Five Money Saving Tips For Those Who Enjoy Wine
We’re pleased to introduce Milwaukee blogger Erica van Heerden. Erica focuses on food, wine, and travel on her blog Erica’s Choice. We invited Erica to guest blog on Milwaukee Consumer from time to time, and we hope you enjoy the new perspective Erica brings to our blog. As regular readers of Erica’s blog and her tweets, we have learned that you can enjoy good quality wine without overspending, so we asked her to share a few tips on how to save money when purchasing wine.
The past couple of years have been economically challenging and many of us adjusted our lifestyles to accommodate the fact that we have less money to spend on items such as dining and wine. During this time I also faced these challenges. Included in this post are a few things that I’ve been able to implement that allowed me to save while still pursuing the hobby of collecting and drinking wine with friends.
5 Money Saving Wine Tips:
1. Buy wine in bulk.
Wine stores in Milwaukee offer a 10-15 percent discount if a case of wine is bought versus one bottle at a time. In most instances you can choose different varietals to make up the case and even if the wine is already on sale an additional discount will be added! Look out for these so you can have an extra few dollars to spend or save.
2. Grab a drink before the night out.
You’ll drink less on the road, you don’t have to tip and you don’t pay the 50-100% mark up on the glass that you’d be paying in the pub/wine bar!
3. When traveling hit the wine section in the grocery store!
The wines offered here will be same ones you get in the local wine bars. In fact, most of the time grocery stores offer a wider variety of wines from local distributors than what you will find in restaurants! It’s a great way to try local wines without paying the additional mark up.
4. Find the Happy Hours (at home and on the road).
There are many apps/websites that will provide a list of local Happy Hours in a city. For example, I just Googled Milwaukee Happy Hours and found this list. Take advantage of these. Nothing tastes sweeter than a glass of wine at half the price…
5. Read reviews before buying the expensive bottle.
Myth: Expensive wines are always good a value.
Fact: In many instances wines are grossly overpriced. Do not underestimate the value of a reasonably priced bottle. Read reviews before purchasing. These days most wines are reviewed online and these reviews are easy to access. Follow me or other wine critiques on Twitter to get objective opinions. I strongly believe that you’ll find a ton of instances where two bottles are equally rated; however, one may cost double the price of the other. Don’t get caught in the web.
