Let me preface this article by saying that the wine selection in Anchorage is very good, relatively speaking. I have lived in towns Outside where the only places to buy wine at all were Safeway and Costco. And that is not to say that you cannot get perfectly decent wine at Costco. This article is not about that. If what you need is a bottle of Tin Roof or Menage a Trois or Root 1, by all means, go to Costco. This is an attempt to go a little deeper.
This is about a lesson I learned on BBC America, watching "James May's Road Trip," a wine show hosted by James May, one of the hosts of the British car show "Top Gear," and by wine expert Oz Clarke. James' goal is to learn how to pick a decent bottle of wine out of the corner store for under 10 pounds (roughly $15, depending on how the dollar and pound are doing), and Oz's goal is to teach James to appreciate good wine. The lesson that stuck with me from the show came when they were touring California's wine country, and were visiting a big industrial winery. Oz said that large American industrial operations like this tend to make a homogeneous wine that can be good, but is not ever particularly subtle or interesting, and that the great thing about wine is exploring all the stranger, more eccentric wines that are made by the small wineries that can go so much further in developing the flavors of their wines. Smaller wineries produce more unique, unusual wines. And therefore, by definition, any wine that is produced in quantities such that it is carried at your local supermarket chain or at Costco, cannot be that wine. So, faced with that, what's a wine loving girl to do?
The Warehouse
The first of my top two Anchorage wine sources is the Brown Jug Warehouse, on Tudor and the Old Seward Highway. Brown Jug is an Alaskan chain of liquor stores, and this location is far and away the largest one in town. Most of the stores are small and near grocery stores, and they have about the same variety of wines that you would find in your supermarket liquor section: the Yellowtail, the Menage a Trois, the Beringer, and a couple European wines to round out the field. The warehouse location, on the other hand, has everything. The wine section is huge and is organized by country, and then by grape, and they have an impressive selection. There are a fair number of wines from Italy and France; they also have Spanish and German sections which include the varieties most popular in those countries which are less common in the US, like Albarino from Spain, for example. They have a big South American section where you can pick out a Malbec or cabernet or other varieties common there. Their biggest section by far is for US wines, which is almost as large as all the wines from other countries combined. All their wines are from California, Washington, and Oregon. I asked about wines from other, less dominant states, like Missouri and Virginia, but so far they haven't been able to get any. The diversity is not just in the number of wines they carry, but in the price range. There are a huge number of wines for under $20, and many for around $10. So if what you want is a good bottle of Rex Goliath for under $10, Brown Jug has you covered. If you want a $35 bottle of Rex Hill King's Ridge pinot noir from Oregon, one of my favorites, they have that, too. Or if you are the kind of person who wants to take home a $219 bottle of 2006 Estate cabernet sauvignon from Stag's Leap in California, one of the wineries that beat out France in the Judgement of Paris in 1976, they have what you need.
The Boutique
For the other end of the spectrum, you can go to the store that wants to be the "boutique" wine store. Wine Styles is a franchise, and the Anchorage location is located on the Old Seward Highway and O'Malley Road. This is a store for those who call themselves "wine people," or, as the British James May would say, a "wine ponce." Besides wine, the store sells other things that cater to this crowd: cute wine bottle holders, blown glass wine glass charms, aerators, and cheese boards.
They don't have a particularly large selection of wines here, but the wines they have are interesting. They also have a great staff to help steer you to wines you might like, no matter how well you can actually articulate what you like about wines. They also have a wine club. For $35 a month, you get two of their monthly selections (usually four choices), which usually have a regional theme, and you also get 10% off the price of all their wines, and 15% off former wine club selections. They also do charitable food and wine tastings. They have one coming up at the Alaska Zoo, and in the summer they usually have at least one at the farmer's market for the Alaska Farmland Trust (see previous post). And I really like that the wines they have are not from giant wineries, so you can reap the benefits of the smaller, more creative winemakers. The other great thing about this store is that almost all the wines are about $15, so they still fulfill James May's goal, while also fulfilling Oz Clarke's goal of drinking unusual wines from small wineries. They carry a few wines, I'd say 10% or less of their inventory, that are $20-$60, but most are very affordable, including the sparkling wine and prosecco. I have a membership here, and it definitely helps me to try wines I might not normally go for.
So, whether you want a big selection and huge variety of wines from all over the world that cost from $8 to $200, or if you want a smaller selection of wines from smaller wineries for about $15, Anchorage has what you need to find a great wine to go with a great Alaskan meal.
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