Retail wine groupings: New World vs. Old World

A new wine shop just opened in Atlanta from a young French former sommelier. Right as you walk in, you see this:

One wall is lined with N. America/S. America, and the other with European wines. They are both ordered light to full, white to red. Thoughts? Any other examples of a shop making such a clear old vs. new distinction? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. Otherwise, I like the light to full construct and it’s a small shop, so personal walkthroughs with the owner don’t hurt either to help get a feel for each of the wines.

It’s a nice little shop by the way, plenty of good values from (fairly) obscure parts of France.

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Any comments/suggestions on the blog and website appreciated!

Extra points if he puts all the spoofed up European wines in the “New World” section and Edmunds Saint John and such in the “Old World” section…

My take on the separation thing is that it tends to discourage novice buyers from crossing the lines. But it can depend on how big the overall selection is and is also certainly related to the knowledge level of customers and how much hand-selling is done in the store. There are lots of people out there who don’t know that a French Red Burgundy is Pinot Noir and I always put them together to make the point. I guess the customer who wants only Burgundy might be annoyed by having to look at New World Pinot, but I only had 350 facings so I chose to mix by varietal to maximize presentation and crossover. Just my 2¢.

While I do not have signs labeled “Old World” and “New World”, my shop is organized that way. I have separate sections along one wall for French, Italian and Spanish wines. Everything else (the New World wines) are sorted by varietal. I think it makes sense for a lot of reasons. Who wants to search separate US, South American and Australian sections for a simple Cabernet? On the other hand, I think it is a bit misleading to place a garriguey (is that a word?) Languedoc in the Cabernet section. Or a Cotes du Rhone in a Grenache section along with Bitch. And I just can’t bring myself to place a classified growth St Emilion or Pomerol in the Merlot section.

Also, I think that mixing Old World labels (typically dense with information in old school fonts) and New World labels (much more modern and colorful) is jarring to the eye.

She.

The shop is owned by my friend, and former restaurant somm, Perrine Prieur.
I hope she does well in her new endeavor.

Groovy.

Anyway, there is a shop in Milano that has “Vini Italiani” and “Vini Marmellate” (marmalade wines) with all the science fiction Baroli, Feudi di San Gregorio, Planeta, Bussola and such. LOVE IT!

I could give a rat’s ass about what other people think, as long as it works for my customers.

We had Old World/New World separated for a long time but as more White Burg producers started putting ‘Chardonnay’ on their labels, we started splicing them in to our New World Chardonnay section and all of the sudden our White Burg sales were up 20%. Whenever you think you have a mold, the best thing to do is break it on the floor yourself.

thanks all for the comments, i agree w Roberto’s sentiment - it’s strictly geography, not stylistic. arcadian is prominent on the “new world” wall for example. and i do think that a bit of guidance is required within each section since many of the wines are fairly esoteric and it would be hard to know a style of even varietal profile for many of them.