In the spirit of helping to make that San Antonio wine shopping experience just a bit friendlier, Three Nine Wine is introducing our Guide to San Antonio Wine Stores, Shops and Merchants. The guide is a Google Maps mashup of our favorite places to shop for and find great deals on red, white & sparkling wines in San Antonio.

Screenshot from our Guide to San Antonio Wine Stores, Shops and Merchants

From superstores like Walmart, to grocery stores like HEB, to chains like Gabriel’s and Spec’s, to local wine shops like Saglimbeni’s, the Guide to San Antonio Wine Stores is where you’ll find information about who has some of the best deals on wine in SA plus ratings from Three Nine Wine and links to user generated reviews from sources like Yelp. We’ve also started experimenting with how to share tips and check-ins from location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla.

Though still in beta, we decided to open things up to the public as we build and you can now access the guide anytime via the link San Antonio Wine Stores which we recently added to our main navigation menu above.

And to give you a little glimpse into what’s coming down the road at Three Nine Wine, we’re working on taking all the information we’re creating and collecting on San Antonio wine stores, reviews and ratings (along with our wine reviews spreadsheet) and curating it into a special version of the web site optimized to help you use your smart phone or favorite mobile device to find an awesome bottle of wine at a great price in San Antonio.

image of G1 from T-Mobile Launch Event photo by Flickr user MobileBurn

Ultimately, we think it could be pretty interesting to build a layer of augmented reality services on top of all this wine data and release it as a downloadable app for Android devices, the iPhone and iPad with the hope of delivering the ultimate mobile shopping experience for tech savvy San Antonio wine consumers.

Stay tuned — and if you have any feedback or input, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Thanks for visiting Three Nine Wine.

Can you recommend something different to try in a red wine for around $10 dollars?

…the 2008 Tormaresca Puglia Neprica would be near the top of my current shortlist of wines I’d point them to.

Made in the Southeastern region of Italy known as Puglia, the Tormaresca Neprica is a blend of 40% Negroamaro, 30% Primitivo (which is genetically similar to Zinfandel) and 30% Cabernet Sauvignon . The name Neprica comes from combining the first few letters of the names of each of those grapes.

I first learned about this wine late last year while chatting with a vendor who was stocking the shelves in the wine section at HEB. I mentioned I really enjoyed the Penfold’s Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet and he suggested I check out the Neprica. Turned out to be good advice, somewhat ironically though because for my palate the quirky Neprica offered a much different experience than the more traditional Penfold’s. And by quirky I mean unconventionally delicious, delivering a solid combination of value and taste that earned the Neprica a spot on Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s Best Buys of 2008.

A common thread among the reviews and mostly accolades I’ve been reading about Neprica is that it pairs well with just about anything. After serving the wine with a variety of dishes I would agree with that, and perhaps even take it a step further in that you will want to pair it with something. The unique personality which makes the Neprica special works extremely well when it shares the stage with a main course. Less so I thought when it had the spotlight all to itself. Or, to put it another way — if you’re searching for a red wine to serve at/bring to your next casual dinner party, Neprica may be just what you’ve been looking for.

I purchased the wine originally for $8.47 at HEB -

but have since seen the price moving quite a bit, from a high of $12.98 -

to $10.99 I saw during my last visit.

While I haven’t seen it there myself, there are also several mentions online from fans of this wine of it being available at Costco. If you can find it in your favorite neighborhood wine store for under $10, the 2008 Tormaresca Puglia Neprica is one of the more interesting bargains in red wine I’ve tasted recently.

Wine Name: 2008 Tormaresca Puglia Neprica
Three Nine Wine Rating: ****½ (4.5/5)

Related links:

Wine Searcher prices for Tormaresca Neprica.
Corkd reviews of 2008 Tormaresca Puglia Neprica
Snooth reviews of 2008 Tormaresca Puglia Neprica.
Wine Curmudgeon Review of Tormaresca Puglia Neprica.

The Whimsical aisle of the HEB wine section.

If I were a wine maker, I’m not sure how I’d feel about seeing the fruits of my labor categorized as “Whimsical”. I do know that when shopping for wine, I tend to skip that aisle. I may have to rethink that usual route because though it is a non vintage wine, I thought the Barefoot Chardonnay offered an experience similar to that of some well made, moderately priced wines often seen on the shelves of a merchant’s Chardonnay or California section.

