Stocking up on wine for the holidays

It just occurred to me that I haven’t written about one of my favourite topics recently! Christmas is coming up and no doubt you will be thinking about that critical task on stocking up on wines ahead of the party season. Given the amount of empty bottles left at the recycling bank every January, I am pretty sure demand is high.

There are three obvious choices for this. The first and most fun is to head to either the local Rheingau or the Pfalz wine producing regions to visit vineyards and outlets to taste some wine and snap up some bargains directly from the producers. (I intentionally didn’t mention Rheinhessen as it is less famous and picturesque!) But this also involves time and money to get there so let’s move on to more practical solutions.

So now we have buying in shops or buying online. Both have an advantage, but realistically, if you buy in shops you have two benefits. The first is the opportunity to taste, and the second is to get rarer or better quality wines. Shopping at Rewe, Aldi, and the like is okay, but its really difficult to navigate the flavour, quality is often hit and miss, and you don’t necessarily get a bargain to make up for it. So I really recommend either going to a specialist dealer if your budget allows, or going straight online.

For the specialists, I have a few notable favourites, but first I am going to rule out chains like Jacques. They are ok, and have some nice wines as well as tasting events plus an online option, but I haven’t found them to have particular good prices or selection to justify the prices. First place really worth considering is actually Galeria Kaufhof. In the basement food area they have an unusually good selection of wines and spirits. You won’t get much support or any tasting events but the quality and range of wines is really good, especially if you are looking for non-German higher quality wine. They are also very good at international spirits as well (sherries, ports, gins etc.).

Second shop is a small specialist called Frankhof Weinhandlungshaus next to the Steigenberger hotel at Willy Brand Platz. This is a great place to go for support in English with plenty to choose from and really helpful staff. When I need something reliably good and different this is a very safe choice.

Last one is the called Vintage and is in the same building as the Westin hotel at Konstablerwache. The shop is not so big, but they have a good selection and very helpful staff. Don’t be fooled by the online review score – it seems like they aren’t always open when they say they are, but I haven’t had a problem personally. If you can get in, you’ll not be disappointed!

There is one large Rewe worth a mention though at Miquelallee. It has an unusually large selection of wines and spirits and I sometimes find a really good quality wine there for a good price. Plus a better than usual selection of spirits and not annoying locked up in cabinets.

Online options
Which brings us straight to the online option. If you are looking to buy good value (would never say cheap) wines and not stress at how quickly it gets drunk, online is the way to go. But there really is a bit of a minefield of providers. Best option is really Ebrosia. They have really good online reviews, espeically compared to the competition, so you don’t just have to trust me ;). And some excellent deals for buying in bulk.

Another good option at the moment is Weinfreunde. Their reviews are good, but not amazing, but they have a good selection, you can collect payback points and right now, you can get 10x the points if you go through the REWE shop online ;).

A last mention, would be for a small provider, Vinolisa, that supplies Italian wines. They have a google review score of 4.9 and you’ll see why. Its more personalised, they will help you by phone or email to select wines and their website also offers wine according to the type of italian food you are eating it with!