Close friend is hosting her daughter’s wedding in early Oct and needs to buy wine for the event. Apparently the venue and caterer will let her byo. She’s asked for my advice but i don’t know which stores (or distributors if someone here can hook me up) i should consult. Need reception and dinner wine for about 80-100 guests and i think she’d like to keep it under $25/bottle if possible. Suggestions where I should help her shop? Need someplace that will deliver on a saturday (altho it is possible that caterer will take delivery during the week).
Ideally the source would have a good selection of sub-$30 european wines and maybe even CA wine if not oaky cab/chard. TIA for suggestions.
Years ago when we lived in Orange County, my wife and i visited Temecula two weekends in a row. This was in preparation for our wedding. The first, all we tasted was White, and at the end of our trip, bought a case of the wine we liked best. The next weekend, we did the same for Red. We had tons of fun, great memories and were able to find quite likable cases for the party - and a great story to tell our friends and family.
They don’t advertise much but everyone who knows wine knows them. They have a little area off to the side with a few tables and on Friday nights people bring bottles and share them, a little like they used to do at some of the wine storage places in NYC. The prices there are totally reasonable and the selection is good. It’s one of the only places I was able to find some cru Beaujolais, for example. And the staff is pretty good.
No affiliation, I was just happy to find them.
And I would suggest trying a few Mexican wines - you’re not likely to find them anywhere else.
There are a few other places, but overall it’s a beer town more than wine. There are a couple of store/restaurant places like 3d Corner that have nice selections if you want to go there, have dinner, and open a bottle to see how it goes. Temecula is quite nice, but I wasn’t able to find much good wine there, other than at Cougar, which was good but expensive. Most of the places will be charging a minimum of $30 a bottle and they sell out to tourists so don’t really have much incentive to produce good stuff. Ramona might have a better selection of wineries but I don’t know any to recommend.
I would second Joe’s suggestion about Bird Rock Fine Wines. Ken Chalmers is the owner there and is very knowledgeable. He has a nice selection of vino at many different price points.
The Wine Connection in Del Mar Highlands is another go to for me, although their selection tends to skew towards the higher end.
I live in Solana Beach, a few miles north of La Jolla. I wasn’t impressed with Third Corner’s selection, and Wine Connection in Del Mar has very few interesting things except for the higher-end wines, as Brian mentions.
I’d add Village Vino in Kensington, The Rose in South Park and Vino Carta in Little Italy if you want to go a bit more esoteric. The Whole Foods in Del Mar has a shockingly good selection as well, though with the Amazon purchase I’ve noticed lots of things on sale lately. Lastly, both Wine Exchange and Hi Time in Orange County deliver and have excellent selections.
Another unique option in La Jolla that your friend might want to check out is LJ Crafted Wines http://www.ljcraftedwines.com/.
It is owned and operated by the former owner of the Klein Constantia winery (South Africa) who has relocated to the neighborhood. He buys and vinifies a variety of different grapes from Napa and serves them from barrel and in growlers in a neighborhood wine bar. They don’t do any bottling or distribution. I won’t be pouring their juice at any WB offlines but they draw a good crowd and their customers are happy.
I don’t know if they do events but if I were throwing a big wedding I might ask if they would send a few barrels and a tap. That would make for a pretty fun experience for the guests. (I might also try to hit him up for a bottle of Vin de Constance for the wedding couple.)
Kinda surprised no one offered up the most obvious place yet. The OP asked for solid sub $30 wines not high end or esoteric wines. SD Wine Co has a good selection, consistently the best prices and its just up the road from the UTC Mall in La Jolla area. Inventory changes often and they sell high volume. Its the one wine shop you see people walking out with cases of decent quality wine rather than bottles of wine. If you want to pick some nicer bottles or bubbles they have that as well. Look no further than
Another option is to work with the retailer out of the area and have them deliver it directly to the caterer. You can even work with wineries in places like Santa Barbara County that can ship pretty quickly.
This opens up all kinds of possibilities, like working with Winex or K & L . . .
A number of good recommendations so far - one that I would add and highly recommend is Kogod Wine. Max is local in San Diego and has a great collection of high end wines, but also a nice selection of under $30 wines, mostly European. A number of Rieslings/Gruners (Donnhoff, Keller, Hirsch, Nigl), along with Tessier, Occhipinti, Faury, Fleury, Produttori del Barbaresco, etc in the under $30 range.
Max has a tag for wines from $20-40 on the main page:
And here is a sort from low to high $$ which will capture a few additional wines that are sub $20:
Always great service and personal attention from Max!
Cheers,
Steve
Edit to add that Max sells on-line only (no brick and mortar), but does deliver for $1 locally in San Diego County.
I would second the recommendation for Max at Kogod. He shipped me some wine to LA for my wedding last year. Well chosen selection and excellent service.
You could check with Martin Steinley, who posts here. He’s runs a small email operation, but would probably work with you to organize wines of the kind you describe, and he works on pretty small margins. Only buys wines he knows and likes, and is very helpful and reliable.
My sister lives nearby and I’ve been here a few times. Nothing fancy. You buy out of the carboard cases and selection changes fast, but we’ve had some really good wines from here. I would recommend it in a heartbeat.