An item on Bloomberg yesterday detailed how Spaniards are drinking less wine, which has prompted Spanish wineries to pursue export markets more. From this perspective, it’s partially understandable why Spanish wineries might want to pay a fee to invite Wine Advocate critic Jay Miller to their regions. They want to crack into the US market and they figure the best way to do so is to get a score from the Wine Advocate (even if one document from the regional organization referred to the scores as “Parker points”).

But that sales strategy is sooo 1990s! In my view, many American wine consumers have moved beyond scores, and an increasing number of wine shops have too. What do you think: should the wine industry move beyond scores? Are scores less relevant today to consumers in your experience than they were five or ten years ago? It seems to me that today the trade clings to scores more readily than consumers do. But one importer I spoke with recently Jose Pastor, has said no to scores.

I asked the Twitterverse for shops that do not use third-party tasting notes or scores. The unverified responses appear after the jump–hit the comments to keep the list going!

In NYC:
Astor Wines
Chambers Street Wines
Crush Wines
Le Du Wines
Frankly Wines
Slope Cellars
Dandelion Wines
Olivino Wines
Grapes Wine Co (no Miller scores)

The Wine Bottega (Boston)

East End Wines (Austin, TX)
J. Emerson’s Wine (Richmond, VA)
Vinsite Wine Shop (Asheville, NC)

Perman Wines (Chicago)
Red & White Wines (Chicago)
The Goddess & Grocer (Chicago)
The Bottle Shop (Wilmette, IL)

Du Vin Fine Wines (Alameda, CA)
Terroir (San Francicso)

Derniere Goutte (Paris, France)

Related: “Wine Ratings Might Not Pass the Sobriety Test” [NYTimes.com]

My curiosity was piqued: was this state store a wine lover’s nirvana, delivering on the promise of great prices thanks to their bulk buying? Or was it a dreary place, with low inventory, poor selection, surly or ignorant staff?

A bit of both. Some of the pricing appeared to be pretty sharp as the buyers were clearly able to wring concessions from big wine producers and pass those savings on to consumers, as they should since they are acting as both wholesaler and retailer. (There may have been good savings for spirits too but those aren’t my bailiwick.) But while there were a few wines from good importers and producers on the metal shelves under the fluorescent lights, there wasn’t a lot of intrigue for the wine geek. Consider the rosé selection, which had only a handful of selections with everything except for Domaine Tempier 2010 ($34.99) lackluster. Or the Champagne section where the buyer didn’t get the memo about the exciting grower Champagnes that have made it to our shores in the last decade. Some snapshots: “French wine” had one aisle and “Italian wine” had just a half; Loire wines were patchy; Beaujolais was entirely from one negociant and Burgundy was more negociant-driven than domaine; California was by and large a snoozefest.

In the end, the state liquor store seems to focus on volume and price. There’s certainly a place for that in today’s economy. But the store is not in the vanguard of progressive wine retailers in America. Even Costco, from what I understand, throws a few more bones to wine geeks in states where they sell wine.

What’s your experience of the NH State Liquor Store–do you think it holds sufficient intrigue for a wine enthusiast to make a stop? Even though I left with a bottle Chateau Musar 2001 ($35.99) that I didn’t know I needed, I wouldn’t be inclined to make a pit stop there again. Unless the kids needed the rest room or I suddenly needed at five-liter jug of Absolut.

I’ve never actually heard a wine store broadcast that message over a loudspeaker. But that’s the message some are sending with their pricing.

The other day, I found a great wine at the sharp price of $18.39 a bottle via a local wine store’s web site. When I dropped by, the wine was on the shelf for $22.99. I mentioned that I had seen it online for the lower price and the staffer, without hesitating, rang me up at the lower price, punching in a 20 percent discount. That’s the equivalent of the fifth bottle free!

We have discussed this issue before. Contrary to some perceptions, New York’s State Liquor Authority does not regulate the prices that retailers charge. Thus the dual pricing phenomenon persists, so consider this a friendly reminder: check the store’s website if you think the price looks high, are making a large purchase or buying an expensive wine. Internet shoppers tend to be more savvy thanks to the price-leveling power of google and wine-specific search tools such as wine-searcher.com. (Full disclosure: I make a tiny amount of money–-pennies, literally–-as an affiliate of wine-searcher.com.)

On the one hand, I understand why stores do this: An internet customer is a self-service customer who doesn’t tax the staff’s resources whereas an in-store customer might want to chit chat about which wine goes with chicken and take up the staff’s time. But it somehow feels a little dirty to have the dual price structure. Caveat emptor!

It’s sunny with a high of 86 today in New York. Although rosé is food-friendly and refreshing for more months than it is usually given credit for, today is classic rosé weather. I’ve got a couple of good rosés so now all I need is a pool…

Last week I stopped by Crush Wine & Spirits on 57th St (map it). They used to do free tastings weekly in the store but now have switched to larger ones only once a month. A staple in this vein has been their annual “war of the rosés” where they uncork and pour a dozen or more for consumers who think pink.

