Liquor Mart wine club serves bottle for any budget

BOULDER — For wine lovers, nothing is better than enjoying the nuanced and multi-layered tastes and textures of a great cabernet, or savoring the dry tinge of a chardonnay, just slightly chilled, on a lazy summer evening.

Well, wine fans, take heart. The folks at Boulder’s Liquor Mart have cooked up a new and tasty way to say “thank you.” Rather than a one-time dinner or a gift certificate, a client, friend or significant other can now be rewarded with membership in the store’s Wine Club.

The Club, available at seven different price levels, was started in February by the store’s general manager, Jack Stoakes. It’s been a hit ever since, he said, with several hundred customers signing up so far this year.

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The Club works like this. Customers pay an up-front fee, anywhere from $100 to $500, and in return the store selects a wine each month for a year for members of each club. The least expensive club gives you selections from the “World’s Best Wine Values”; the priciest group means you’ll be treated to the “Fine Wines of the World.”

Liquor Mart’s four wine managers conduct tastings and then select the wines that are featured each month for each club. Members then come to the store to pick up their selection, along with literature that describes the wine and the region from which it comes. (For a fee, the store will ship the wines, too.)

For club members, receiving a new bottle of wine each month offers a great learning experience, said Tom DeLia, one of Liquor Mart’s wine managers. Throughout the year, members will be exposed to several kinds of reds and whites.

And for the novice wine drinker, a club membership can help demystify and deflate what can often be a snobbish wine culture. “We are not stuffy about wine. We are egalitarian about it,´ said DeLia.

One misconception, he said, is that inexpensive wine is cheap wine. Low price doesn’t necessarily equate with low quality or poor taste.

“There’s a world of wine for under $10,´ said DeLia. He said the most important thing to know when buying a wine is what questions to ask.

“The more specific you are, the better service you will receive,´ said DeLia. “How much (do you want to spend)? Is it for a party? Is it for a dinner? Are you trying to match food? Is it a gift? Is it to drink tonight? Is it to lay down?”

DeLia offered a couple of picks for those on a budget. For a white, he suggested a California wine from Cotes D’Oakley called a Vin Blanc. “It’s a blend of about half a dozen different grapes, it’s $5.99, and it is a medium-bodied wine, with just amazing complexity for a wine of that price.”

For a red, he suggested a bottle of Vecchio Greppo, from the Puglia Winery. It’s from Southern Italy, and, said DeLia, “It is a crackerjack table wine for every day, and we sell tons of it.” It normally sells for $3.99 but is frequently on sale for $2.99 at Liquor Mart.

And if wine just isn’t your thing, Liquor Mart has clubs for the beer buff and liquor drinker, too. Stoakes said his store offers clubs featuring single-malt scotches and agave tequila, as well as three different clubs for suds. Other benefits of membership include discounts on stemware, invitations to members-only tastings and discounted tickets to certain events.

More information on Liquor Mart’s clubs is available at the store’s Web site at www.liquormart.com.