Hey guys/girls: Take a free gander at a small segment of our upcoming June 3BOTTLES below. The theme is Rosé, the wines are awesome, and can be yours for $49.99, along with the full text written by Lex and I. Read a sample of our prose below, and swing by for a complimentary swig of delicious pink wine Friday from 3PM to 6PM and Saturday afternoon from 1PM to 4PM. Or take the plunge and sign up for our monthly 3BOTTLES wine program by following this link or calling 919.968.8993.

A quick aside: thank you all for the inspiring support you have provided us during this year. We knew (or at least strongly believed) there was a community around 3CUPS that would embrace our quirky take on things. (Putting quality of product first, what a crazy plan...) But you've tolerated us, given moments of your time so we could orate about arcane farming methods, indigenous yeasts, and the good people and places that make the wine that gets us excited to come to work in the morning. Seeing our dream of this place in action, because of your visits and support, is as good a feeling as I can expect to find at work.

Jay Murrie

June 3BOTTLES... Rosé

 

I'm really proud of this month's wines! We're featuring organic rosés I picked out on my trip to the south of France in January. I feel a strong attachment to these wines, and they represent a new beginnning for 3CUPS. For me as a wine buyer, meeting and spending time with these farmers in France is similar to what you experience when you shop at the Farmers' Market. After the excitement and mayhem in opening our Elliott Road location, this trip to France was my opportunity to think about where the new 3CUPS was, what it needed to grow, to plot what estates to add to further our mission of offering ethically sound, naturally farmed, delicious and inexpensive wines for our customers.

 

The relationships we forge with these estates in the years ahead will make us a better wine store. When I find a grower, an estate, a family that I respect and trust, it allows 3CUPS to buy directly (or as dirctly as NC law will allow) and regularly, large quantities of the estate's wine. This streamlining benefits us, it benefits the farmer, and the cost savings of this simple logistical system are passed on and benefit you, by offering you better value in the wines you take home.

 

Because we're not interested in the common way of creating cheap wine. See Dana Goodyear's May 18th, 2009 New Yorker article on Fred Franzia for a closer look at how the big boys do it, click here. (Note: a subscription is required for the full text or come by and you can read our copy.) We have to employ a more refined concept of what value really is - it has more criteria than blunt price - quality, environmental and social impact, but at the same time we know you aren't all millionaires out there, and we too get excited about buying wines that seem to punch above their weight class. Delicious at a good price is a beautiful thing. So at 3CUPS we aim to select, to hone in on a small selection of awesome products and buy a bunch of each of them to keep the per unit cost low. It's not a new idea, but by adding some flavor standards and ethical criteria to the framework I think we are creating a better version of this strategy.