly well trained (but under certified) buyers would have managed to stock maybe 25%, might be able to get an additional 10% and for 65% of the wines listed missed the boat completely.

If you hurry there is still time to get these well rated value wines......out of state.

Have a great New Years!

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