Your favorite online shop for grower champagne

WINE TALK
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As lucky as I am to be in the Chicago market with good access to some wonderful independent shops, I still find plenty of producers never make it to the Midwest and I’m curious what the community likes in terms of online shops carrying a good range of grower champagne producers.

I see Saratoga constantly in W-S results, usually for pre-arrival. I haven’t purchased with them and curious what kind of experiences others have had. Vinopolis comes up too on the west coast, especially for producers like A. Margarine that I’ve been trying to procure.

Thanks!

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Saratoga are good for shipping and have great prices. Almost too big a selection (I wish you could exclude pre-arrival) and I have no experience with the timeliness/reliability of pre-arrival stuff from them, just what they have in stock.

Chambers (nyc) has (to my uneducated eye) a great selection of grower fizz usually, and they only list in stock or have pretty firm dates for arrival.

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Sec Wines. Eric is always helpful.

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Envoyer, Lopa, Courtier.

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Some other suggestions here too

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Here in SoCal, Hi-Time has always had the best Champagne selection. Woodland Hills Wine Co has been stepping up their game too.

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Both great stores.

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https://courtierwines.com/

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I have been buying from Saratoga Springs and am very happy. Large selection, free shipping options, and excellent pricing.

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Fatcork is terrific.

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I think there’s only one answer. The store that has the friendliest and most knowledgeable owner, the most well written prose (no ChatGPT help!) and soon a direct complaint line to critics: https://www.assaggi-weinhandel.de/.

Happy holidays to all!

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How do you find their pricing? I haven’t bought from them in forever because every time I check their prices they’re like 20% too high.

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But how is their shipping to the US? Bunch of stuff I’d like to buy a caseload of, maybe even get on their allocation list!

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Yeah, seems their prices are inflated, but they usually had what I was looking for in this category that I had very little knowledge in. So, paying for that convenience didn’t upset me, as I probably wasn’t going to comparison shop. Also I started buying when they first started, and yes prices have gone up since

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I placed an order with Hi-Time, they were great to work with. Thanks for the recommendation!

Have you done pre-arrival orders with Woodland Hills? They have consistently great prices on some things I’m interested in, but always a little wary of doing anything pre-arrival from a simple trust perspective. I see they’ve been in business for decades, so that’s a positive, but I’ve seen enough places fold that it gives me some pause.

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Great experiences with Woodland Hills, including pre-arrival Champagne (‘14 Bolly LGA).

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Good to know, thanks!

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I think Woodland Hills and HiTime are 5 star.

Berserker @Veronica_Castro is a bubbly buyer at HiTime

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For me, xtrawine has a great selection (despite them positioning themselves as a primarily a supplier of Italian wine - of which they also have a huge selection). They are based in Europe, the UK, and Hong Kong; they do ship to (some of) the US, but I’m not sure how competitive they are once you add in shipping and taxes.

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Yes! I have been buying the hell out of Woodland hills and High times lately! Need to slow down now that I think about it :slight_smile:

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