Now, if you’re searching for the kind of complexity that you might get from an old world Chardonnay-based white Burgundy then obviously this may not be the wine for you. Still, for the $6.99 I paid at HEB, I thought the Barefoot Cellars Chardonnay delivered plenty of value. (I also saw it for $4.97 at Walmart who btw carries another value priced California Chardonnay you may want to check out)

.

While trying to come up with a useful way to capture what this wine is all about, I ran across this quote on the The Wine Buyer from Barefoot Wine Maker Jennifer Wall:

“The wines are affordable, varietally correct, soft and approachable and are immediately ready to drink off the shelf.”

That sums up the Barefoot Cellars Chardonnay pretty well.

Wine Name: Barefoot Cellars Chardonnay California
Three Nine Wine Rating: ***½~ (3.5/5)

Related link: Cork’d Wine Reviews for Non Vintage Barefoot Cellars Chardonnay

Note: Not sure if this was a permanent price reduction or a temporary sale, but after writing this I saw the price for the Barefoot Cellars Chardonnay had been reduced at HEB.

The 2007 Cupcake Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon could be one of the prettiest wines I’ve tried lately. Rich, dark, silky and just downright gorgeous in the glass. Kind of like a liquid version of Magic Hour.

The taste? Almost as good as it looked.

I saw the Cupcake Cab on the shelf in the little wine section of the Brookhollow HEB and purchased a bottle based on my friend’s suggestion. I tasted the wine initially paired with some gourmet turkey burgers, and then finished it off alongside a mail order prime filet mignon a relative had been nice enough to send along as a gift.

Overall, thought the Cupcake was a worthy companion to both meals, and at $8.99 a solid choice for someone looking for a value priced Cabernet Sauvignon.

One thing I noticed about this wine — for better or worse — is that it seemed as though the wine really didn’t change much as it spent time in the glass, or from the first day to the last. Consistent from start to finish. And if you like your tannins on the slightly bold side, then you might even enjoy this wine a bit more than me.

Wine Name: 2007 Cupcake Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon California
Three Nine Wine Rating: ***½~ (3.5/5)

Unfortunately, I thought the Cono Sur 2008 Pinot Noir didn’t quite live up to the moment.

Though the nose was decent and I found some things to like, for me this wine had a subtle but difficult to ignore medicinal aspect to its taste that made it a challenge to enjoy anything else good about it.

I come across this medicine-like characteristic in red wine from time to time and have gotten curious about what can cause it. I’ve only started my research on the topic, but from my understanding so far I think the science behind it has something to do with acid levels (or lack thereof) present during the fermentation process.

As that first glass sat and with subsequent pours the wine did get better, but never good quite enough for me to where I’ll be buying another bottle anytime soon.

Wine Name: 2008 Cono Sur Pinot Noir
Three Nine Wine Rating: **~~~ (2/5)

An important note — This wine is different from the Cono Sur Vision Pinot Noit and Cono Sur Reserva Pinot Noir, so be sure and be on the lookout for those differences.

But, unfortunately it didn’t work out that way as I found this Riesling to fall squarely in that “too sweet” camp where many Rieslings seem to live. And I say this as someone who’s been enjoying some value priced Rieslings lately. Somehow those wines have found a way to stay true to their Riesling heritage while overcoming their sugary stereotype, where this one — at least for my palate — does not.

Now it’s important to note here that this is NOT the Llano Estacado Late Harvest Riesling which I have yet to try, but rather a blend of juice from a variety sources.

And perhaps this description of the wine from their website may explain what happened with this offering:

A short supply of high quality Texas Riesling has restricted our production. In order to provide our customers with an ample supply of this popular variety, we have utilized premium grapes and juice from Texas, Washington, and California.

Maybe these particular Texas and California grapes mingle about as well as Spurs and Lakers fans?

Now to be absolutely fair, the longer this wine sat the better it got. And by the second day it was almost ok.

Almost.

Though I’ll keep rooting for Texas based wine makers like the Llano Estacado Winery to succeed, I don’t think I’ll be buying this one again.

Llano Estacado Vinters Selection Riesling

$8.99

Three Nine Wine Rating: **~~~ (2/5)