Planning the alcohol has been pretty easy so far: spreadsheets are kinda dorky fun, and budgeting with a good spreadsheet is fairly easy. Beer has been no problem: Mac and Jack's, a Seattle-area microbrewery that doesn't even sell in bottles (or have a web site!), is what I usually order in a bar, and it's really good. It's also local, which is a plus. Likewise for liquor: we're not doing too bad as long as we have Tanqueray for imtboo's favorite, Tanqueray and Tonic. (okay, there aren't any local gin-makers, AFAIK, and that's all right.)
But wine! wine is a doozy. I just started looking at choices for wine, and it's kind of overwhelming. Neither imtboo nor I is a wine
snob connoisseur so we aren't the sorts of people who will appreciate the difference between decent wine and $50/bottle excellent wine.
I found the rather overwhelming Cork'd wine-tasting/purchasing online social network, but their idea of cheap wine is "less than $20 per bottle". I'm a plebeian: to me, "cheap" is less than $6, and "reasonable" is less than $10. Both imtboo and I like the idea of serving our guests local wine (where "local" is "Pacific Northwest", not necessarily "Puget Sound").
So I guess what I'm looking for is (for each of red, white, and bubbly):
- Pacific Northwest
- less than $10/bottle
- better than expected for its price
I guess that's enough to go ask somebody. Anybody have a wine-steward at a Seattle-area store that you particularly trust?