My favorite of the all-2009 lineup, both foreign and domestic, was the Clos Roche Blanche, a rosé from the pineau d’aunis grape, which usually makes some pretty light reds to begin with. This wine ($18) from the central Loire had great brightness and an alluring subtlety. The other wine that I bought after the tasting was the Commanderie de Peyrassol, a Provencal rosé that is consistently fun and delicious (and a good value, on sale for $14.39 that day–search for these wines).

After tasting the wines, I wondered if 2009 might not be the greatest rosé vintage in Europe? Not that people really give much thought to rosé and vintages. But it seemed to me that some of them were not as bright and snappy as in prior years. What is your experience? While awaiting your reply, I might just uncork one of those bottles pictured above.

Les Caves Augé, the excellent Paris wine shop, has fun, free wine tastings that spill on to the sidewalk. The shop is crammed with so many fine and fun wines that they mainly have to do these free tastings outside of the winter months, so the broad pavements of Boulevard Hausmann are at their most hospitable. For anyone traveling to Paris, there are three remaining Saturday tastings this season at Augé, “Wonder women” on June 5, “Loire” on June 19, and “bubbles” on July 10.

Although we’ve never met, Tim Eustis is a friend of a friend. He worked in wine retail in New York City and did wine consulting for seven years. About a year ago, he and his family moved to Paris. Back in March, he dropped by the first of the spring tastings. Over to Tim for photos and comments from his tasting some wines from the Jura and Alsace. I have liked some wines from Tissot (old vine Poulsard) and Binner (notably, the gewurztraminer) in the past so was pleased Tim had the chance to taste them.

By Timothy Eustis

A wine tasting on the street outside Les Caves Augé is a marvelous way for wine geeks to spend a Paris afternoon. The owner, Marc Sibard, is nothing but welcoming and helpful as are all the staff. And the vignerons manning the barrels with bottle after bottle are congenial to a fault. This cool day in March featured a tasting of wines from the Jura and Alsace.

Though the Jura is mostly known (if at all) for their oxidative vin jaunes, from the savagnin grape. Normally, Jura producers make just one vin jaune, similar to the way that most Burgundian producers make only one Marc de Bourgogne, if at all. Perhaps it’s because vin jaune hasn’t historically been thought to reflect the various terroirs, an afterthought? But not for Stephane Tissot. In 2003, he made 3 different vins jaunes, all of which had a similarly oxidative nose, naturally, but all of which had different textures. The first was a typical vin jaune, the second pointed and very mineral. The third had similarly strong minerality, but of a more gravelly nature.

M. Tissot also makes some lovely examples of Chardonnay. The Cotes du Jura en Barberon, 2007 & 2008, grown on limestone soil, had a lovely richness. These are not your father’s white Burgundies. With distinctive minerality, the 2007 was quite approachable, and the 2008 a bit more closed, not surprisingly. The Arbois Gravieres 2007, grown on clay soil, was very spicy, and up ’til then, our favorite. Then he pulled from behind the barrel the Le Clos de la Tour de Curon. This was mouthfilling, but with a lovely balance of fruit and acidity, and very intense. An outstanding wine, we asked about it. The horse-plowed vineyard has an astounding 12,000 vines per hectare (for reference, 5,000 is a lot of vines; 10,000 a huge number of vines; 12,000 is extremely rare). The domaine is certified BioDynamic by Demeter.

The last of the non-oxidised wines in his lineup was the Traminer, aka Savagnin Blanc. This was his way of showing what Savagin can do, when it’s not oxidised in a vin jaune. An academically interesting wine, but I preferred the chardonnays. Tissot’s wines are, on the whole, fabulous wines and very worth seeking out.

Though one day I aspire to taste everything at all tastings I attend, I all too often run out of time. Such was the case here. So when I finished the tasting at the Tissot barrel, I had to decide which producer I would sample next out of the several that there there. So I decided to have Christian Binner pour me wines from his lineup.

Having only stumbled across a Pinot Noir of his by chance, I was looking forward to tasting the whites. I left entranced by them, in particular his Rieslings. The Sonnenberg ’05 was quite rich and elegant, and the Kaefferkopf ’06 even more so. I predicted to myself that the Kaefferkopf would be upwards of 13.5°-14° of alcohol, but came in at only 13°. I was surprised, given its richness. But with a pointed elegance, it was a wonderful Riesling.

One of his table wines, the Auxerrois, Hinterberg ’06, was cloudy, which I didn’t take to be a flaw, but simply a lack of filtration. It had a pretty flowery nose to it, and though rich and almost sweet, finished quite dry.

His Pinot Noir, an ’08, was light, both in color and body, but was sufficiently young as to mask the fruit characteristics with present and drying tannins. In a year, it’ll be quite nice. Just not today.

