How to choose a good wine merchant?
Several weeks ago the New York Times writer Asimov wrote an expansive piece about How to Pick a wine , and quite forgetful tomorrow.
Finally, and my biggest complaint, is that today, in Cleveland, we have ceased having wine merchants. Instead, we have mini restaurants, jazz clubs, and entertainment centers that happen to carry wine.
It’s a place to get 5 tastes of wine for $10.00 and hopefully sell you a cheese platter…or a hamburger.
You want a ½ gallon of beer, a great…pound of coffee, coming right up. Oh yeah the white chilled wine is over there. All the while Amy Winehouse is gurgling in the background. (I’m not a big fan)
I’m not saying go back to the days of suit and tie salesmen, fondling a $50.00 bottle of French petite chateau, who condescendingly sells nothing below that quality and price.
But to put on a wine circus to please everyone with everything somehow misses the mark of professionalism.
Perhaps the wine circus is the wave of the future….maybe not. But millennials will ultimately grow up..and their tastes will change. Ten people sharing an apartment will morph into two people and a baby in a house. Try dealing with the local taco palace cum wine store with that grouping.
What I would advise is simply to shop at a store that meets your needs, where you and they have built up a relationship based on experience and trust. A relationship where you can freely ask your questions and hopefully get several options to take care of the request.
And where they don’t try and sell you fresh hamburger meat with your old vine zinfandel.
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