How we buy and sell wine
All of the tasting we do in our shop with distributors, winemakers and importers is designed with one purpose, to find the best wines at every budget point for our customers. All the swirling and sniffing and note taking and consideration has that simple goal in mind. So how do we do it? What are our priorities and requirements as we do this “work”?
We have a relatively simple set of requirements, we have to like the wine, not just for our consumption and our palate preferences though. We sell many wines that might not be our choice to take home on any given evening, but we know that consumers with palates different than ours will approve. The wines need to be well made for the price they will be sold at. The wine needs to be free of flaws, not that we won’t consider a wine due to any singular bottle flaw, but we can’t accurately assess any wine if the bottle we are tasting from is corked or suffering from any of the long list of bottle problems. Finally, the wines need to be balanced and still in “good shape,” in other words not diminished by age.
The requirements we have when tasting wines though and those for how we will sell wine are a bit more complex. When we are tasting wines our first question is always how long has the wine been open. Oxygen as we have noted from time to time, changes wine quite a lot. A wine opened since yesterday morning is going to show a different profile than the same bottle opened 5 minutes ago. Neither is a disqualifying event but it is a vital piece of information nonetheless.
Similarly, is the wine being poured through an aerator, has it been decanted or double decanted, the act of decanting a wine and then pouring it back into its original bottle. Also, if the wine has traveled with the winemaker or importer on the way to our shop, when did they arrive in town? Was the wine flown in the baggage hold of an airplane or similarly transported? All of these can have effects on the wine and we want to know when judging if the wine is right for out shelves or our wine club or if we should offer it to consumers with our endorsement.
Just as important is how we offer wines to our customers and attendees at winemaker dinners or tastings. Our position is to never manipulate the wines in any way. We don’t open them any more than a couple hours in advance regardless of the wine. We do check every bottle for flaws like cork taint, volatile acidity, simple bottle variation or any of the number of other flaws that are possible on individual bottles. When we check the bottles we also compare them to our tasting notes which we take when we are selecting the lineup for our tastings and dinners. Similarly, even though we make many of our wine club selections well in advance of when they end up in our club we will check a bottle shortly before the club versus our notes on the wine to ensure it is still worthy of the placement.
At tastings or dinners, we never decant or aerate the wine. This is a philosophical decision we made long ago on how we want to present wines to our customers and what we want to be known for. Do some bottles taste better when aerated or decanted? Depending on your personal taste, you bet! But here is the rub. If you taste a wine that has been manipulated whether through decanting or aerating you will get an impression. Your senses will detect different aromas, flavors, and characteristics of tannin than if it were poured straight from the bottle. What happens then when you get the bottle home? You pull the cork or twist the cap pour a bit to check for flaws and see how the wine is, and “Boom”, there it is, a different wine than the one you bought.
By not trying to alter the wine at our tasting events we at least guarantee the wine you taste at the event will present similarly when you get it home. The mood, food pairing and surroundings may change your perception but we can say to each and every purchaser that we did nothing to artificially alter what you are tasting.
Once you get the bottle home we encourage every wine consumer to decant or aerate as you see fit, it will likely improve the wine and we are fine with that. We just feel better if you are making that choice based on your perceptions and preferences rather than ours. It is a matter or trust, and something every one of our customers is entitled to.
If there is a topic you would like to read about or if you have questions on wine, you can email George@thedinnerpartyshop.com, or make suggestions by contacting the Healthy Community section at the Coeur d’Alene Press.
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George Balling is co-owner (with his wife Mary Lancaster) of the dinner party, a wine and table top décor shop located by Costco in Coeur d’Alene. George worked as a judge in many wine competitions, and his articles are published around the country. You can learn more about the dinner party at www.thedinnerpartyshop.com. Be sure and check out our weekly blog at www.thedinnerpartyshop.com/home/blog-2. You can get all of these articles as well as other great wine tips by friending us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/#!/dinnerpartyshop.