Cave Augé, 116 Boulevard Haussmann, 75008 Paris, France, +33 (0)1 45 22 16 97, http://www.cavesauge.com/

Michael Yarmark, born in New York, moved to San Francisco where he did a Masters in English literature at SF State. While living in the Bay Area, he met Emilia Valencia, who was working front-of-house at a restaurant. Together, they came to know the wines of Steve Edmunds who makes wines from Rhone varieties under the Edmunds St. John label in the East Bay. They eventually discovered the retail shop for the importer Kermit Lynch, which Michael describes as a turning point in their wine journey that led them to seek natural wines from independent winemakers.

Moving back to New York, Michael got a job as a sales manager for a book publisher while Emilia continued working in restaurants, including at Franny’s in Park Slope. Michael says that they liked shopping for wine at many of New York’s independent shops–and a handsome display of the corks they pulled while living in NYC attests to that diversity. Michael says, “it represents our thirst and our quest.” But they wanted something closer to their home in Fort Greene.

So in December 2006, they opened Thirst Wine Merchant. The 500 sq ft store stocks about 500 different wines, all with a natural bent, onto curved shelves made of biofiber (wheat) and sustainably harvested birch. The well-curated selection, strong in wines from the Loire, Burgundy and Italy, features many wines from Kermit Lynch as well as other importers and some domestic wines.

If you stop by the store, you’re likely to meet Michael or Emilia since they only have one full-time employee. When I stopped by last month, Michael was there and a $13 natural chardonnay from the Languedoc was being poured in the store. Prices are reasonable, especially with 5% off six bottles and 15% off case purchases. They also ship but don’t have inventory on their website. You can check it out in person or on my map of NYC wine shops.

Store info and photos after the jump:

187 DeKalb Avenue (at Carlton)
718.596.7643
Sunday–Wednesday 12–9
Thursday–Friday 12–10
Saturday 10–10

Daniel Posner, managing partner at Grapes the Wine Company in White Plains, NY, tweeted about the new proposal. Reached for comment, he says that he received a call today from legislative negotiators floating these new proposals. Two calls to Albany were not returned.

According to Posner, the new proposal would offer existing retailers two “medallions,” requisite to maintain or obtain a license for wine retailing. The first medallion would be for their existing store. Shop owners could do what they wish with the second, including use it to obtain a license on a second store as the current ban on owning multiple licenses would be lifted. They could also sell it to another party, including a supermarket, to apply for a wine retail license.

This would effectively cap the number of new licenses to only double the amount of existing stores, currently 2,400 in the state. This medallion period would be a transition of three years before the market was further liberalized, phasing out the medallions.

“I think it’s hard for current shop owners to refuse this,” said Posner.

“The new proposal gives three years when a retailer could (a) open another store, (b) sell it to a supermarket and profit or (c) sit on it and wait,” he said. “They’re giving plenty of time for stores to react.”

Related: “Wine shops in states with supermarket sales – three views“

I love a good, small wine shop. When people ask me to recommend a wine, I often tell them that the best practical advice I can give them is to find a great, small shop near them.

To be great, in my view, the small shop must have an interesting selection. Not huge, but well-curated, which can mean having off-the-beaten path selections or a certain specialization, be it a regional focus or from an astute distributor or importer.

The best small shops also have excellent service, with at least one staffer who is knowledgeable (and being nice is a plus, too). If the staff makes good suggestions and even remembers a customer’s likes and dislikes, then that is terrific. Staff-written shelf talkers, if any, can add character. Adding tastings or other community aspects are a tremendous service too. And mixed cases (or three packs or six packs) selected by the staff can be great for introducing consumers to new wines.

One place where small wine shops can disappoint is on price. Granted, these shops don’t treat wine as a commodity and aren’t seeking a low-price, high-volume business model. But unless they aspire to only serving a three-block radius of lazy, oblivious and/or wealthy customers, they should really not charge more than the full, 50% markup above wholesale cost. If they do, they are firing the very customers they seek to educate and bring into the wine-loving fold. To give but one example: the La Gitana manzanilla sherry makes for a refreshing aperitif and if you poke around, you can find it in NYC for $9.99. But I saw it in a neighborhood shop recently for $18. One small shop owner recently told me that he wanted his customers to come to his shop for all their wine needs. But charging significantly over the price of other shops might tax the loyalties of even the most dedicated customers.

Hopefully, the best of these neighborhood shops at least offer mixed case discounts or loyalty programs so that the regulars don’t have to pay the full, chump premium. That way, knowledgeable shoppers can have their sherry wine cake and eat it too.

Let’s raise a glass to the best of these innovative, tireless, enthusiastic wine shop curators!

