Too many choices?
Posted on November 5th, 2008 – 11:10 AMBy Bill Ward
At an election gathering last night, we were enjoying a fabulous cheese from Spain, smoked Idizabal. My friend Joe (not a plumber) asked me where it came from, and I started talking about the place, one of the E’s Cheese Shops located next to the Wine Markets in Woodbury and Mendota Heights.
What I really liked about the place, I told him, was how beautifully chosen the smallish selection was, focused and … manageable. We got to talking about how overwhelming the (wonderful) cheese selection at a place like Surdyk’s can be. An invaluable resource but sometimes, well, simply too much. It can be refeshing to go to a place with a more limited but just as well-chosen inventory, we agreed.
The same can hold for wine stores. I’ll never stop shopping at the somewhat larger outlets, but there’s something about places like the Wine Thief and the Little Wine Shoppe in St. Paul and Excelsior Vintage. Their smaller inventories put us at ease, and because the selection is so carefully chosen due to space limitations, they have more of an identity. It’s just easier to develop a kinship, or at least a comfort level, in such places.
Earlier in the day yesterday, I had been talking with restaurant savant Rick Nelson about the recent closings of jP’s American Bistro and the Collisters’ meat emporium at Farm in the Market. There were logistical problems attached to both places, we agreed, but we shared another misgiving: It’s easy to fall into the “oh, I’ll get there soon” trap. And then they’re gone, and we can’t get there.
This week’s Liquid Assets column is about restaurants that are puting forth a special effort to make wine more affordable in this challenging (for them and us) economic times. Just as these are the kinds of places I find worth supporting, so, too are the smaller wine stores out there that are striving to bring us a distinctive array of wines. I’m going to make a special effort to appreciate them physically as well as mentally, lest they become mere memories.
4 Responses to "Too many choices?"
The only problem with the really “small” wine shops is that they, in many cases, have to pay more for the wines they handle.
Larger “small” shops like First Grand and WineStreets by North Oaks are able to get better deals on the wines due to their purchasing power and yet still offer a kinship to the customer. Since these are owner operated you still many times find yourself being served by the decision maker himself.
Really “small” shops don’t have the space to make 5/10/20 case purchases that the other do. Many times in order to even get a ‘goodie” a shop must purchase a number of cases of the other wines offered by the winery, marketing group or importer. Since really “small” shops have a higher cost of goods sold for the same wines offered by other slightly larger operations their prices are usually higher on the same wines.
Also due to their lower volume really small wine shops don’t have the purchasing opportunities to many of the “goodies” i.e. the wines of limited allocation, carried by the larger wholesalers.
That being said I do find it interesting and sometimes enlightening to stop in to the really “small” shops to see if the owner’s palate has discovered a goody that others have missed. Wine wholesale reps are to the shop owner/decision maker like detail drug detail reps are to MDs. There are so many that if they gave all the reps time they would never have time to run their business/practice.
It is possible for the smart owners of really “small” shops to “shop” some of the reps from very “small” wholesalers who aren’t given the time of day by the really large operations. These are the really “small” shops where one can find a “goodie” or two that are not offered elsewhere. These are the “small” shops to look for and the ones that attract a good customer base.
For those with limited time (not like me I am retired)the fastest and best way is to discover these shops is to chat with a friend or two who are really “into” wine. They know where these shops are located. And, of course, read Bill’s columns, where he let’s you in on some of their locations.
Can’t find the means to leave a comment on your story concerning restaurant wine prices and corkage. So I shall leave my comment here.
My wife and I quite often meet my son and daughter-in-law at the St. Paul Buca on Sunday evenings. Most times we order an appetizer, salad and two entrees. Since I have more than a few bottles and older and better wine than the wine list we always bring our wine…alright we bring our glasses as well! Last Sunday we enjoyed 2 1995 Barolos and a Pride Viognier with our meal.
The corkage has always been $10 a bottle. We have always tipped on the corkage as well as the food. Now with the new ownership of the corporation (or so we were told) the corkage has gone up to $25 a bottle. We were given a break this time at $15. a bottle.
The food and ambiance is I believe worthy of the $10-15 a bottle corkage. At $25 I think we may have to find another location for our dinners. I think the 4 of us dine together there on Sunday evenings about 8 times a year.
Know of any other eatery in the St Paul to Northern St Paul suburbs area that might want us?
Buca food and the wines offered on their list worthy of a protective $25 corkage? I don’t think so. What do you think?
WineguyMN makes several good points. I actually was surprised awhile back when Jeff Huff of the little Wine Shoppe told me that he deals with a LOT of distributors.
“People say you could run a nice shop with three or four [distributors],” he said. “Thinking about that, it would be really nice, but I don’t think it’s possible … because you can’t get variety.
“And you wanto to be able to open yourself up to suggestions and recommendations from your customers.”
Those are the kinds of shops I’m talking about, where the owner/wine buyer makes the time, hard as it is, to deal with a lot of distributors and ferret out some primo stuff.
Nic Nadeau does that as well at 1st Grand and has turned me on to some really choice bottles.
Nic and Jeff and the Wentzels at the Wine Thief and Greg Varner at Excelsior Vintage are sorting through a lot of mediocre stuff to bring their customers interseting and fairly priced wines. We should partake of the fruit juices of their labors.
The problem with some of the smaller shops is their prices can be out of control. If you get to know the owners then you can get a discount.
The best deal in town is Lakeside in Long Lake for higher end wines during their big sales. The prices are 28% off a case and with that special they are the lowest price in town on anything over $25.
Buca charging $25 is silly as that is the same price as the Steak House corkage fees.
