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The "good wine deals" master thread

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aster
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Post by aster » Fri, 08 Aug 2014 10:37 pm

Finally some decent offers due to National Day celebrations. :)

1. At Fairprice you can get 2 bottles of Wolfblass Yellow Label at the promotional price of $49.95. I've always said that it's worth picking up some bottles when the price reaches $25 (usually it can be over $10 higher). This is a very decent wine and well worth getting whilst the current promo lasts.

But that's not all. :) Buy purchasing two bottles they are currently giving away a 2-piece set of wine glasses.

2. Cost Storage has a similar promo on a wine that I consider to be almost the exact equivalent of Wolfblass Yellow Label: Penfolds Koonunga Hill. This is a very good wine for the money, and if you buy 4 you can get them at $24.95 a piece (usually selling for up to $10 more).

No free wine glasses though. :)

They do have a budget option in the Wolfblass Eaglehawk range, where you can pick up a bottle at $15.90 if you buy 6. Well worth the money at this price - though it usually sells in the low to mid $20's.

Hope this helps, especially if someone need to stock up on some wine glasses. I've recently complained about high wine prices and the lack of decent offers, but this weekend is definitely a good occasion to save some dosh $$$ by stocking up.

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Post by aster » Mon, 11 Aug 2014 4:28 pm

Also, keep an eye out for individual store promos that are not part of the chain-wide set of offers.

Santa Digna for instance is a top-notch wine that retails for about $30 and is worth every penny - this is a wine that has been used even by the Queen when hosting foreign dignitaries, etc. ;) Recently my nearest CS decided to sell off its Santa Digna Sauvignon Blanc stock at $14, an absolute steal. I would have preferred the red, but at this price I wasn't going to pass up anyway...

Fairprice has some store specials as well, like 1-for-1 on select wines. So keep your eyes open and look further than the advertised weekly offers as you never now what you might find.

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Re: The "good wine deals" master thread

Post by Rumpel » Wed, 26 Nov 2014 3:27 pm

Hi,

We are still looking to find a good value for money wine here in Singapore in the sub $30 segment.
Our house pour right now is Koonunga Hill from Penfolds, often for sale at $26,95 at NTUC.

We also signed up for the "Just Wine Club" of NTUC.
1 year membership is $20 and gives you 8% discount on all wines, even already discounted ones.

Hope this thread will get a bit more active again.

Best'

D.

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Post by maneo » Wed, 26 Nov 2014 8:12 pm

aster wrote:Also, keep an eye out for individual store promos that are not part of the chain-wide set of offers.
...

Fairprice has some store specials as well, like 1-for-1 on select wines. So keep your eyes open and look further than the advertised weekly offers as you never now what you might find.
The FairPrice at ARC (Alexandra) has been putting quite a few wines on sale lately.
Rumpel wrote:We also signed up for the "Just Wine Club" of NTUC.
1 year membership is $20 and gives you 8% discount on all wines, even already discounted ones.
Seems like you'll make back your investment after only 10 bottles (or so).

At some stores you get free delivery when the overall total is over $150 (e.g. Bukit Timah Plaza).
Just need to buy 4-6 bottles of wine along with some groceries.

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Re: The "good wine deals" master thread

Post by maneo » Thu, 27 Nov 2014 5:22 pm

Looks like Cold Storage has put the WB Yellow Label on sale again.
Saw Merlot & Riesling at $22.95, and Chardonnay at $18.95.
Not 1-for-1, but almost a 30-40% discount from the normal high prices.

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Post by aster » Mon, 05 Jan 2015 10:26 pm

maneo wrote:
Rumpel wrote:We also signed up for the "Just Wine Club" of NTUC.
1 year membership is $20 and gives you 8% discount on all wines, even already discounted ones.
Seems like you'll make back your investment after only 10 bottles (or so).
I know, I should have done that ages ago. :) I've used the 5% discount when purchasing 6+ bottles, which even counts when you mix "proper-sized" 0.75L bottles with minis. Are the 8% and 5% discounts cumulative?
Rumpel wrote:Looks like Cold Storage has put the WB Yellow Label on sale again.
Saw Merlot & Riesling at $22.95, and Chardonnay at $18.95.
Not 1-for-1, but almost a 30-40% discount from the normal high prices.
$22.95 is good for SabSav and Merlot, in fact it is a very good price that hasn't been seen before this recent Christmas offer. Usually a very good deal is $24.95, which is also quite rare and you'll only see it happen a handful of times each year.

The problem with Wolf Blass is that their wines have taken a slight slide in recent times. They're still good, but today's Yellow Label is inching towards former Red Label territory. I would definitely say that today Penfolds is a better choice: WB Yellow Label and Penfolds Koonunga Hill used to be like Duracell and Energizer, pretty much take your pick, but nowadays the latter is a much better wine and a definite buy when the price rarely swoops down to $24.95.

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Post by JR8 » Tue, 06 Jan 2015 11:16 am

aster wrote: The problem with Wolf Blass is that their wines have taken a slight slide in recent times. They're still good, but today's Yellow Label is inching towards former Red Label territory.
Interesting. I remember many years ago an Australian friend visiting me in London, and bringing a bottle of WB Yellow Label. Even then it was locally say a £10 wine, so a clear cut above everyday drinking wine. And indeed, it was most enjoyable, delicious!