“New Wine Shops in New York Put Patrons at Ease” NYT
“Frankly Wine’s Christy Frank – NY wine shops – a 2,400 part series“

Styrofoam is popular with retailers and wineries shipping wine because it cradles and insulates the bottles. While it is ultralight, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of the shipment, it essentially never biodegrades. I always try to bring my Styro shippers back to a store so that they can be used again before their life taking up space in a landfill. One store, Grapes the Wine Company, actually includes a pre-paid label so consumers can return the empty box back to the store via Fedex for reuse and a store credit. Corrugated cardboard inserts are recyclable but they are quite heavy, increasing the carbon footprint. Pulp inserts are light and biodegradable.

The plastic sleeves that Astor uses, branded as Air-Paq, are both light and recyclable (though they are resin code 7, which many municipalities don’t recycle). Their staff inserts the bottles in the sleeve, then use a gizmo to inject the air and seal the sleeve (you can see a scintillating demo video here).

Reached via email, Andrew Fisher, owner of Astor, pointed out that it is much more space-efficient in their shipping area than Styrofoam, since there is just a plastic roll and a compressor. He elaborated, “Since Astor produces its own electricity and recaptures the waste heat to provide heating and cooling for our space, it seemed both incongruous and inconsistent to cling to Styrofoam shipping materials.”

Each bottle rests in an independent sleeve from the others so it can also be separated and used again for your wine travel needs. Or, if you have two boys like us, they each can put them on a hand and have a sword fight!

Related: “Poll: Styrofoam or cardboard for your wine shipping?“

Joe Alter and Amy Lafontant own The Bottle Shop in Wilmette, IL. Joe responds:

How long has your store been open? Amy and I opened the store December 15th 2005. 4 years, 2 months and counting.

How many wines do you have? Less than 300 wines (SKUs). We’d like to be even smaller. Smallish, smaller and tiny producers where possible. Avg price $15. Low $8. High $45. Less IS more (esp. vs. the BIG BOYZ)

Do you sell food, beer, cigars or have an ATM? We sell beer, microbrew and imports, mostly. We added a wine bar, so we sell by the glass and serve small plates, cheese, cured meats, that kinda thing. We call it Amy’s Wine House. Other than the wine bar we don’t sell food. No cigars. No ATM.

How many locations do you have? One location. Would consider expanding, but not actively pursuing the option.

Please describe your “shelf talkers.” Don’t use them except for a few Champagnes because the kind of Champagne we carry — R.M. — needs a little explanation, in which case I print out the product page from our website and lay it underneath the bottle. Small print. Customer would have to pick up the bottle to read it. Background info written by us, the importer, mainly Terry Theise, and some reviews from Galloni, Tanzer, Meadows. such as this one for Henri Billot brut rosé.

What would you say is the secret of your success in a state where people can buy wine at supermarkets? We try not to carry grocery store wines. We call attention to the fact that we don’t carry icky grocery store wines. It’s a good will gesture. New customers often say they don’t recognize any of our labels to which we say, “Awesome, that means we are doing a good job!”

Approximately what percent of your sales are done via the internet? Less than 1%

Any advice for NY wine retailers as they brace for a possible era of increased competition?
Be a merchant in the old fashioned sense of wine merchant. Have opinions. Supermarkets and big chains, such as we have here — Binny’s, Sam’s (R.I.P.), Wine Discount Center (my alma mater) and even Whole Foods — sell based on price, press and points. It’s as faceless as buying a washing machine from Best Buy. People come to Amy’s and my shop because we offer personality if nothing else. It makes (some) wine buyers feel better about themselves and their purchases to have a relationship with a merchant rather than a score or the lowest price. I empathize with small business people facing off against big box stores, but more COMPETITION IS GOOD. I’m all for anything that chips away at the scope of Amendment XXI ’cause god knows it ain’t going to be repealed. Free at last.

Craig Heffley, co-owner of Wine Authorities in Durham, NC and the “Grand Poohbah Wine Swami”

How long has your store been open? Two years

How many wines (SKUs) do you have? 450-500 selections of estate wines under $50/bottle from small, up-and-coming, family-owned wineries. No corporate brands, no fake brands. The selection is skewed toward typicity of varietal, region and style. We stock these 450 selections heavily, with hundreds of them case stacked and several end-caps. When somebody steps in, they understand that we’re there to sell them wine before we even say a word. No wines are carried as “shelf dressing.” If we’re going to carry it, we’re committed to moving volume. One last note of interest. All wine in NC is sold from distributor to retailer or restaurateur C.O.D. only! We have no terms, and own every bottle. Spirits are sold at NC State-owned liquor stores and we cannot carry them.

Do you sell food, beer, cigars or have an ATM? We have a limited selection of domestic craft beers available chilled by the six-pack (about 25 selections). We also sell local artisan: salami & chorizo, chocolate, cheese, biscotti, bread and locally roasted coffee from Counter Culture Coffee. 97% of our business is wine though. No cigars, no ATM.

How many locations do you have? One location and considering another.

