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December 7, 2006

Whenever I walk into a wine shop , before I look for anything I'd consider purchasing, I take a cursory glance around the shop.

I use that glance to look for markers - bottles that I expect a shop to have - so I can guage three things: their overall selection, their pricing , and their comments.

I'm a firm believer that anyone who doesn't bench a wine shop against others is a complete fucking moron. Unless you can make an educated guess about how they sell wine, you're really just tossing your money away: you very well might walk out of there having spent $20 on a bottle of $6 table wine.

It's hard to talk about profiling a shop by overall selection- you need to know a bit about what has a buzz or what is a generalized safe bet to know how to judge a shop by that. But 'overall selection' doesn't mean they have a nice mix of reds and whites, or of wines from different regions. I'd say that a shop has an amazing overall selection if I walk in and they only carry California reds, but they have a good mix of pricepoints and flavor profiles across them all. Overall selection isn't quality or quantity or type of wine: its about having a good $5 table wine, and a great $50 nice wine, and pricing them fairly.

So I'm going to focus on pricing and comments, and share some of my markers with you.

In this installment, I'm dealing with pricing. I'll talk about comments next week.

I profile wineshops in 3 categories: everyday wine ( $5-12, lower end table wine, upper end 'whatever' wine) , nicer wine ( $12-$30 ), and moderately fancy wine ( $30-$60 ). anything above that is out of my range, so I won't bother.

Whenever I step into a shop, one of the labels I look for is Ravenswood. They're one of the 'zin' kings in CA, and a good old standby. While they have some wonderous single vineyard or single country bottles that are in the $20->50 pricepoint, they're really well known for their Vintners Blend series, which are really just grapes from all over california that they do a great job blending together into varietals.

Chances are, you walk into a shop and they've got a Ravenswood vintners blend. They're everywhere, and - unlike a lot of household name wines, they're actually really good. So I consider them to be a great marker.

In california, a bottle of ravenswood vb merlot, cab or zin is $8.99 in the supermarket and $1-2 off onsale.

In nyc, that bottle will range from $8 to $16. Yes, thats right - $8 to $16. Which is also why I consider it to be a great marker.

As a rule of thumb, I believe this: if a shop charges you $8-10 for the bottle, their prices are probably going to be good (the exception is trader joes - they generally have a good price on bottles costing $9 or more. anything there $8 or less should be avoided at all costs ). If a shop is charging $11-12, its really just a tossup -- they're not overcharging you too much, but thats not really a good price. If a shop wants $13+, you can safely guess that they are grossly inflating all of their prices.

If you don't see ravenswood, look for Rosemount Estate Shiraz - $9-10 is a good price. $11 is average. $12+ and the shop is apt to overcharging you.

if there's a nz sauvignon blanc section, look for giesen. It comes in a screw top and should be $7-9 . Some people charge 12-14 -- Some people are assholes.

Another 'marker' i have is "les heretiques" which many places in NYC carry now.
Personally, I think its one of the worst wines i've ever had in my life. Its damn near impossible to drink without decanting , and still tastes like muddy grape skins.

But NYC wine shop prices for "les heretiques" range from $6 -> $12. At 6.99-7.99, you're not being overcharged. $8.99 or more, and the shop is charging you a ridiculous amount of money for an awful wine. Avoid at all costs.

My last 'low end' marker are the italian table wines. Walk into a store, and you'll see one of these 2:
Masciarelli: Montelpuciano D'Abruzzo
Falesco: Vitiano (red)

The masciarelli is a great table wine that goes for 5.99/bottle from a good shop, and 6.99 from a decent one. If someone is charging $8 or more, they're bastards. Its not worth it, and its really just way overpriced.
The falesco should be 7.99 . if you see it for 10 or less, they're probably a decent shop. if they want more than 10, assholes.

Getting to mid-range wines :
Most shops have the 'Liberty School - Cabernet Sauvignon'. You can easily get this for $12 in nyc. You can also easily get it for $24. At $16 or under, the shop is probably decent. At $17+, they're preying on your ignorance.

