A really quite nicely done article in today’s NYTimes by Asimov: HowToPickAWineStore
on how to pick a wine store.
I thought it was going to be the usual blah/blah/blah stuff filled w/ the tired old cliches on the subject.
He’s dead right in you can tell a lot about a wine store simply by walking in the front door. It’s quite like finding a good book store…you can tell a good one as soon as you walk in the door simply from the smell. Well…maybe not for a wine shop.
He, quite correctly, points out that it’s not important if they store they btls standing upright or laying down. I know a few anal types who won’t patronize a wine shop unless all the btls are stored on their sides.
He also emphasizes the importance of shelf talkers that are actually written by the staff…rather than some pre-printed shelf talkers written by some attourney in Monktown.
I was amused by his consternation in a SantaRosa Safeway with names like CherryTart/LayerCake/Zin-Phomaniac/FreakShow/etc. He labels them, rightly, as junk-food aisles.
Anyway…nothing really profound but an insightfully done article by Eric.
Bargain crates near the door? They often contain less interesting mass-market wines that are rarely good values.
For those who haven’t visited the store, CSW does this, but theirs have a very high hit rate for being fantastic values and interesting wines. But he already called out that store as an examplar.
He didn’t, Robert. I did. Whenever I go into a wine shop and see these pre-printed shelf talkers that say “Parker 93”
or “WS 96” or “TomHill 72”, I immediately know that this is a shop that’s not making an effort & I probably won’t find
anything of interest.
Tom
I discovered the owner on social media a year ago (I remember because it was around the time of Premier Napa Valley and I was following that hashtag). I always meant to go check in on the shop (although it looks like she has 2!), but it kept falling off my radar (probably because I’ve never heard/seen anyone else mention it). Will have to make an effort to go check it out.
On a separate but related note – I was happy to see Bay Grape get a nice mention. I wandered into their shop on a trip out west in September and fell in love with the place immidiately. Really great selection of wines (at least for my taste). Since I had nothing to do that day until my friend got off from work, I saddled up to the bar with a bottle, cheese and they toasted some bread. It was the perfect indoor picnic, exactly as the story suggests.
Just my take, but I perceived the article (and Tom’s commentary) to be directed at retail staff who put up shelf talkers prominently displaying critic’s scores. At the expense of stating the obvious, seeing a shelf talker with a WA 93 point score or WS 92 point score tells you very little about whether YOU (the customer) will like it, much less whether the wine will pair well with whatever meal you’re planning. Some retailer shelf talkers tend to take the rather lazy approach of finding some score somewhere in the critical universe 90 points and above and making that the focus.
A few people on donrockwell.com have mentioned it positively in the past. At least one of the locations does a fair amount of food business. Just tried to find the thread, but came up empty.
Say what you want about shelftalkers, they sell wine. I still consult for a few retailers, and if a $15 bottle of Spanish red wine gets a 93 score from The Wine Advocate, you damn right I am going to put a shelftalker up there. There is still a very large portion of the wine buying public who will refuse to take advice from wine staff, nor take the time to read a well written shelftalker from store staff. Rather than lose them as a customer, you have to give them what they want.
It helps fund those damn Mondeuses from Bugey I purchase too much of -
^ absolutely true of my experience when I was learning about wine. If there were two bottles and one had 91 points for $18 and the other had 90 points for $20, you can be sure I was going with the former; the review and the reviewer didn’t matter.
Let’s be honest 90% of the wine buyers don’t care about the shop and its qualities. They buy what they like and are not driving across town for a sale.
