Wine snobs don't need fat wallets

By U.S. News & World Report

It's all Shawn Lightfoot can do these days not to get lost as he walks through the maze of wine boxes stacked 18 feet high at Denver's Applejack Wine & Spirits.

As the chief buyer for the nation's largest wine store, the 35-year-old oenophile has been hard-pressed to turn back a flood of suppliers desperate to unload thousands of excess cases, often at pennies on the dollar. "I try to say no, but there's been so much good stuff coming in," he says of an inventory that has increased by nearly a third, to about 80,000 cases. (There's a big pre-Christmas push to move personal computers as well.)

The wine industry's pain is your gain this holiday season. Markdowns nationwide have made this about the best time to stock up in more than a decade. Prices for top-rated brands have been reduced by as much as 40%, while even prize vintages once available only to restaurants and collectors are now in plentiful supply (albeit still at relatively high prices).

"It's found money," Lightfoot says as he points to a stack of a Cakebread Cellars cabernet sauvignon culled from the sought-after Vine Hill vineyard. "We've never gotten our hands on that before."

With so much to choose from, Lightfoot suggests corralling your favorite wine snob for suggestions, a task made easier thanks to connoisseur sites such as eRobertParker.com, the West Coast Wine Network and Vinography. (Also, see "Great wine buys: An expert's picks.")

Credit an unprecedented glut of wine grapes for the consumer's bounty, the result of years of aggressive planting and a subsequent run of good weather in many of the world's grape-growing regions.

"It's hard to think of an area that's had a really rotten harvest in a long time," says James Laube, an editor at Wine Spectator magazine, whose recently published list of the top 100 wines of 2006 includes vintages produced not only in bacchanalian capitals such as Italy and France but also in Washington state (No. 2), Chile (No. 4) and Australia (No. 10). "Fact is, there's more great wine being produced in more places than ever before."

Indeed, proliferating advances in viticulture and wine-making technology have dramatically reduced the chances of uncorking a bad bottle. Meanwhile, a recent wave of consolidation and increased Internet sales have helped streamline the industry's once-Byzantine distribution system, which has pumped a surplus of as much as 120 million cases into the U.S. market recently.

Aussie overload a big factor

A healthy portion comes from places such as Australia, where local wine producers estimate there's enough excess supply to pour 7.5 billion glasses -- at least one for every person on the planet. A recent drought and subsequent frosts are expected to trim both this and next year's Down Under harvests. But even then, the glut is expected to last at least through 2009.

The result is a bevy of what some wine experts have dubbed Two Dullah Koala wines, a play on California's supercheap Two Buck Chuck, sold at discounters for little more than the price of bottled water.

Some of the best deals are on better, higher-price varieties such as a 2005 Torbreck Woodcutter's Shiraz. It recently earned a 93 rating from the Wine Advocate's Robert Parker, who calls it "an outrageous value . . . radically changing one's opinion on what can be purchased for a mere $20 a bottle." (Applejack now sells it for $14.)

The deals aren't limited to Australian wines. During a search for a dozen best bottles from his store's 15,000-item inventory, Lightfoot picks a California cabernet from Beringer's 2002 Knights Valley vintage ($15, marked down from $25), a 2004 Columbia Crest Pinot Grigio from Washington state ($5, down from $10) and a 2000 French Clos du Marquis Bordeaux ($46, down from $70). For his complete list, go here.

Not that those who take their chances have much to lose. After all, at $5 a bottle, those who don't find the 2005 Spanish Borsao on Lightfoot's list to their liking can always mix it into their favorite spaghetti-sauce recipe, which will "flavor it up nicely," Lightfoot says.

This article was reported and written by Alex Markels for U.S. News & World Report.