I’ll Toast to That

I’ll Toast to That

June 19th, 2009 @ 2:06 pm by Mrs. Joey

Like Ms. Gloss, the Joeys also held a little wine tasting last weekend. We had 10 random friends over to try the 7 bottles of white and 3 bottles of bubbly we managed to gather the weekend before. I wish we had pictures of the night. It was a lot of fun. I also wish I had pictures of the tasting sheets. We numbered the bottles 1 to 10 and then gave everyone a sheet of paper with the numbers 1 though 10 on it. We asked everyone to comment on each wine they tasted. Some did the simple yay or nay, while others were really descriptive of what they tasted and liked about each wine. It worked really well.

Despite everyone’s palettes, we had 2 overwhelming winners for the white and the Cava. We initially were looking for a $7 bottle of white and $10 bottle of Cava. When our red selection came in super cheap ($5.91 including tax), we decided we could look at $9 whites, too.

And the winners? Everyone loved the 2008 Barnard Griffin Fume Blanc. It was the most expensive wine in the lot, but it was really good. We were told that we would get a 15% discount if we paid in cash or by debit card, so that brought the bottle down to $8.28 including tax.

The Cava we selected was a 2000 Freixenet Cava Brut (sorry, I don’t know how to list its name).

It was a $12-15 bottle of Cava that local wine wholesaler, the Wine Outlet, was selling for $9 a bottle.

It was totally doable. When we purchased our sample bottle of the Freixenet, the salesman told us that if we were buying, we’d have to purchase after June 14th because it was going on sale that day. We got a steal of a deal during the sale. The $9 bottle went down to $5. Yes, FIVE DOLLARS!! Seriously! We ended up buying 33 bottles and it only cost us $180.84 including tax!

Why 33? We bought 2 cases for the wedding. I had originally budgeted for 1.5 cases at $10 a bottle. I figured we’d just use the Cava for the toast and not give guests full glasses, but at $5 a bottle, we could get 24 bottles for $120, and still be under the $180 I budgeted for. We also got 6 bottles for the rehearsal dinner and 3 extra bottles for us; 1 to celebrate getting our building permit (if that ever happens), 1 for our 1st anniversary, and 1 just ’cause. You never know when you should pop open a bottle of bubbly.

In addition to the great deal on Cava, we also picked out 9 bottles of Magnificent Wine’s 2007 Chardonnay. It wasn’t the winner at the tasting, but it was in the top 3. Why did we pick up 9 bottles? Because they were selling them for $3 a bottle. Yup! Including tax, it came to under $30. We figure we’ll either use it at the rehearsal dinner, shower, or bachelorette dinner.

Right now, I think we’ll be right at budget or under for our beverages.

Budget: $720

4 bottles of Pimm’s - $74.25
24 bottles of Cava - $131.52
18 bottles of Red - $106.53
18 bottles of White - $150.91

Total left - $256.79

Left to buy (these are estimates):

4 bottle of Gin or Rum - $80 (buy at PX - no tax)
4 cases of beer - $22-26 each plus tax
Assorted sodas and mixers (lemonade) - $30

P.S. This is our red option:

I can’t believe the deal we got. Seriously, I almost feel guilty.

What wedding steal are you most proud of?

Tags: alcohol, budget |

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10 Responses to “I’ll Toast to That”

Bee

Miss Bruschetta (message) 5,553 posts, Bee Keeper

Yea for cheap (but still delicious) alcohol!

6/19/09 @ 2:08 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Spaniel (message) 2,597 posts, Sugar bee

Mmmmmm, wine….

6/19/09 @ 2:18 pm (reply)

Guest

Miss. Weather

My dress. I got it for $200 when it was originally $2500. A bridal store where I live burned down last year and the woman that owned it decided to close it down. Well before the fire she had ordered 400 dresses and they arrived on her doorstep at her house. She just decided to sell them at $200 a pop finally and I got exactly what I wanted.

6/19/09 @ 2:34 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Gloss (message) 1,053 posts, Bumble bee

Jealousy cannot begin to describe my feelings on your amazing prices.

6/19/09 @ 2:42 pm (reply)

Member

kim0309 (message) 115 posts, Blushing bee

You can probably get beer cheaper than that!!! Look for sales at grocery stores and buy then. The stores get so much in bulk that they can sell for less than wholesale prices. We shopped around at a couple stores and asked when their sales would be. We ended up getting cases of domestic beer for less than $20

6/19/09 @ 2:55 pm (reply)

Member

Bridebella (message) 349 posts, Helper bee

Sounds like lots of good deals! How did you decide how much to buy? Did you just rely on the drink calculators out on the web?

I’ve never heard of the wine outlet, but we are getting married in Spokane so that is definitely an option for us!

6/19/09 @ 3:00 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Joey (message) 829 posts, Busy bee

@Bridebella: The first thing I did was go through our entire guestlist and eliminate all the people who wouldn’t drink. That brought our numbers from 120 to under 100. Then I went through and looked at how many people were probably only going to have one drink. After that I calculated who was going to drink what.

I used a bunch of online drink calculators and they came up with the same breakdown. I double checked with each wine store we visited also.

6/19/09 @ 3:20 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Taffy (message) 2,598 posts, Sugar bee

Great find! Having a wine tasting sounds like so much fun!

6/19/09 @ 3:37 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Mouse (message) 3,301 posts, Sugar bee

What a great deal! We’re buying all our on alcohol, too. Let us know how it works out after the wedding!

6/19/09 @ 3:44 pm (reply)

10.

Member

mdarrah (message) 1,006 posts, Bumble bee

Score!! For the mixers, you might want to go the crystal light route. Cheap, easy, and tasty lemonade! (Plus an assorted array of options for more out of the box mixer ideas.) And hte left over is super easy to bring back home and use later.

6/19/09 @ 4:32 pm (reply)