It wasn't really a brand that was on my radar, or that I bought for many intervening years. Until maybe 2-3 years ago I bought a bottle in Singapore. It was either on special somewhere, or I picked it up in Duty Free (DFS). So it was with high hopes I opened it, looking forward to rediscovering a wine from c15 years earlier. Only to find to my dismay, that is seemed no better than an anonymous 'table wine', and a pretty poor one at that!

It's experiences like that that put me off regularly buying wine in Singapore. You either have to pay some pretty serious money, and preferably go to a wine merchant to get 1-1 advice*... or you're at the mercy of anonymous high-street aisles of 'mid-priced' stuff, and little or no way of knowing what's going to be ok, and what's going to be complete swill. The same applies at Changi DFS, who knows what most of the wines are, so how do you pick? You can't assume value for money as I've bought wine cheaper, and not on any kind of special, at NTUC than I have seen the same for sale at in DFS.

*Example: I recently bought two bottles of wine from a merchant at Tanglin. One was a French Bordeaux, that I wasn't familiar with, but I asked for an opinion on it from the proprietor. That was pleasant enough/nothing exceptional. The second is an NZ Cloudy Bay Chardonnay; I'd have probably gone for the Sauv Blanc if it were just for my enjoyment. I have no doubt that that will be an enjoyable wine, well hopefully since it costs about 3* what it does back in England! A few months ago I bought some for a friend back home, from a UK wine merchant, and before choosing it I read the tasting notes, and customer reviews... so fingers crossed.

So apart from wine intended for special occasions, here in SG I find I stick with beer. Of course it's still not cheap, but at least I know that it will be drinkable. Give me a glass of something like Becks and I'll be ok. And if you shop around there are usually enough new lines being brought in to keep things interesting.

I came upon this website recently but hadn't time to read it. I still intend to try their 'How to choose a bottle of wine' decision-tree. Might be interesting trying to get a bottom-up analysis of what wines suit your palette/budget.
http://winefolly.com/tutorial/the-9-major-wine-styles/
'Do it or do not do it: You will regret both' - Kierkegaard

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Re: The "good wine deals" master thread

Post by aster » Wed, 07 Jan 2015 9:54 pm

Wine-buying is a lot easier in the UK, as you can use prices as a general guide in terms of what to expect.

In Singapore if you don't know a wine the price might be genuine, or it can be a trap. There's just no way of knowing because sometimes the distributor will be in rip-off mode so the wine will be priced completely off the scale compared to what it truly costs. Or stores like CS will jack the price up to a ridiculous level and then have the balls to even call it a Manager's Special or Recommendation. Sometimes this will even happen a day after a special promo on the wine ends.

In a way it sort of reminds me of shopping for electronics in the good ol' days here in Singapore. Stores had no prices so you had to ask each time, and of course the prices you'd hear would vary tremendously depending on the store or even the salesperson. In other words - if you didn't know what a good price should be, there was a good chance of getting ripped off. Same with today's wines - here at least you can see prices without asking, but of lot of the numbers displayed are simply rip-off offers.

In general Fairprice is a much better "environment" to make wine purchases in, but overall the best strategy is to know about a dozen or so different wines, how much they should cost, and just hunt for promos on them.
Last edited by aster on Thu, 08 Jan 2015 1:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The "good wine deals" master thread

Post by JR8 » Wed, 07 Jan 2015 10:37 pm

+1 Good advice.

I need to drink more in order to narrow it down :cool:
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Re: The "good wine deals" master thread

Post by maneo » Fri, 09 Jan 2015 2:57 pm

The NTUC Warehouse Club (modelled like Costco) in Joo Koon is also carrying wines.

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Re: The "good wine deals" master thread

Post by Rumpel » Wed, 14 Jan 2015 1:31 pm

Hello,

I have to agree that Penfolds Koonunga is much better than Wolf Blass Yellow Label. The Penfolds "Rawsons Retreat" is not good though.

Reg the Just Wine Club: You can't accumulate the 8% discount with the 5% box discount.

Just came back to Singapore from home and got a wine price sticker shock (again!) in the supermarket. Sigh!

D.

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Re: The "good wine deals" master thread

Post by ErikSG » Mon, 26 Jan 2015 6:02 pm

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Re: The "good wine deals" master thread

Post by maneo » Mon, 26 Jan 2015 6:44 pm

The Straits Wine Company has to move out of their Craig Road location.
Lots of different wines on sale there, some deeply discounted.
Worth a peek.

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Re: The "good wine deals" master thread

Post by JR8 » Mon, 26 Jan 2015 6:50 pm

maneo wrote:The Straits Wine Company has to move out of their Craig Road location.
Lots of different wines on sale there, some deeply discounted.
Worth a peek.
You'd have thought they'd have simply moved their stock to their other locations. Or is it just a standard '''discount'''? Their website doesn't seem to suggest any kind of special sale at that branch.
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Re: The "good wine deals" master thread

Post by maneo » Mon, 26 Jan 2015 7:56 pm

JR8 wrote:
maneo wrote:The Straits Wine Company has to move out of their Craig Road location.
Lots of different wines on sale there, some deeply discounted.
Worth a peek.
You'd have thought they'd have simply moved their stock to their other locations. Or is it just a standard '''discount'''? Their website doesn't seem to suggest any kind of special sale at that branch.
I got notified directly.
I guess I'm on their mailing list.
Don't know why there's no mention on their website.

Not everything is on sale, but much of their inventory is, much more than what I normally see at a different store.

The discounts vary from 20% up to 70%.
Got a couple bottles of a pleasant chiara bianco for $13.

Since everyone has their own personal tastes, it's best you just look for yourself to see if anything you happen to like is on sale.

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