Grapes naturally exist in three forms: solid, liquid, and raisin. Imbibe the fruit's most drinkable state with today's Groupon: for $50, you get a wine and tasting package at Just Grapes (a $102 value). The package includes:
- Four pre-selected bottles of wine, including an Argentinian torrontes, a California chardonnay, a sangiovese from Northern Italy, and a nero d’avola from Southern Italy (a $13 value each).
- A $50 wine tasting card
Cramming shelves and cellars with a wide selection of international wines and a flood of ales, lagers, and liquors, Just Grapes’ quartermasters keep cups raised with their spirituous wares. A pre-selected assortment of fall wines ushers in autumn with whites as crisp as fallen leaves and reds as full-bodied as overstuffed scarecrows. Customers will take home a torrontes from Argentina with flavors of ripe white peach, and aromatic white flowers; a full-bodied California chardonnay with hints of tropical fruit; a sangiovese from Northern Italy showing fresh raspberry, cherry, and strawberry fruit; and a delightfully-textured nero d’avola from Southern Italy with lush dark plum, and hints of spice. Before taking wines home, tipplers can use a preloaded wine-tasting card to sample up to 24 wines from the automated, self-serve tasting bar, gleaning the knowledge of a sommelier’s apprentice without the years of training or pop quizzes on the history of cork. Customers lift a glass to the wine spout of choice, press a button, and sip the flavor of one of eight different white varietals or 16 red varietals from around the world ($0.50–$5.00/taste). Costs are automatically deducted from each prepaid card, allowing tastings to continue uninhibited.
Cellarmasters rotate wines on a monthly basis, and an automatic nitrogen-preservation system keeps the aged grapes chipper. The down-to-earth staff boasts an encyclopedic knowledge of vineyard ins and outs, educating guests with dissertations on sweetness and mouth feel, or wowing crowds with a demonstration of how many grapes they can fit in their mouth at once.