We’ve written before about what your job is as the owner of a small wine shop. I’ve found another short, quick read that lays out the same idea: unless your shop caters solely to the very well off, your job is to find interesting wines that don’t break the bank. [level-members]
Recently in his New York Times column The Pour, Eric Asimov wrote the following:
Here are 20 red wines that meet those requirements, not ranked in any particular order. All are in that $15-to-$20 sweet spot where price intersects with quality and distinctiveness to yield great value. You can certainly find plenty of sound wines for less than $15, but chances are they will not be as interesting.
For more than $20, you can start to add in wines that may fit the bill from more highly regarded regions, like the northern Rhône, Priorat, even Burgundy, though pretty soon you could be spending a lot of money.
Staying in the $15-to-$20 range requires searching outside the status areas, and trying wines that often come from little-known regions, are made from grapes that are not celebrated, and are frequently in limited production. If the wines are more familiar, like California cabernet sauvignon or Oregon pinot noir, they will often be made from young vines, or come from surplus grapes that were sold off.
That’s it in a nutshell. Yes, it’s nice to sell the really high dollar bottles. Any anyone can set themselves up to push as much Yellow Tail out the door as possible at razor thin margins. But your success – and, likely, your happiness, rests on doing something a bit more interesting and personal. Find interesting wines that excite you and that don’t break the bank.
That’s a job anyone could love. [/level-members]