Economics: Shooting Star Blue Franc (Lemburger)

In California this past summer Bookdwarf and I had the chance to try a lot of wine we’d never heard of. One of the best– and best values– was Shooting Star Blue Franc. It’s made from a weird grape called Lemburger, which I think is from the same area as the stinky cheese, but is otherwise unrelated. Anyway, some guy from Washington State thought it was fun and makes some great wine with it. When we got back to the east coast we were glad to find it at the Wine and Cheese Cask in Somerville for about $13/bottle. Now, if you buy twelve bottles of wine at once, most places will give you 10 or 15 percent off, so that’s effectively in the under-twelve-dollar range. We stocked up on it– a twelve-buck bottle isn’t an every-day wine, but it’s not a giant expense.

With a value like that, people will eventually catch on. Shooting Star has since been endorsed by blogs (Dr. Vino) and journalists (New York Times) and cooking websites (Star Chefs), and social shopping networks (ahem, StyleFeeder). Today at the wine shop, the price was up a dollar.

That moves it in my mind just across the line between “nice” and “special,” so I only bought two bottles instead of six.