Costco wine surprises: ‘If you see it, buy it’
Getty ImagesVice President Joe Biden pushes a freighted cart during a
Christmas-shopping visit to a Costco store in Washington.
With more than 68 million members, the population of Costco customers is close to the size of Italy’s (with room left over for Ireland’s, too). And like the citizens of those two countries, Costco customers drink a fair amount of alcohol: Costco’s wine sales reached $1.4 billion in the 12 months through August.
Costco sells both foreign and domestic wines under its own Kirkland brand name, but the Kirkland Signature label represents a small percentage of the chain’s overall wine sales, said Annette Alvarez-Peters, Costco’s assistant general merchandise manager for wine, spirits and beer. Domestic wines account for 70% of Costco’s wine sales, and the company does a great deal of business in large brands such as La Crema Chardonnay and Folie Deux.
Marriage, it’s said, is all about compromise, knowing when to
resist and when to let go. I recently made a fairly minor concession and reaped
some rather nice rewards: I agreed to get a Costco card.
My husband had been petitioning to join the warehouse club for many months,
and I finally ran out of reasons why we should not. (Most of those reasons had
to do with its space-straining merchandise — everything at Costco comes in
extra-extra large.) But the real reason that I finally surrendered had to do
with its wine department: I’d heard there were great deals in Costco (US:COST) stores.With more than 68 million members, the population of Costco customers is close to the size of Italy’s (with room left over for Ireland’s, too). And like the citizens of those two countries, Costco customers drink a fair amount of alcohol: Costco’s wine sales reached $1.4 billion in the 12 months through August.
Costco sells both foreign and domestic wines under its own Kirkland brand name, but the Kirkland Signature label represents a small percentage of the chain’s overall wine sales, said Annette Alvarez-Peters, Costco’s assistant general merchandise manager for wine, spirits and beer. Domestic wines account for 70% of Costco’s wine sales, and the company does a great deal of business in large brands such as La Crema Chardonnay and Folie Deux.
But Costco also sells wines from small producers and prestigious estates, and
this was what interested me the most: I’d heard stories of people finding
bottles of first-growth Bordeaux at their local Costcos, of first-rate Champagne
and fancy Napa Cabernets, too. Most of these stories seemed to take place far
away from my home state of New Jersey, which has only two Costcos with liquor
licenses (in the towns of Wayne and Edison). State law limits the company to
those two licenses, according to Siobhan Clements, Costco’s Northeast regional
wine, spirits and beer buyer.
Would I be better off driving to a nearby state, like, perhaps Connecticut? Did its Costcos have a better selection of wines? (None of the New York Costcos has a liquor license.) Clements assured me that the New Jersey Costcos had a good selection of wine, thanks primarily to a good network of distributors. (A good Costco wine selection is “all about the distributors,” according to Clements.)
In fact, Clements added, the Wayne Costco, the one closest to my home, had a very good selection. She checked her list and read off a few names: “Silver Oak Cabernet, Insignia, Tignanello in large format and Chateau Giscours” (a Bordeaux third growth). These same wines could be found in the new store that she just helped to open in Washington, D.C., said Clements, adding that Costco liked to stock new stores with particularly good wines.
Would I be better off driving to a nearby state, like, perhaps Connecticut? Did its Costcos have a better selection of wines? (None of the New York Costcos has a liquor license.) Clements assured me that the New Jersey Costcos had a good selection of wine, thanks primarily to a good network of distributors. (A good Costco wine selection is “all about the distributors,” according to Clements.)
In fact, Clements added, the Wayne Costco, the one closest to my home, had a very good selection. She checked her list and read off a few names: “Silver Oak Cabernet, Insignia, Tignanello in large format and Chateau Giscours” (a Bordeaux third growth). These same wines could be found in the new store that she just helped to open in Washington, D.C., said Clements, adding that Costco liked to stock new stores with particularly good wines.
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