Please describe your “shelf talkers”? Our shelf talkers are core to making the shopping experience less perplexing and more enjoyable for our customers. They are easy to ready and identical in format. We print them ourselves on photo paper. We break our wines up into three color coded price categories: Daily Wines for everyday drinking (under $12), Weekly Wines for that once-a-week splurge ($12-$19.99), and Monthly Wines for special occasions like Thanksgiving, Birthdays, Anniversaries, etc ($20-$49.99) They also decipher the label so customers can understand the basics like which word is the region, and which is the grape, etc. We write every shelf talker ourselves instead of relying on copy from wineries or critics reviews. They are fun and informative and don’t give the customer useless info that they can’t talk about over a meal. They’d rather discuss the origin of the winery or something special about the wine instead of its oak regimen & ph. There are no ratings anywhere in the store. Customers don’t really need them if the staff is knowledgeable and can make recommendations based on the context of how the wine is to be enjoyed. Is it a wine to be consumed like a cocktail on its own, or is it to be paired with a meal? Most wine critic’s points don’t take this into consideration and are typically skewed favorably toward wines that are more powerful and more cocktail-like. The stores that surround us use points to sell their wines, but we are only asked about scores once every few months. Really, the consumer is not looking for them unless a retailer has “trained” them to shop that way. All of our talkers have food Serving Suggestions.

What would you say is the secret of your success in a state where people can buy wine at supermarkets? We created our store to stand out distinctly from any other wine shopping experience they’ve ever had. It’s fun, informative, comfortable and empowers the consumer to track their purchases from our website. We only carry wine that we are 100% proud of, and would drink ourselves. And we’re wine geeks! For a store that focuses on wine under $20 a bottle, that’s saying something.

Approximately what percent of your sales are done via the internet? Right now only 5%, but about a third of our customers use our website to track their purchases, rate them and keep notes. Our internet sales are starting to take off though and by the end of this year, we should have a much more significant amount. One problem is that our store is so fun to shop in, many people just don’t want to skip a visit just for the convenience of online ordering. We hear that regularly.

Any advice for NY wine retailers as they brace for a possible era of increased competition? Don’t steal our ideas! Just kidding. Be original! Think from the customers perspective. Overcome hurdles that make the wine buying experience difficult for them. Make them really want to return. If you blow them away, they’ll talk about your store to their friends who will become customers who will tell their friends, etc. Do great things that big stores will never be able to do, and that will distinguish you.

Roberto Rogness, general manager, Wine Expo, Santa Monica, CA
How long has your store been open? 18 years

How many wines (SKUs) do you have? About 2000 of which well over half are Italian, one quarter are Champagne and the rest is split between Spain, Portugal, beer and spirits.

Do you sell food, beer, cigars or have an ATM? Yes on Beer, no on others

How many locations do you have? One

Please describe your “shelf talkers”?See here:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/wine/wine-expo-best-of-la-tequila/ (source of above image)

What would you say is the secret of your success in a state where people can buy wine at supermarkets? Providing far superior service, a more interesting range of products and better value.

Approximately what percent of your sales are done via the internet? 15%

Any advice for NY wine retailers as they brace for a possible era of competition? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!

Well, if you’ve ever thought that then you will like Governor Paterson’s latest proposal to allow wine sales in food stores. He tried it last year but the measure was poorly thought out since it just focused on the grocery stores selling wine and not what would happen to current wine and spirits stores. Ultimately, it met resistance, and was dropped.

But it has been re-animated this budgetary year and this time the governor is trying to mollify the opposition by allowing wine stores to also sell “non-alcoholic beverages, food products, newspapers, cigars, gift packaging, glassware and storage items for wine and spirits.” (Note: no beer.) Licensees could also have more than one store, buy with other shops in a consortium, sell wine to restaurants and bars, have 60 days to pay for suppliers wine instead of 30 and, yes, have ATMs!

Such concessions constitute an admission that the proposed reform will hurt the business of existing wine stores. Indeed, the group opposing the reform, The Last Store on Main Street, claims it will cause the closing of almost 40 percent of New York State’s 2,400 wine stores. The group also claims that liberalizing wine retail laws would lead to an increase in underage drinking. It’s too bad they played the underage card since it always seems to be stooping to fear-mongering. Is there more underage drinking in the 35 states that do allow wine purchases at grocery stores? I doubt it.

While the New York laws are in many ways absurd, the best pro-consumer argument in support of them is that the there are so many great wine shops (particularly in and around the City). The protectionist laws have contributed to the building of an incredible wine culture. Retailer Jeff Zacharia commented that he thinks the number of fine wines available in the NY market would shrink if the proposal passes. Unfortunately, he did not elaborate on this point.

Will that culture remain without the laws? Probably, almost entirely; there are great wine cultures in San Francisco and Chicago to name a couple of cities where supermarkets sell wine. But it will be less profitable for good wine merchants as some wine consumers opt for the convenience of throwing a wine in their grocery cart, hence the governor’s concession to allow sell food and knickknacks. (For the boring shops trading on location–last year we called these the wine & liqu–they will have to rely on spirits sales and ATMs. Or step up their service or selection.)

