by Ethan Johnson:
October 6, 2006

Sure, I'm fairly new to the wine enjoyment (and sales) thing. I don't work in the industry, I don't have a fancy cellar filled from floor to ceiling with whatever Wine Spectator thinks is good, and I never went to sommelier school. So where do I get off giving high-falutin' advice to the pros? Because I'm new to the scene, that's why. I've been around the block a few times (literally - we have wall-to-wall shopping here in Dallas, no joke), and what I'm seeing ain't pretty. Here are the worst sins I have noted, with some free advice from an uninformed, opinionated idiot:

1. Get the temperature right, or get out. Heat kills. I have heard many times that the ideal storage temperature for wines is 55F with the right amount of humidity, with little fluctuation. Yeah, not realistic in retail settings. However: If you're going to sell wines, especially wines that are going to sit awhile waiting for buyers to discover them, blasting the heat in the wintertime isn't a good idea. Not having any climate control is just as bad (especially in the summer). Central Market (a local upscale food store) keeps the entire store chilled right around 55F, mostly because of the huge produce section. That coolness filters over to the wine racks, thus boosting confidence that they're not selling espensive hot sauce, or worse, vinegar. Target, by comparison, really hopes that their wine inventory will "turn" daily, as their stores in Texas are minimally temperature controlled, favoring heat over cold. (The thermostat is said to be controlled by their HQ in Minnesota. Nice.) If you can turn your inventory on a dime, don't sweat the climate control. But if you're thinking about selling "serious" wines, adjust the temperature accordingly.

   Wine Spectator has a good article this month about wineries/distributors that ship wines in the dead of summer only to saddle the customer with expensive vinegar. Worth a read, both for buyers and sellers.

   And lest this come off as uber-snobbery (or uninformed blowhardiness), would you buy (homogenized) milk from a hot, sweaty warehouse store that didn't use refrigeration, but instead stacked the cartons on folding tables for days or weeks on end? Yeah, I thought not. So why is wine treated like say, evaporated milk?

2. Quit telling us what Wine Spectator recommends. Yeah, this should piss someone off. But seriously folks: I don't want to hear about what they or any other wine-oriented magazine said about the wine, I want to hear what you thought about it. You're selling it, right? Give me a sign that you've had some exposure to the product. Anyone can post signage that comes in the wine case, or tear strips out of a magazine. What did you like about it? What encouraged you to sell it (besides the distributor)? A small wine shop called Corner Wines here in Texas gets this. The owner posts custom sheets explaining what he liked about the wine and who it might appeal to. Wine Styles is also good about posting custom placards extolling the virtues of the wines. Tear sheets may be eye-catching and sway potential buyers with a bold "89" at the bottom, but that's not really helping. Know your product. And teach.

3. Learn how to shelve your wines. Upright is not a good thing. Again, if you can turn your inventory daily (or stock a lot of screw-cap wines), then fine, upright works. However: The older the vintage, the less likely I am to buy it if the bottle is standing upright. (Dry corks aren't ideal.) Most "serious" wine shops already shelve their wines horizontally (or nearly so), however as grocery stores try to beef up their selection to lure "serious" wine drinkers, they're not making provisions to shelve their stock correctly. The lone exception to this is the local Albertson's, who sells hardcore red wines in wood crates, displayed neatly in horizontal rows. Kudos to whoever coached them on this.

   As a side note, stock your shelves cleverly, if possible. Since it's a bit much to hope for that someone on staff is guzzling down the wine at rates comparable to Robert Parker (he claims to taste 10,000 wines a year - my off-the-cuff math says that's roughly 27 a day, every day), how about stocking your wines like progressive wine lists in a restaurant? On sight, depending on where the wine is shelved, the staff will know that the wine is light to heavy bodied, and so on, without having to actually drink it first. Just a thought.

4. Quit treating your stock like boxes of used books. I am really casting aspersions on the local "serious" wine shop that slings their stock around like, well, boxes of used books. And not "crap" wines, mind you, I'm talking about the expensive ($35/USD and up) stuff. Their selection is really good, but if they beat the crap out of the stuff from the dock, to the storeroom, to the floor, what's going to come out when I pull the cork? Good, expensive wine? Or vinegary crap? Wine snobs fret about the slightest vibration. That may be a bit much (and yet another affectation to ridicule wine snobs over), but come on, beating on the stock can't be good. And it makes one wonder how long this has been going on prior to the sale. Again, if I went to a TV store and saw the staff slinging the stock around haphazardly, I'd be asking what their return policy is up front. Or shopping elsewhere.

5. Label your gosh-danged shelves. Correctly. Yes, there are countless varieties of wine out there, from more and more producers worldwide. At worst, label the sections "red" and "white", with rose (roe-zay) wines bridging the gap. No labeling whatsoever is bullshit, and doesn't encourage me to shop. I'm betting that the philosophy (besides "we don't have time") is that potential buyers will enjoy hunting around through all of your neat stuff and find some hidden gems. Uh, no. At least, not many. Tom Thumb is THE worst so far, with World Market a close second. Kroger is trying to get more serious with their wine sales, and they are doing a halfway decent job cleaning up which wines go where.

   Why this matters (to me anyway): For example, I don't drink Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot (yet). I want to filter out what I don't want so I can focus on what I do. This isn't about being afraid to explore. Rather, I want some kind of indication where to dig. Dig? Bookstores (mostly) have this figured out, so why not wine retailers?

6. Hire staff that gives a rip. This is a tough one, and I can't necessarily fault wine retailers for this exclusively. But come on, if you're faced with a choice between "can fog a mirror" and "cares about wine", is that really a choice? Maybe, I suppose. Again, the local Kroger is hiring a "wine steward". I am dying to see what this ultimately will mean. Market Street, a local upscale-ish chain exclusive to Texas, and who Kroger is competing with has an on-site wine steward. So does Central Market. Market Street isn't the be-all end-all wine retailer in the area, but again, they're making an effort. Other stores aren't so lucky. Mopey staff, disinterested sales folk, people who beat on the stock, it's all bad, and is killing your business. Or should.
7. Get out more. I'm pretty tired of seeing the same old, same old on every shelf in every store. I realize that stock needs to sell, and as such there is a tendency to make only "safe" choices, but if everyone does that, who cares where I shop? At that point, we're playing "lowest price wins". I've blown off a few stores because I knew I could get [whatever] for much less elsewhere. Gimme something I can't "just" buy elsewhere. Wanna know what will hook me? Wine from the Okanagan region in Canada. I found ONE retailer that sells it locally. If nothing else, assuming I indeed like the wine, I'm their customer for life, or until someone else carries it for less, whichever comes first. Why not be first to market? Take some chances! Generate some WOM! I wouldn't know I liked KerryGold butter if nobody bothered to sell it, and only sold Land O'Lakes (which we like too). Your competitors are starting to wise up to this, hem hem.

Feel free to tell me off in the comments section below or send me an email. Seriously though, I hope to see improvements in the above areas as wine retailing takes off to new heights in the US. Figuring out that wine differs greatly from sacks of rice is a great start. <EM>

(More of my writings about wine may be found here.)