I must confess to enjoying the dialogue between well-intentioned consumers and well-intentioned ITB types. When asked if I need help, I always say “Oh, thank you, but I’m ok” (or something like that), but I love listening to the budding conversation of others.
Overheard once in Chicago (as close to verbatim as I can remember):
“Can I help you find something?”
“Yes, I think it’s called Beaucoup Dudo”
“Ah, I’m not sure I am familiar with that? Do you know the region?”
“Yep, Bardot” [sounds like Bridgette…]
“Oh, possibly Bordeaux…I’m not familiar with that particular wine…hmm, Beaucoup Dudo?”
“It has an orange label.”
They go over to the Bordeaux section, where the guy points to a Ducru Beaucaillou
“That’s it!”
“Oh, Ducru Beaucaillou!”
“Whatever…this is good sh*t”
“I certainly hope so”
i asked a customer if she needed help finding anything specific and she asked me, “i’d like a wine that tastes grapey…like adding vodka to grape juice.” i showed her the few australian wines we stocked.
The week before Christmas many years ago. I was wandering around in the fine wine section of what was then the best store in the area. The staff was very busy. I see a very well-dressed customer who looks confused. He asks me if I work there. I say no, but I still might be able to help since I know the stock pretty well. He says, “I have to get some gifts for friends. I’m thinking about a case of 89 Haut Brion or a case of 1990 Latour.” I said “Can I be your friend?”
He laughed. I asked how serious his friend were about wine. He said only a little. I recommended the HB, so he got a cart and walked off with 2 cases. I always wondered who his friends were.
I’ve mentioned this in a couple of posts before as the funniest and yet most strikingly accurate tasting note on icewine I’ve ever overheard coming from a customer in the Royal DeMaria tasting room: “This icewine tastes just like… icewine!”
Two woman (cougar-ish) say: “Show us where the Pinots are.” They look for a few minutes, every now and then trading confused looks with each other and occasionally picking up a bottle and holding it very close to their eyes. Wondering if there is a problem I am about to ask them about their confusion when I hear one of the women say to the other one: “Where are all of the white ones?”
Slightly off topic, as this was at a party. As conversation turned to wine, I asked someone what wines they preferred. She answered “Goods wines, the ones over $50.”
In actual fact, I feel like I have some kind of obligation to those people. In the case of the 2 girls above, I simply barged into their conversation and told them that it’s a grape and it can be very different depending on who made the wine. So I asked them what wines they liked and helped them find something similar. (It wasn’t Syrah.)
What Dan said. I’ve forgotten more than I could list.
The guy who came into Marty’s Allston and insisted that I give him a ‘Chardonnay Prosecco’ and then scoffed at me and stormed out of the store when I tried to explain to him the relative differences and that I was certain no Prosecco was made from Chardonnay is in my all-time top 3, however.
It ain’t funny, but something I hear regularly from tourists from the midwest and certain other states. After walking around the wine displays for several minutes, one of the group/couple/etc., will pick up a Cakebread Cabernet and announce that we carry “high end wines.”
I asked the store manager at Total Wine where they kept the Burgundy. He took me to the Bordeaux aisle and said, “here. Burgundy is in Bordeaux.” It was an interesting geography lesson.
alan
Sales Rep “And here is a nice Cabernet from Napa”
Woman (50ish) “Napa, I just got back from a trip from there. They make great wine there!”
Sales Rep (just smiled)
(deep in the store, ruminating over a bottle of Muga v. LdH. A saleswoman approaches.)
“Excuse me, are you looking for wine?”
(Looks around. Is surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of bottles of wine.)
“No, I’m actually trying to by my girlfriend a puppy and I’ve very confused. Where do you keep the puppies?”
(Saleswoman stares at me, and, over 5 seconds or so, her eyes widen.)
“Oh, I see. You’re being funny.”
I then went over to the burg section, noticed that a NSG-LSG was priced lower than the other NSG wines they carried for the producer. Since this woman was the only one working that section of the floor, I called her over, showed her the prices and suggested that it was possible they had confused the LSG for the NSG villages wine. She told me that Burgundy was complex and that once I learned about it, I would understand the pricing. At that point I shrugged my shoulders and bought the (presumably mispriced) LSG.