Two of my favorite whites keep jumping around in price:
Sokol-Blosser Evolution and St. Superey's Sauv Blanc should both be ~$13 a bottle. NYC merchants will charge $21. They're great wine, but even at $15, its pushing it. Both can be found for $13 easily and $11 on sale.

I've been seeing this tempranillo 'Mano A Mano' a lot lately for $10-$15. No customer respecting shop should charge more than $9 (and you can find it easily on sale for $7, because it tastes like an overoaked cab ).

If you look at California Zins, look for Joel Gott with a best price of $14 and Seghesio with a best price of $18. If the shop charges up to $3 more than those prices, they're good. If seen people ask $25-27 for the seghesio, that's criminial.

If there's a champagne section, look for "nicolas feuillate" -- a small name producer with good reviews. nyc best pricing for the 'brut gold' is around $22/bottle. nyc average pricing is $30. asshole pricing is $37. 'brut rose' is about $7/9/14 bottle more at each tier.

i think feuillate is a better marker than veuve, as a lot of shops price veuve to get people in the door. still though, you can easily get veuve yellow label for $35 a bottle in nyc-- or less. a lot of places will ask 45-60 for that. if they do, ask them to spell asshole.

If you like california zin (i do, which is why i keep getting back to this), you know about 'the prisoner'. it's $25 in CA. In NYC its $26-$48.

Climbing up a bit we have the fancy wines. So here goes: Corison winery is one of the best cab produsers in CA. The 2001 is an amazing vintage. it'll be $51 at a great wine store and $63 at a decent one. the 2000 and 2002 vintages were not as good - they go for $47 at a great shop and $55 at a decent one. If they want more than that, steer clear. sometimes Heitz will make a good comparison - but there's a bit too much buzz right now, and some people price it low for attention.

benching pricing on silver oak and opus one are completely arbitrary and marketing ploys right now, i'd recommend against it.

also, if you see these bottles - or similar caliber ones - standing up, just walk out of the store-- don't bothing looking at anything else in there. at this price point, aside from a handul of store in nyc, shops really dont move wine that much to allow for vertical shelving. you're very likely looking at a bottle that was placed there 5 months ago and is just dusted daily. if you dont believe me, go to a corner shop, look for one of the nicer bottles, take it down and slyly peel up a corner of the label in the back and crease it. go back to take a look in two months - i'll still be there.

standing wine up for a few months is fine - under the right conditions. but in a nyc store, the temp fluctuates like crazy, and the air tends to be really dry.

the reason why i say "just walk out" is because no self-respecting wine merchant would store low-volume high priced product like that. the people who do know little about wine - they just have industry magazines that they transcribe tasting notes from -- they're just random people who bought a wine store and run it by the numbers. they want to move product and maximize price.

Profiling a store based on pricing is usually consistent within the same tier -- but doesn't work reliably across tiers. For example: there's a rather large wine merchant in midtown that has honest-to-god great pricing on bottles in the $45-$450 price range -- but they also ask $10 for $5 bottles of wine (that aren't even worth $2). You can likewise find shops that give great pricing on $7-14 bottles, but charge way too much on more expensive ones.

But you can also find shops that charge 50% over market price on everything in the store too.

So my point is simply this: be wary and be educated in your shopping. These are tricks that I employ to get better informed about the merchants I consider buying from.

When I walk into a store , I look for these markers and a slew of others. When i see that the prices are in line with what a shop *should* be charging, I feel more inclined to try a random $12 or $24 bottle of wine -- I know that I'm likley getting a bottle worth that much.

Also keep in mind that NYC 'best price' is still quite a bit above California or even New Jersey prices. The 'best price' has more than enough money to make up for increased costs of living and business -- shops would be charging those prices if they didn't meet comfortably meet operational costs with some profit on the side.

Also note: I'm not going to mention where I personally buy wine , or where my usual sources for best prices are -- I only share that with friends.

I just hope that knowing a little more about how pricing is so ungodly arbitrary in NYC, people will become more educated and many of these shops will have to lower prices -- if not to be respectable, than just to stay in business.

Posted by Jonathan at December 7, 2006 3:53 PM

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