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.

Here are a couple medalists from this year’s competition that I’m going to keep my eye out for next time I’m visiting my favorite San Antonio wine stores:

Ironstone Vineyards 2008 Cabernet Franc $10
Banfi Centine Super Tuscan 2007 $9.99
Bonny Doon Vineyards Pacific Rim Dry Riesling $7.99
Sutter Home Family Vineyards 2008 Chenin Blanc $5.00
Redwood Creek 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon $8.00
Barefoot Cellars 2006 Chardonnay $6.99
Bella Sera DOCG Chianti 2008 $8.00
Palo Alto Reserve 2008 from Maule, Chile $9.99

Am not sure of the availability of a few of these wines. Some are very recognizable names that I’ve seen on the shelf before and have previously passed on for one reason or another. Others on the list have not been on my radar at all but look like they could be an ideal fit for what Three Nine Wine is all about — finding and trying great value wines that we’ve never heard of before.

The prices shown are the ones provided in the printed competition results.

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.

$2.97!?!….Walmart?!?….This is not going to be good for anyone…

Well…it turns out I actually enjoyed this wine.

Now it’s possible that my generally positive reaction was merely a result of some very low expectations going in, and this wine is really not as good as I think it is. Only better than I thought it was going to be.

Either way, for $2.97 it struck me as a wonderful bargain. And not only for drinking.

I was trying this wine while preparing a pan seared Tilapia for dinner and used it to liberally deglaze the pan to create the foundation for an awesome sauce.

Chef juice, indeed. (hat tip to Heather)

Over the holidays, I was fortunate to get the opportunity to sample a variety of higher priced Chardonnays and I can’t say that I found this wine to be better than those wines costing more than 10 times as much. I didn’t — though pleasant and easy to drink, the Oak Leaf Vineyards Chardonnay did come across as a pretty simple wine. Still, I’d be interested in seeing how it held up in a blind tasting.

It wouldn’t surprise me if it performed better than a lot of people could ever imagine.

Ultimately, for the price, I think it’s tough to beat the value this wine delivers. Not to mention the added bonus of mingling with the people of Walmart when you shop.

Wine: Oak Leaf Vineyards Chardonnay
Three Nine Wine rating: ***½~ (3.5/5)

So as the urge arose once again to try a new Malbec, I went in search of the 2007 Altos Las Hormigas Mendoza Malbec at Gabriel’s Wine and Spirits San Antonio Superstore on Blanco after seeing the wine listed in this Wall Street Journal Tastings Column on Best Wine Values of 2009.

I couldn’t find the 2007, but I did see the 2008 and decided to try a bottle.

And I wasn’t disappointed.

In fact, I remain a little intrigued by this wine. Overall, I thought it was silky, but with enough going on in the structure to keep it interesting. That combo of characteristics fits my palate well. Yet there’s something in the nose of this Malbec from the Mendoza region that I can’t place. Even after enjoying the bottle over the course of a couple days I could never figure out what that something was.

All I know is that I liked it.

Wine: 2008 Altos Las Hormigas Mendoza Malbec
Three Nine Wine Rating: ****~ (4/5)

Wine Price: $11.99 – 5% Gabriel’s cash discount = $11.39

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)