New York budget politics are uncertain but this proposal seems better designed for passage than last year. But if it is going to happen, why not sweep away the remaining restrictions and allow wine stores to sell beer, as grocery stores will be able to sell both, and allow them to open at 9 AM on Sunday. Stay tuned for the log-rolling between now and April 1.

After three years of very rapid growth — placing it among the top 15 fastest growing private companies in the SF Bay area from 2006 to 2008, Vinfolio experienced a much more difficult sales environment during 2009. A few weeks ago, we found ourselves in need of additional capital on a very near-term basis. The company investigated several options but new capital could not be obtained on a necessarily compressed timetable. Because of the situation, and to safeguard the interests of our customers and creditors (including for wine purchases, wine sales, and wine stored with Vinfolio), the board of directors and the shareholders of Vinfolio approved and undertook a form of restructuring known as an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors (the “Assignment”) on Friday evening, January 15, to provide the business with the flexibility to develop the appropriate course of action going forward.

The San Francisco-based company had just raised $4.5 million in September, they said to fund an expansion in Asia. According to the same article, the company, founded in 2003, had raised $6.1 million in previous rounds of financing (both debt and equity).

The company sources fine wine from collectors, wineries and has an importer’s license. Their other offerings include VinCellar, a system for wine inventory management, both on computers and as an iPhone app. The company also has 17,000 square feet of temperature-controlled storage for customers. Last July, the company launched VinFolio Marketplace, an online marketplace where not only wineries and importers could list wines for sale, but individual collectors could sell wines from their collection to one another. When launched, the company proclaimed that it enabled “access to the $500+ million in wine” making it the “world’s largest fine wine marketplace.” At the time of launch, in any given Marketplace transaction, the seller incurred a fee but the buyer did not.

In his post, Bachmann said that operations will continue during Assignment, a state-level insolvency measure. But in the eBob forum, several commenters on eBob debated whether collectors with wine in storage should arrange for immediate pick-up of their wines.

So now that the book is closed on 2009, how did your wine buying and consuming change, if at all? Did you deplete your existing stock? Only buy wines on closeout? More dining at home? Hittin’ the Carlo Rossi?

Have your say in the poll and comments.

The enthusiastic, 26 year old proprietor of Le Vigne in Greenwich Village opened the door to his tiny wine store in late July. But that was the culmination of the lengthy license application process, which lasted almost a year. Before applying for the license, he had to have a lease on a space, which he signed last August. Despite having a backlog of 3,000 applications, Carlo said that the State Liquor Authority told him that the application process would take about six weeks and if there were no existing liquor store within 500 feet, the process would be smooth. Instead, the process dragged on and the space sat vacant, eating his rent. Since he had quit his job, he tried to find another but had difficulty: he couldn’t even get a job as a server at some BYOB restaurants in New Jersey where he had worked growing up. He relied on loans from friends and family.

In April, the SLA gave him a license so he had to set about designing the space. The 400 sq ft store housed a travel agency (remember those?) for much of the past three decades. Confronted with shag carpet and drab walls, Carlo knew that he had a design emergency. The only thing was that especially after the license application process, he didn’t have much of a budget: when he first contacted the design firm MADLAB, he said they all but hung up on him.

A couple of weeks later, however, they did get back to him with a proposal of furniture sourced entirely from the Salvation Army in Newark, NJ. Their plan included painting the furniture white, stacking the pieces in a jumble, and then stripping the walls and floors back to the brick and boards.

The shop stocks exclusively Italian wines and Carlo has laid out the shop by region on the furniture with the northern end of the peninsula near the door and Sicily at the rear. The 200 wines are from small producers and importers. He says the wines range in price from $12 to $184 for a mature Barolo.

Carlo worked in several restaurants growing up, but mostly BYOBs. He ate at Babbo when he was 21 and had such a great experience that he wrote David Lynch, then the wine director, a letter asking if he could work there hauling boxes. Much to Carlo’s surprise, he says that Lynch called him back. But seeing his admittedly featherweight wine resume, Lynch sent him to cut his teeth at Lupa first. He bounced around a few places including Italian Wine Merchants, Babbo and Inoteca North and briefly at sales for a wine importer.

At Le Vigne, he said that people in the neighborhood have a pretty good knowledge of wine; it’s not uncommon to have someone come in and request a vernaccia nera or something else from off the beaten path. (He attributes this knowledge to the high density of Italian restaurants in the neighborhood.) And people often want to experiment and pair wine with with non-traditional foods, such as watermelon soup, so he has to think creatively. He’ll give you a 10% discount for a case purchase and even store it in the back for you to drop in and collect a few bottles as necessary.

Although he still has debts, things are looking up now that the store is actually in business. “Every week gets better,” he says.

