Hey Guys and Gals,

Been a wooter for a while, not much on the Wine!Woot! side of things though. I really do like wine - only reds, and I'm a Cab/Chianti/Malbec kind of guy. Anything my wife smells or sips and makes a face - I know I'll love it. My problem is I don't have many friends or family that like wine, so I'm usually opening a bottle for myself and may drink a total of one bottle every month or two... I know, not a lot. One reason I can't see spending $15-30 / bottle and haven't purchased from wine.woot.

Has anyone had experience with the Vinesse Wine Club? I searched and only found one post, but it was more about a selection and not about the whole "experience" if you will. Best Buy Reward Zone Members (possibly only Premiere members) have access to becoming a member and racking up some reward certificates. Copied and pasted from the myrz.com site:

"Vinesse Wine Club
Get 5000 Reward Zone points and enjoy 6 wines for $6.99 per bottle with American Cellars Wine Club.

Join American Cellars Wine Club®, powered by Vinesse, and get 5000 Reward Zone points (2000 points after your first shipment and 3000 after your second). That's $100 in reward certificates. You'll enjoy your first six bottles of wine for only $6.99 per bottle with 1¢ shipping, and subsequent shipments of $12 - $15 per bottle plus delivery. After your second shipment, you'll get 4 points for every dollar spent on all other shipments."

The link for the deal is here:

http://www2.vinesse.com/bbrzhp1012a/index.cfm

[mod: no referrals please]

For $41.95, you make your money back in certificates alone - 2000 pts is $40. Didn't know if anyone is a member or has experience with them, specifically through Best Buy. Apologies if I am not allowed to post this and feel free to delete if need be.

garrettwheat wrote:Hey Guys and Gals,

Been a wooter for a while, not much on the Wine!Woot! side of things though. I really do like wine - only reds, and I'm a Cab/Chianti/Malbec kind of guy. Anything my wife smells or sips and makes a face - I know I'll love it. My problem is I don't have many friends or family that like wine, so I'm usually opening a bottle for myself and may drink a total of one bottle every month or two... I know, not a lot. One reason I can't see spending $15-30 / bottle and haven't purchased from wine.woot.

Has anyone had experience with the Vinesse Wine Club? I searched and only found one post, but it was more about a selection and not about the whole "experience" if you will. Best Buy Reward Zone Members (possibly only Premiere members) have access to becoming a member and racking up some reward certificates. Copied and pasted from the myrz.com site:

"Vinesse Wine Club
Get 5000 Reward Zone points and enjoy 6 wines for $6.99 per bottle with American Cellars Wine Club.

Join American Cellars Wine Club®, powered by Vinesse, and get 5000 Reward Zone points (2000 points after your first shipment and 3000 after your second). That's $100 in reward certificates. You'll enjoy your first six bottles of wine for only $6.99 per bottle with 1¢ shipping, and subsequent shipments of $12 - $15 per bottle plus delivery. After your second shipment, you'll get 4 points for every dollar spent on all other shipments."

The link for the deal is here:

http://www2.vinesse.com/bbrzhp1012a/index.cfm

For $41.95, you make your money back in certificates alone - 2000 pts is $40. Didn't know if anyone is a member or has experience with them, specifically through Best Buy. Apologies if I am not allowed to post this and feel free to delete if need be.

I don't know anything about that wine club, but I'm in a similar predicament as I love wine, although my tastes have been evolving and it's starting to be the $20+/bottle wines I like more. But I'm single and on top of that I'm a lightweight, at least as far as drinking goes. I'm WAY overweight, but if I have more than one glass of wine, I start to get nauseous.

I haven't found a really good solution yet, although some wines like the 1997 Ardente Estate Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Espressione improve substantially after opening. So I'll open a bottle and then use the vacutainer vacuum pump /stopper and keep it in the fridge. Doing that, I've found that after 7+ days (as many as 10,) being stored in the fridge, the wine is not only still good, but at it's best.

But that's the rare find. Today, through one of the other threads here, I found http://tastingroom.extole.com/a/clk/11FxVk]tastingroom.com where you can buy single glass bottles (100ml.) Obviously they are more expensive on a per ml basis, but cheaper than having to throw out wine that gone bad.

Check you PMs, I'm sending you a referral link. By using that, you'll get $25 towards your first purchase and I'll get $25 also. They are also having a 25% off site wide sale right now.

FINE PRINT: I have never ordered from there before, today will be my first order. But Wine.Woot has sold some of their sampler packs in the past (those are 6 50ml tasting bottles.)

mschauber wrote:
I haven't found a really good solution yet, although some wines like the 1997 Ardente Estate Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Espressione improve substantially after opening. So I'll open a bottle and then use the vacutainer vacuum pump /stopper and keep it in the fridge. Doing that, I've found that after 7+ days (as many as 10,) being stored in the fridge, the wine is not only still good, but at it's best.

