2006 Villa Pillo Toscana Borgoforte Located!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
One of my first posts here on the Wellesley Wine Press featured a 92-point Wine Spectator wine with a release price of just $12: The 2006 Villa Pillo Toscana Borgoforte. 92 points for $12 is a huge Quality-Price-Ratio (QPR) winner; especially for an Italian red.
While visiting some wine shops in the metro Boston area yesterday, I stopped in for a visit to Upper Falls Liquors in Newton. The shop is affiliated with Post Road Liquors in Wayland and Auburndale Wine and Spirits (also in Newton) as I wrote here. Their web site is http://thepostscript.com.
Anyway, their special this month and last is "buy 6 mixed bottles from the US or Italy and get 20% off". Those are pretty broad categories, so as I walked around I had a few California wines in mind but nothing I *had* to get. Then I asked the friendly clerk if he had any Villa Pillo (because looking through the bins of Italian wine is a mind-bender for me since the labels all look so similar after a while.) He said "Yeah sure- we have it up front." I was like "Wow!". They had 3 cases of it at a price of $12.99 per bottle. I bought 6 for a per bottle price of $10.39.
For me, it's this kind of value that makes hunting around for specific wines worth it. $10 is a tough, ultra-competitive price point. There is an ocean of bad wine seeking to make its way into our homes- how else to avoid wasting money on mistakes other than relying on professional critics and trusted local wine shops? Not that I always agree with Wine Spectator ratings, but on average I think they're right more than they're wrong.
I haven't cracked open a bottle of this '06 yet, but I did have the '05 and I gave it 85 points. You can read my Cork.com review here.
Other shops that I've heard have this wine in stock (thanks to you readers out there who dropped me an E-mail when you noticed I was looking for this wine):
- Long Island, NY http://popswine.com
- Chicago http://samswine.com
- Newton, MA http://www.murraysliquors.com
- In Western MA http://www.nejaimeswine.com and http://www.spiritshoppe.com
Update (12/2/2008): I cracked open my first bottle of this wine, and I was impressed. It is a very nice wine and it may be worth the hype. I gave it 90 points- read my Corkd review here.
Further reading:
I explain why this wine is absolutely the best value I've talked about to date in "How to Buy Wine Like Warren Buffett Buys Stocks"
Question of the Day: If you've had this wine- please tell me what you think. I'll crack a bottle open soon and will update this post with my rating. If you haven't tried this wine, what wines are you serving for Thanksgiving?