I've been shopping at the Bargain Grocery Outlet (BGO) for a little over a year. It's a chain of grocery stores selling items that they've purchased at huge discounts, so they can pass on savings to customers. The items are often discontinued because they label art has been changed, or other cosmetic reasons; it's all perfectly good. BGOs carry produce, meat, dairy, frozen products, chocolate, coffee, canned goods, household items, and a few seasonal items. They also carry beer and wine, and more often than not you can pick up both at some pretty incredible prices. There are about 130 BGOs in six Western states, though each store is locally owned and managed. Most of the buying is done out of the California headquarters, but I notice that there's still a fair amount of different inventory at different stores. BGO's wine buyers are interested in buying good wine at a good price, and travel all over the world to do it.

Mostly, we shop at BGO for the incredible wine bargains, though it's the kind of store that you shop without a pre-defined list. You pick up items that catch your eye when you see them, because they might not be there the next time. It's a lot of fun to pick up a bottle of wine, and then work your way backwards through the store putting together a meal that pairs with the wine. I've written a fair amount about the wines we've tried because of BGO. There have several that we enjoyed so much, we went back for more, or even bought a case. The wines range in price from $2.99 to 15.00 or so a bottle. There's a a 20% off wine sale coming up at the end of March; at last year's spring sale we scored California Dancing Bull Cabernet Sauvignon just a little over $2.00 a bottle, counting tax. Lately, we've been delighted by a Sonoma, California Black Goose Chardonnay. This year's sale runs from March 30 to April 3, 2010.

This year, BGO has rounded up some wine bloggers to write about BGO wine. You can read about Mary Cooks' BGO wine adventures here. Nate Davis' BGO reviews are here. Josh Wade of Drink Nectar is giving away a $50.00 BGO shopping card. BGO supplied the bloggers with $50.00 cards to buy and blog about BGO wine, and a second card to give to readers—so go read those blogs and participate in the giveaway!