Garnet Wines in NYC

[John_Morris]

I went through a phase around 2016-2017 when I bought a decent amount from them. They still had a few interesting wines back then. It looks like their ownership changed hands once again circa 2019-2020 and, as others have mentioned, the new owners have not really updated the inventory much other than restocking new vintages of wines they carried previously and raising price across the board. …

I checked with someone in the trade who thinks it hasn’t changed hands again.

[Sam_Kwak]

They’re probably right then. Garnet had an inventory overhaul, price increase and some T&C changes around this time, and whoever’s writing the e-mail offers seems to have changed so I thought an ownership change behind the scenes might have been the reason. But then its downward trajectory has been a fairly steady one so that makes sense too.

[Peter_Hirsch]

My road to spending too much money on wine passed through Garnet when I ordered 1990 Bordeaux futures off an ad in The New York Times.

Same for me! Was my first foray into the world of what I thought were expensive wines. I lived in NYC in various apartments from 1987 until 1994, so I only owned maybe 100 or so bottles until I moved to the suburbs, most of those bottles purchased from Garnet. I kept going there into the early '00s, but by then I’d found the London wine market, a real love for Burg, and Burgs were so easy to buy in London (from the mid '90s through the mid '00s), I stopped buying from shops like Garnet.

[John_Morris]

A friend in the trade confirmed today that there has been no second change of ownership.

[GregT]

The old store was offbeat in an only-in-NYC kind of way. They stacked bottles on top of each other using cardboard dividers. They had no air conditioning. There was a rough order to where things were placed, with CA towards the back right, France towards the back middle, and so on. It was almost like a hoarder’s place. But they knew wine and would go out of their way to find things. I remember once I was looking for an ESJ wine and the owner picked up the phone and called California to find out if there was any more, only to learn that they weren’t going to make that one again. It was really one of the most idiosyncratic shops you will ever find. Then George died and he was a big part of the place - big loud tenor who just loved wine. It was sold before I moved away and I have no idea what it’s like these days, but none of the stories have been good.

He was George Cohen, at Crossroads Wines instead, whose funeral I attended.

Oh cripes you guys are right!!

DUH!!!

How could I have mistaken the two - Garnet was never as interesting a store. But I did meet one lifelong friend there.

I was just talking about Crossroads the other day and it was on my mind.

Talk about making an idiot of yourself! My wife says it’s a frequent occurrence.

[Jayson_Cohen]

The old store was offbeat in an only-in-NYC kind of way. They stacked bottles on top of each other using cardboard dividers. They had no air conditioning. There was a rough order to where things were placed, with CA towards the back right, France towards the back middle, and so on. It was almost like a hoarder’s place. But they knew wine and would go out of their way to find things. I remember once I was looking for an ESJ wine and the owner picked up the phone and called California to find out if there was any more, only to learn that they weren’t going to make that one again. It was really one of the most idiosyncratic shops you will ever find. Then George died and he was a big part of the place - big loud tenor who just loved wine. It was sold before I moved away and I have no idea what it’s like these days, but none of the stories have been good.

He was George Cohen, at Crossroads Wines instead, whose funeral I attended.

Oh cripes you guys are right!!

DUH!!!

How could I have mistaken the two - Garnet was never as interesting a store. But I did meet one lifelong friend there.

I was just talking about Crossroads the other day and it was on my mind.

Talk about making an idiot of yourself! My wife says it’s a frequent occurrence.

I bought much more from Garnet than Crossroads. Garnet (along with Astor probably) had the most consistently outstanding selection in the City IMO for the wines I wanted to drink in the days before Chambers, Crush, etc.

Crossroads I used for select purchases. The word would go out that certain wines had come in. Or I had George call me when certain wines came in or I had bought them prearrival. And you had to buy and pick up right away. Otherwise, it cooked. I remember a beautiful mag of 1995 Huet Constance that sat cooking on a pedestal for a couple years in the center of the store, behind the precariously-balanced cooking pile of Premier and Grand Cru Burgs. I wouldn’t touch any of those despite the temptation.