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Costco Advent Calendar Wine #2: El Campeón White Sangria (France)
Round Two of the Costco Wine Advent-ure is about to begin: El Campeón White Sangria. But is this bottle a champion, my friends? We’re about to put it to the test and find out. “Grape Wine with Natural Flavors” reads the back of the label…and that’s usually not a marker of a wine of quality.…
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Costco Advent Calendar Wine #1: L’Artiste Ripasso (Italy)
Last year, I got the Costco Wine Advent-ure Calendar around Thanksgiving, hoping to taste all the wines before December 25. But wouldn’t you know it? The busy-ness (and booziness) of the holiday season intervened, and I fell too far behind. I forgot I had a wine fridge full of half-bottles. I ended up drinking most…
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It’s here! The 2025 Costco Wine Advent-ure Calendar
Santa’s wine elves must have been working overtime this year. The Costco wine advent calendar is ready–and it’s only Labor Day Weekend! We don’t grumble about Christmas creep where wine is involved. Holiday wines are an absolute joy…from German Glühwein to little glasses of Port by the fireplace. The earlier they’re in stores, the longer…
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The trippy AI wine art of Flying Blue Imports
Costco sells a wine advent calendar, which we reviewed back in December. The wines are generally pretty good. But the video marketing materials that accompanied them are nothing short of a surrealist masterpiece. Today we’re looking at samples from the vast AI art dump that accompanied the 2024 calendar release. The wines are by Flying…
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Review: Costco’s Marquis de Bern Bordeaux Supérieur (plus my top-secret lamb shank recipe)
Wines with castles and knights on the labels are fancy. That’s a wine fact. And cheap Bordeaux is always preferable to no Bordeaux. That’s a wine fact, too. Both facts were on my mind when I cautiously opened this bottle of Marquis de Bern Bordeaux Supérieur. My cellar (read: lower bar cabinet) records are a…
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What Is This Thing? Tinto de Sol Calimocho
Welcome to the first installment of What Is This Thing?, in which we try odd bottles from the periphery of the world of wine. Today I’m tasting Tinto de Sol Calimocho. Is it wine? The label helpfully describes it as an “aromatized wine-product cocktail.” So, yes? Let’s get into it! Calimocho (also spelled Kalimoxto) is…
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Review: The Costco Wine Adventure Calendar (2024)
Update: Costco’s 2025 calendar is out now! Peek inside the box here. Or, if you’re curious about what the wines taste like, check out our archive of reviews from the 2025 Wine Advent-ure Calendar. As every suburban wino knows, the wholesale club Costco can be a reliable source for better-than-drinkable wine at rock-bottom prices. The…