One of my favorite wine shops in Portland, Maine - the Portland
Greengrocer, is sadly going out of business soon. The owner, Nick
Witte, told me that he simply wants to move onto other things after 15
years, and would like to get out of the food and wine business.

Due to this, all the wines are 10% off, which in many cases, merely
brings the relatively high Maine prices down to what I often see in NH.
However, case discounts are 20%. So, I trodded down there during
lunch today and assembled a mixed case.

Some highlights:

1989 Veuve Clicquot Reserve. $39.
1997 Chateau Musar - $32
2002 Chateau Musar Cuvee Rose - $14
2001 "Les Chenes Carteaux" 1er Cru Nuits St.-Georges - $29

Nothing earth shattering, but some decent deals nonetheless. It's a
shame that they're going out of business though, as the owner, Nick
Witte, is a nice guy with good taste, and his small-mid sized wine
selection was always interesting, and had an exceptional ratio of
excellent, even obscure wines.

It's always sad when a favorite store goes out of business, I guess.

- Chris

"Chris Sprague" wrote in
oups.com:

It's always sad when a favorite store goes out of business, I guess.

So true. Specially when the store has been making an effort in bringing
availability of out of the common stuff.

Best,

S.

One of the wines that I picked up during their liquidation sale was the
2001 Clos d'Englora AV14, from the Cellars Baronia del Montsant.

It's a blend of Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache , Merlot, and
Syrah. I had it at a tasting at the store late this summer, and
remember being floored by it, but at the time I didn't want to buy a
$40 wine on a whim, since oftentimes one good wine following a flight
of merely OK wines can be decieving. Anyway, the memory of this one
didn't fade, and when the sale started up, this wine was one of my
reasons for arriving early: I wanted to get mine before they were all
gone. It's a bit rare, at 225 cases/year worldwide. I picked up two
bottles, for about $32 each.

FWIW, I looked up Parker's rating, and he gave it a very good review,
and 93 points.

So yes, that's the kind of thing that this particular store was good at
finding. Things a bit off the radar, but excellent nonetheless.

- Chris