Your Friday Grab Bag

Thank you for checking in here at our blog. Our goal is to make sure you have the best possible information about our store, our products and our industry. If you have any concerns, please use the feedback form to let us know. Meanwhile, here's what you should know:

Early Store Closings

We're doing inventory next week, and it's a time-consuming process. Our Lawrenceville store will close at 4pm on Monday, January 12. College football fans will note that the championship game is that evening, so please plan accordingly. Our Woodbridge store will close at 4pm on Tuesday, January 13.

Events in Lawrenceville

We're fully back on our weekend wine tasting schedule. Today's tasting is 4-6pm; click here for the tasting menu. Saturday, the tasting is 2-4pm. Click here for the tasting menu.

Look for us at the WPST Bridal Show on Sunday, January 25th, at the Westin Princeton at Forrestal Village. If your wedding or special event will take place at a venue that allows you to bring in your own wine, spirits or beer, our experienced team can help you with your planning. We've helped with hundreds of weddings and other events, so we know that we can provide you with outstanding service that matches our exceptional prices.

Click here for the WPST site and registration information.

Tim Smith's Climax Moonshine (Both Stores)

Just to be clear, Climax is the town in Virginia where Tim Smith started. Tim is a true bootlegger turned legit. Tim will be in New Jersey for a bottle signing and tasting, at our Lawrenceville store on Saturday, January 31, from noon -2pm, and at our Woodbridge store that same day, from 4-6pm.

Tim Smith's Original Recipe Moonshine is distilled from corn, rye and barley malt. Clean and natural tasting with a subtle sweetness and bold defiance.

Events in Woodbridge

Our weekend wine tasting will run from 4-6pm today, and 1-3pm tomorrow. We've just added a tasting from New Jersey's Bolero Snort Brewery on Saturday, February 1, from 1-3pm.

New Products

Maxwell Creek Napa Reserve Chardonnay is a stunning Reserve Chardonnay from a well known winery in Napa's Rutherford District. This wine is quite consistent vintage after vintage and made in a fruit forward style. In the Bottle Club® for only $14.96. In stock now in Lawrenceville (it's on the wine tasting menu for today and tomorrow), and it's coming soon to Woodbridge.

Ripped from the Headlines

A massive fire in Australia is already impacting wineries there. Click here for the story.

We've recently discussed wine theft here in the US. How about France? This is from Wine Spectator:  Before dawn on Dec. 8, Jean-Francois Garon, owner of Domaine Garon in the French village of Ampuis, walked outside and quickly realized someone had broken through his entrance gates. When he reached the cellars, he saw the doors had been forced. A team of burglars had quietly broken in and loaded 150 cases of Côte-Rôtie, worth upwards of $100,000, into trucks and escaped. “The gendarmes took fingerprints and are investigating,” Kevin Garon told Unfiltered. Curiously, rather than entering the modern cellar, a more obvious target, the thieves headed directly to an old cellar used for preparing shipments. “They didn't end up there by accident. They knew where to go and that the wine was ready,” said Kevin. “For us it was an exception to have so much wine ready for shipment stored over the weekend. Normally we do that midweek.” Four wines were taken: Les Rochins AOC Côte-Rôtie, Les Triotes AOC Côte-Rôtie, La Sybarine Côte-Rôtie and a Vin de France. “It was our 2012 vintage. We started pruning for that wine in 2011, and we were only now starting to earn something for our work,” said Kevin. “When you only produce 30,000 bottles a year, it really hurts to lose 1,800.” The Garon family has been making wine in the village of Ampuis since the 15th century. “The furthest back we’ve found a vigneron in the family was 1475,” he said. This is the first major theft in family memory, but a neighboring estate has not been so lucky. “One estate was burgled three years in a row," Kevin said. "[The thieves] always act quickly, and they’re well-organized.”

Have a great weekend!