SWMBO doesn't much like what I drink either, and I like to try various bottles throughout the week and come back to them later.

I went to a welding shop and got a bottle of Argon and hooked up a regulator and trigger gun to dispense into the bottle. Ar is more dense than air or Nitrogen, so it will cap the wine with an inert gas. Bottles keep easily for weeks, and I just finished off one that was nearly a month open, and capped.

Just do it, it works.

Thanks for the replies guys. To be honest, I'm too lazy to try to hook up an argon bottle and cap off a bottle, haha. Believe it or not, one of my favorite wines is from Trader Joes - the famous "3 buck Chuck" - Charles Shaw. Again, I don't drink often enough to know what's that much better than something else. My problem with the Charles Shaw is I'm in Louisiana and the closest place to get it is Atlanta, New York or San Francisco. When I go, I usually buy 6 bottles (the most I can legally check on a plane I think) and they last... there's still a few leftovers in my rack.

Also, I don't like my wine chilled, so I'm not sure I would like it coming out of the fridge?


Edit: I've tried to Copa da Vino (sp?) wine by the glass - even before it came on Shark Tank the first time. Tried it again after seeing it on Shark Tank and still didn't care too much for it. Maybe it just wasn't my style.

Edit 2: To get around junk mail (even if you can't unsub), use filters to organize mail from certain e-mails into folders so it doesn't junk up your inbox.

garrettwheat wrote:When I go, I usually buy 6 bottles (the most I can legally check on a plane I think) and they last.

Spring for some of TJ's $6-$10 stuff, particularly if it's labeled as "Trader Joe's". They do some fine work for inexpensive bottles. Also, the 5L restriction you refer to is only for the liquors. Wine does not fall into that category. As long as each package is within the weight restriction and packaged properly (styrofoam shipping containers), the airlines don't care. A number of us have definitely checked 1-2 cases (12 - 24 bottles) each on flights cross-country

neilfindswine wrote:Argon is a great idea, and if you don't have a welding shop handy, you can buy it in canisters with little plastic hose deals that you attach and spray into the bottle. Google "Wine Preserver" and you should find some choices.

When we were on the rpm tour this year I spoke with Cathy @Corison. They have several cylinders of Ar around the barrel/tasting room they use to top off bottles and vats with. Interesting conversation. She gave me some of the flow rates they use as well. While I was already using Ar, that was all the validation I needed to know it works.

cheron98 wrote:Spring for some of TJ's $6-$10 stuff, particularly if it's labeled as "Trader Joe's". They do some fine work for inexpensive bottles. Also, the 5L restriction you refer to is only for the liquors. Wine does not fall into that category. As long as each package is within the weight restriction and packaged properly (styrofoam shipping containers), the airlines don't care. A number of us have definitely checked 1-2 cases (12 - 24 bottles) each on flights cross-country

I'll have to do that! Thanks for the heads up!

rjquillin wrote:When we were on the rpm tour this year I spoke with Cathy @Corison. They have several cylinders of Ar around the barrel/tasting room they use to top off bottles and vats with. Interesting conversation. She gave me some of the flow rates they use as well. While I was already using Ar, that was all the validation I needed to know it works.

So if it is heavier than air, do you need to cork it after adding the argon?

rjquillin wrote:SWMBO doesn't much like what I drink either, and I like to try various bottles throughout the week and come back to them later.

I went to a welding shop and got a bottle of Argon and hooked up a regulator and trigger gun to dispense into the bottle. Ar is more dense than air or Nitrogen, so it will cap the wine with an inert gas. Bottles keep easily for weeks, and I just finished off one that was nearly a month open, and capped.

Just do it, it works.

i just love the ingenuity of wooters. How did you put together the rig and what were the costs?

North316 wrote:So if it is heavier than air, do you need to cork it after adding the argon?

I do cork, it would seem unnatural not to and hadn't even considered your question as even most of my open bottles are stored on their sides. I would be worried about turbulence and air currents displacing it if uncorked.

Just googled for some info and found the wiki had some interesting info. Of interest,

"Argon is used to displace oxygen and moisture containing air in packaging material to extend the shelf-lives of the contents (argon has the European food additive code of E938). Aerial oxidation, hydrolysis, and other chemical reactions which degrade the products are Grinch or prevented entirely. ... In wine making, argon is used to top-off barrels to avoid the aerial oxidation of ethanol to acetic acid during the aging process.
woot filter Grinch = r e t a r d e d

bhodilee wrote:i just love the ingenuity of wooters. How did you put together the rig and what were the costs?

Here's a link to a pic I posted in an earlier thread. I still need to add a flow meter, but all the parts I already had in my garage, so for me zero. I have since purchased a bottle dedicated and returned the Ar bottle in the pic back to the welding rig. The bottle was $100 and I've seen gauges and such for well under $50 at Harbor Freight.