I’m really tired of “you have to try this” from my retailers. If the price is high, well I can find a way, but it’s hard when it’s like $20 and it always turns out to be a dud.
My latest is “I’ve had this one and is not for me” and I’m curious, what’s yours?
I wish I hadn’t taken your advice Otto. I picked up a bottle of that Costco 07 Kirkland Signature Napa Valley Cab tonight. Eh. Not bleh, but not great.
Tough time for comparisons. I tasted a boatload of great Cali Cabs this past weekend. This is clearly not great in comparison. For $22.00 it shouldn’t be, but it is drinkable.
Jack, I had a 99 Shafer HSS this weeked and the Kirkland was better. It is ultimately a matter of palate and what you like. I had a 2BC Chardonnay a couple of years ago and it was delish. But I am definitely not as erudite as you are my friend.
Local retailers hardly ever offer me anything without making me taste it first. Every so often, they invite me to lunches or dinners and present the wines that they think may be of interest to me. Once in a while, they send me a free bottle to taste and then decide. On those few occasions someone offers to sell me a wine I’ve not tried, of which I am unfamiliar or unenamored with the maker, vintage and/or bottling, I just say I’m not interested.
See this is why this board is so good. The last suggestion was great to try the wine. It is unthinkable here unlike LMD’s case, but still a valid excuse.
Back in the early 90s, I bought much of my wine from what was then Big Y in Northamton, MA. They had a bunch of great people working there including Gordon Alexander (who I think is out of the wine business now). Gordon would often recommend wines and I often took his recommendation. [In hindsight, a couple bottles of 1989 Henri Bonneau Châteauneuf-du-Pape Réserve des Célestins for $80 seems like a good one.] Once he held up a bottle of white Burgundy during a period when I wasn’t buying many whites. He held it up with the window behind him. My response was “But I can see right through it!”
It worked at the time.
Of course, I may not be the best one for coaching anyone on how to turn down wine.
Otto, I have some wine for you that I know you will love
You should never feel bad if you don’t take a retailers advice, I don’t get offended when a customer isn’t interested in a recommendation. It’s more important you have what you want, it’s your money for cryin’ out loud. I’ve made recommendations that customers have come back and said it wasn’t to their liking and ask for something different.
As several people mentioned, the best thing to reply is that you would be happy to taste it in the store the next time they have it open. I was a wine retailer for more than fifteen years (even worked at the Big Y where Ken so generously shopped for a while) and we had wines open to sample nearly every day. I would assume it is the same where you are shopping. No need for you to pick up the tab on these types of recommendations- your retailer can taste dozens of people on the bottle after you have had it and get plenty of mileage out of it without you having to add the bottle to your pile going out the door.