35 Greenwich Ave
(bet. 10th and Charles Streets)
(212) 255-0222
See it on the map of NYC wine shops

Last fall, Wine Library, the Springfield, New Jersey wine retailer, sent out an email offering for a wine that seemed to be the wine lover’s dream: a fantastic quality-to-price ratio. The wine on offer was the Sierra Carche 2005, a blend of Monastrell with Petit Verdot and Malbec from the off-the beaten path Spanish region of Jumilla. Jay Miller, a critic at the Wine Advocate, described it as “Inky purple, the wine offers an array of scents which jump from the glass… structured wine with gobs of flavor, terrific intensity… It will provide pleasure through 2025.” He awarded it 96 points. The suggested retail price was $40; Wine Library was offering it for $29.99. Robert Kenney, a New Jersey wine consumer, was so enthusiastic upon seeing the email that he ordered several six packs.

But Kenney’s euphoria turned sour as soon as he pulled a cork. He later wrote on the forums at erobertparker.com that “I have consumed 6 bottles already, praying that with each popped cork, a different genie will emerge…so far, no such luck…slapping 80 points on those bottles is generous.”

Kenney describes himself as an “unabashed fan of DrBigJ,” as Miller is known. But Kenney was so disappointed with the wine that he corresponded with Miller and FedExed Miller one of his bottles last fall for him to taste and “see if indeed it was indicative of the wine that he had tasted and scored highly.” Kenney wrote last week that “During a ten month period I had exchanged seven emails with DrBigJ, reminding/imploring him to taste the sent bottle…to no avail.”

Then a consumer in Pittsburgh, Bob Hudak, posted that he had found the wine for $38 at the PLCB, the state-run store in Pennsylvania. On July 5, Hudak wrote of his experience, “Considering that it was a Dr Big Jay 96 pointer in the WA, I figured I buy 6 bottles. I opened my first one this weekend. Big mistake. The wine had virtually no aroma at all. You couldn’t smell a darn thing. With time and air, some stinky aromas that were off-putting became noticeable.”

Kenney chimed in on the thread as did several other consumers with their negative experiences with the wine. (The wine’s scores on cellartracker.com were not all bad although several reviewers took the time to note flawed bottles and one gave it a 74 but the modal score was around 90.)

On July 14, Miller posted to the forum that he finally opened the bottle Kenney had sent him and declared it “undrinkable.” Miller contacted the importer of the wine, Mark Clinard of Well Oiled Wine Co., who replied, “We have had similar problems with this wine and had a meeting in March with the winery to find out what the problem is. There was clearly some substandard product shipped by the winery and we have had to take back a large chunk of this wine from the market because it was rejected by the trade. I apologize on behalf of the winery for this apparent bait and switch. Going forward we are searching for a different winery for this brand.” He posted his cell phone number and asked that those consumers with problems contact him.

Brandon Warnke, Vice President of Operations at Wine Library, posted that anyone who bought the wine through the store could return it to them for a full refund.

Jay Miller then wrote: “this is about the worst thing that can happen to a critic, to be tasted on a fraudulent wine, publish a note, and then have readers spend their good money on a fairly pricey wine only to find out that it’s plonk or worse. Its reminiscent of the furor over Las Rocas a few years ago that nearly killed that brand. It’s a bad situation all around.”

Bruce Leiserowitz, a consumer, then asked specific questions of Miller, who replied:

I’ll do my best, Bruce.
1. The wine was tasted at the usual venue where RMP and I taste with importers, The Oregon Grill in Hunt Vally, MD. Present was Mark Clinard and his partner in the Well-Oiled Wine Company, and Mark Noah, the sommelier who pours wine for Bob and myself. The wine was tasted from bottle; it was not presented as a barrel sample.
2. I can’t respond to this question except that Mark Clinard said that there were three different bottlings of this wine and that some of it was sound. A few people on the Board have given the wine excellent notes while others have had problems. The logical guess is that these discrepancies were due to the differrent bottlings. The wine that Robert Kenney sent me was not defective int he sense of brett, mercaptan, or any winemaking issue. It was just mediocre wine like you might expect in a cheap jug wine. As I said, pretty close to undrinkable.
3. I’ll take the blame for not tasting the wine right away. I just didn’t take it seriously since this was the only complaint that I knew about (until very recently when Bob Hudak and a few others reported their bad bottles).

For some history, go back and look what happened a number of years ago with Las Rocas. It obviously took a while for it to percolate up that there was some bad wine out there. Once it became clear, after being alerted by RMP who received some feedback about bad bottles, the importer Eric Solomon took responsibility. –MrBigJ

He also then added, “I meant fraudulent only in the sense that what I tasted in Robert Kenney’s bottle was a different wine than what I tasted with Mark Clinard at The Oregon Grill.”

This was the first vintage of Sierra Carche, which is owned by Guy Anderson in the United Kingdom. Guy Anderson Wines describes its business: “As one of the UK’s leading brand creators, …. [w]e are constantly researching and learning what people look for when choosing a wine…. We have a strong track record of producing innovative new wine brands…. [B]rands created by Guy Anderson Wines such as Fat Bastard, Mad Dogs & Englishmen and Gran Familia have found success in markets around the world.”

