Navigating a Wine Store

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Once you’ve found a wine you like, you’ll want to get more. The best and cheapest way to get more wine is to give a big birthday party on the spur of the moment. People won’t have time to get you a gift, so they’ll bring you a bottle of wine instead.


But you can only do that once a year. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to find a wine merchant in your neighborhood. Sure, you can get decent bottles of wine at the supermarket, but if you’re looking for something that’s not on the wine equivalent of the best-seller chart, you’re going to have to go to a wine store.

You can tell a lot about a wine store just from walking in the door. You should get a chill walking past the wine storage area, and we’re not just speaking metaphorically. The display area should be cool (wine for sale should NEVER be displayed in a sunny store window) and the wine storage area should be air conditioned.

Look around. Does the store carry a large stock of wine in a wide variety of price ranges? Are the prices competitive? Does the store offer discounts if you buy by the case or run other specials and promotions? In other words, does the store offer its customers value as well as choice?

Are the wines well organized? Are the better wines stored on their sides?

Are the clerks helpful and informative or clueless and snotty? If they answer your questions with winespeak, be wary. They may simply be talking a good game. If you’re not sure how high the bs percentage is running, you can always float a few test questions. For example, pretend you don’t know anything and ask the clerk the difference between a Bordeaux and a Burgundy.

Shopping in a wine store is an interactive experience, however, and you have to let the clerks know that you know what you want. It’s helpful to let them know what kind of wine you’re looking for and the price range you had in mind before asking them for suggestions. If your price range suggests a Spanish sparkling wine (and there are some very festive wines in that category), it does you no good if the clerk is suggesting Perrier-Jouet champagne.

If you’re on a budget, there are a couple of ways to cut your wine costs. One is to go to a place like Trader Joe’s or COSTCO, where vast quantities of wine are moved through the chain’s many stores, allowing the company to offer deep discounts. (They’re an especially good source for drinkable, discount Merlot.) As they say, you get what you pay for, and the employees that work at stores are not wine experts, so be prepared to experiment.

Another way to slash prices is to check out a wine store’s private label wines, which are akin to supermarket private label vegetables. Just as supermarket label goods are often manufactured by name brands, the wine bottled under a private label can be produced by a prestigious winery. It’s a hit or miss proposition, but most stores are going to be careful about what sort of wine they put their label on.

A third way to get good wine at discount prices is to search out a winery’s “second label.” This is sort of like the farm team for wine. Wineries often have wine leftover after they select the wines that go into their brand name wine. This wine isn’t bad, it’s just not quite terrific. Often wineries will create a whole new label for this wine, and market it at consumer-friendly prices.

Buying wine may not be as simple as getting it as a gift, but it’s a lot more fool proof. You may not need four more bottles of White Zinfandel or Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry in your bar.