A Wine Day In Haute Savoie

The wine grapes have or should have been harvested now and the wine sales of September have begun. There was a special Sunday opening of our nearby super store today, just for selling wines and nothing else. They had sent out their catalogues about a week ago with the offering from about 2 Euros to 500 Euros a bottle. Many of these wines cost up to four times as much in London. If names like Margaux, St-Emilion,Pomerol,Fronsac and even Gewurtztramminer mean something to you then you know what I mean.


Although we have a local wine merchant who sells us wines from small vineyards, we couldn't pass up the big discounts that were on offer today. It was just like a Market Profile trade. Price had been brought down below the value area and it attracted buyers. We got there at about 7.45 am for an 8.00 am opening. There were already about 20 people ahead of outside the big, wide and high roller shutter leading into the store. By the time it was almost 8.00am, the area behind us was full and the French natives were restlessly awaiting the opening with lists in hand and planning their campaign to get the best deals that were only available in limited numbers. Some wines were in very short supply, only 300 bottles or 50 cases. 


At 8.00 am the roller shutter started rising and the waiting crowd edged forward only to see a row of security guards lined up behind the roller shutter with their eyes bugging out in surprise at the sight of the eager crowd about to trample them. I hadn't seen anything like this since my one visit to a Target opening at 5 am in Minnesota on Black Friday and the opening of a Harrods sale in London just after Christmas. People were using shopping carts as battering rams and to block others from their deals. I made the "mistake" of being polite and allowing a woman to barge in front of me at one shelf and she cleaned out all of the particular wine I had wanted a dozen of. No good deed goes unpunished. 


Anyway, there were plenty of other wines to choose from and Mrs EL and I had done a little homework the night before, so we did have backups. All in all a great morning was had and our wine cellar is looking a lot fuller. We have racks for about 1,000 bottles but room for probably 5,000 bottles if we added racks. I'm not good at laying down wines for the future although I really should, but I'm a day trader and such a long term trade would go against my DNA.