Wine shopping in California

Anyone who has been to a grocery store in California probably knows that there is a small wine selection we get to choose from. The selection is actually so large that it is often times feels almost impossible to pick out a wine, especially if not familiar with the wine maker. I'll briefly share a story of how I stumbled upon what has become one of my favorite lower priced wines.

Seeing how the prologue (short bike time trial, I will explain later) of the Amgen Tour of California bike race conveniently takes place in San Francisco, I headed into the City to witness the best cyclists in the world first hand. The very entertaining Prologue Festival is where I stumbled upon Cycles Gladiator wines. Being a sucker for stuff related to cycling, I naturally grabbed a coupon and some information about what the winery has to offer. Initially dismissing the wine as just another mediocre bottle of cheap California wine, I mistakenly let the coupon expire without even giving the wine a try.

While walking through a local Safeway four months later (*sigh*), I came across a low priced bottle of Cycles Gladiator 2005 Central Coast Chardonnay -- I simply had to try it. Even though I was extremely skeptical of the wine, it turned out to be quite yummy! Damn myself for not trying it earlier.

I now don't pass up the opportunity to purchase a bottle or two of Cycles Gladiator when I find it on sale. (Don't get me wrong, I would still much rather have a ~$30 bottle of wine, but that gets far too expensive.)