Tips for shopping at Costco

[Bill_Tex_Landreth]

I remember standing behind a couple folks at my local Costco and watching their attempted return of spirits denied. Both involved the Kirkland brand. The only time I ever bought Kirkland Vodka, it was some of the worst.

True story, Kirkland Vodka is made by Grey Goose.

[Michael_Martin]

I remember standing behind a couple folks at my local Costco and watching their attempted return of spirits denied. Both involved the Kirkland brand. The only time I ever bought Kirkland Vodka, it was some of the worst.

True story, Kirkland Vodka is made by Grey Goose.

Worst vodka we’ve ever had.

[Alexandre_L]

I have noticed both at our local (Eugene, OR) Costco and at some in California that the signs in the wine department are often misleading, inadvertently or otherwise. I look each wine up on the mobile Wine Spectator app; sometimes if the sign lists a high scoring review in the 90’s, it is for an earlier vintage than what is being sold, so I suggest always checking. Often, the signs state “no review available” for a particular wine when it would be more accurate to say “no favorable review available”. If so, I have been known to take the sign out of the plastic holder, write in the actual WS score and replace the sign. Haven’t been busted doing that, but…

Once, the sign listed a 93 point WS score on 2015 Castello di Gabbiano Chianti Classico Riserva which was technically accurate for the one bottle of that vintage in the display boxes; all the other bottles were the 2014 vintage that scored in the 80s . I looked under the display boxes and found a couple of intact cases of the 2015; while I was loading them in my cart, the local Costco wine manager came by looking peeved. I mentioned what I was doing and asked if “the customer is always right” which he admitted was the “case” (so to speak…) So, even at Costco: Caveat Emptor!

[Ian_Sutton]

Love that tactic, and absolutely you can say you are just being helpful, offering to show them the actual WS score for that wine.

This shows one aspect of the way scores are primarily for marketing, and not the helpful consumer aid they purport to be. Those wine shops / wineries that play this game, will also trawl around the different critics until they find any good scores and just promote those. Alternatively if the wine is really bad, then they can always rely on Suckling for a high score

As for the 2014/2015, vintage does matter. There was an interesting recent thread in the Wine Talk sub-forum recently about whether vintage mattered as much as we make it out to, and indeed about recognising it’s often more about a different style of wine, rather than objectively better or worse, but absolutely I can see no-one disagreeing that vintage matters and as a customer, you should choose the one you think you’ll appreciate more.

[Alexandre_L]

I remember standing behind a couple folks at my local Costco and watching their attempted return of spirits denied. Both involved the Kirkland brand. The only time I ever bought Kirkland Vodka, it was some of the worst.

True story, Kirkland Vodka is made by Grey Goose.

Kirkland vodka produced by Grey Goose? Doesn’t look like it:

Who Actually Makes Kirkland Vodka? - Mashed

Furthermore you can look it up yourself at the TTB site (but not easily ):
https://ttbonline.gov/colasonline/viewColaDetails.do?action=publicDisplaySearchBasic&ttbid=18283001000674

You’re welcome!

[Sean_T]

Costco is pretty much our only decent local resource for wine and even though the selection is on the smaller side for a Costco, they carry a lot of great wines and the fast turnover keeps the selection fresh. Not to mention the great prices. They carry a great European selection which we like.

I occasionally check out The Costco Wine Blog for what to look out for. This is an unaffiliated blog that reviews many of the wines found at Costco.

A funny experience for us is that after we travel to a European area famous for wine we suddenly notice a lot more offerings from that area at our local Costco. This could be attributed to heightened appreciation/attention on our part, however, when we returned from Bordeaux in late 2019, about a month later we counted 16 different wines from Bordeaux and the French Malbec region. We had a real nice selection for several months and we really stocked up. Now we don’t see much.

Synchronicity I suppose, except the same thing happened several years earlier when we returned from Provence and the Côte d’Azur. Our Costco still carries a lot of rosés from that area.

First post.

I would assume most of that is just the additional appreciation and attention on your part. But still cool nonetheless.
My parents shipped back wine when they visited Castiglione Del Bosco on an anniversary trip, some of it library, which is fine. But they also shipped current release and I was like WHY? Costco 3 miles down the road carries it.

[Troy_Stark]

Official Costco Thread here:

Official Costco Thread

[Mattstolz]

my tip for shopping at Costco is move to a big market. our Costco sucks for wine.

[EliseNerlove]

The kirkland brand prosecco is a great tasting prosecco at a great value. It’s around $8, the label is purple. We did a prosecco blind tasting, lots of DOCs and DOCGs and the kirkland brand was a top rated prosecco among a lot of the tasters. I recommend you give it a try if you see it. At $8/bottle it’s worth an experiment at the very least.

[MNoonan]

I’ve noticed Total Wine & More using a top score from one vintage, while the bin is filled with a more recent vintage that is not as highly rated. I just know now not to trust them on that.