But there was still little known about the actual winery and vineyards producing the Sierra Carche. The importer’s page states that there were 20,000 bottles produced (the above label showed a number out of 16,000). There is scant elaboration on the vineyards.

In the absence of a reply from the Sierra Carche importer, Well Oiled Wine Co., Victor de la Serna offered some additional information. (De la Serna is a Madrid-based authority on Spanish wine and founder of elmundovino.es.) He writes:

I can give some information on this subject. Bodegas y Viñedos de Murcia is not a winery, but the commercial arm of the Casa de la Ermita group of wineries in southeastern Spain. This is a still quite recent (1999) group which began in Jumilla with Casa de la Ermita (DO Jumilla), was expanded with Casa de las Especias (DO Yecla) and Dominio de la Peseta (DO Alicante), three adjoining appellations sharing the same monastrell-dominated terroir, and there’s also, I believe, two more companies, Casa de la Ermita USA and Altos de la Ermita, the latter for upscale wines. The rapid expansion caused the raising of quite a few eyebrows in Spain. The group has been the subject of ‘for sale’ rumors for several years now – but business troubles are unfortunately not uncommon these days among Spanish wineries, so this is certainly not an isolated case.

There have been a couple of other similar cases of lot variation in the past few years involving inexpensive Spanish wines that were highly rated in the WA – always a risk, IMHO, with wines produced by large-scale wineries which can easily increase production of commercially successful brands. Sierra Carche seems to be a different case in that it’s a more expensive wine, but it does come from a very large winery.

Humberto Dorta, a wine consumer residing in Pennsylvania, corresponded with an official at the PLCB about the wine. Here is the reply from the official:

Thank you for contacting the PLCB and bringing this matter to my attention. Please be informed that the Bodegas Murcia Sierra Carche 2005 was not “dumped” on the PLCB as you have described. The importer, Well Oiled Wine presented the wine to my office in the Spring of 2008. As a long time business associate with a new import company. Mr. Mark Clinard of Well Oiled knows the purchasing power of the PLCB. He presented a volume purchase opportunity which we believed at the time would be a great fit for the Chairman Selection program.

As we do with all Premium Collection store proposed wine purchases, my buying team and I sampled the Sierra Carche 2005 which was rated 96pts from the Wine Advocate magazine and quoted with a price of $40.00. We found the wine to be outstanding, in spite of its youth it was showing deep black fruits and some pencil lead. The PLCB price was negotiated to $29.99 for a 700, six bottle, case purchase. The PLCB order arrived in August of 2008 on the first container of this wine to the United States. Only 525 cases of the wine had arrived which went to the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh markets. The Central PA order of 175 cases arrived later and was rejected due to it’s late arrival. The 525 cases sold through at $29.99 without any incidents of excessive customer returns.

Effective July 1, 2009 the wine was given a liquidation price of $18.99. There were approximately 150 bottles remaining at that time. As I stated the PLCB received wine from the first container of this wine to the US. I believe that subsequent shipments of the wine may have contained questionable juice. In the spring of this year, my office was offered the Bodegas Murcia Sierra Carche 2006 which we declined. I will personally pull a bottle from our remaining 2005 inventory to see if there is any cause for concern. Again thank you for passing the information along to me.

An email yesterday morning to importer Mark Clinard seeking clarification about the winery, the three lots, the production volume, and possibilities for customer refunds was not returned. Reached on his cell phone yesterday morning, he said he had no comment at this time.

Late yesterday someone posted to the fourms at wineberserkers.com using the handle BVM winemaker.

We produced a single tank of 180 hl for Sierra Carche 2005 and a sample was submitted to the Wine Advocate for tasting in November 2007. We bottled the full quantity over two days and labeled 20,000 bottles for Well Oiled Wine Co order (lots 8113 & 8114) and we reserved the remnant (3,600 bottles) into clean skin stock (lot 7033). Following the wine’s successful reception among customers and reviewers, we shipped the remnant lot 7033 to additional markets including 1050 bottles to the US. At the request of Mark Clinard at WOW Co following the complaint by the Wine Advocate, we re-tasted the wine and while we found no problems, we also sent samples for analysis at an independent laboratory. We will report the results as soon as they are available. In the meantime, in keeping with our policy on all wines delivered to any customer, BVM will honor any returns of Sierra Carche 2005.

The saga of Sierra Carche is a fascinating and still unfolding tale. One of the largest questions is what protections do consumers have? Have you ever been like Robert Kenney and bought a lot of wine based on a score without trying it? Do you think that wine stores should honor returns of this wine, as Wine Library is doing? (Not all states may allow returns and some may limit the length of time that a shop could return a wine to the distributor.) Although there appears to be nothing illegal with what has happened, and, if real, the “BVM winemaker” has offered returns of all wine so consumers like Robert Kenney can be made whole assuming the three tier system allows it.