Your most important wine dollar
The 2014 Harlan Estate Cabernet will release this month for $1,500 per bottle. A bit later in the spring, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti will arrive. There is little doubt it will touch $2,000 per bottle for the current vintage. Are the wines delicious? You bet. I can say this with certainty for both of them even though I have only experienced one of them during my wine journey. Are they worth that price tag? I’ll leave that up to the collectors who pursue them each year.
The more appropriate question though, is it the most important wine dollar spent? I would suggest for all wine consumers, regardless of where they find themselves in their own wine journey, it is not. Most of us will never experience those bottles in our wine drinking careers. Even if we had the firepower to purchase those wines would we? Even if so, I would still feel your most important purchase is not the show stopper, special occasion wines, but what you spend on your everyday drinkers.
Since they are the most important purchases you will make they are also the most vital to get right. The special occasion bottles come in the $70 plus category all the way up to the price for Harlan and DRC. They are certainly going to be great, but the bottles you buy every day, day in and day out, that retail under $20, take more forethought and more care when selecting. The questions then are how and where to do that, and how to do it well on a consistent basis.
The guidance of a trusted and competent wine professional is key. As we have said so many times, we taste a lot of wine, every chance we get, with every winemaker that comes to town, and all of our great local distributors and every importer. This allows us to taste between 50 and 60 wines per week, and gives us the knowledge to recommend with confidence each and every wine we have in our shop, that we place in our wine club, or that we feature in our weekly wine special, the “Friday Night Flights.” We not only bring in those we like to drink, but a broad array of wines that we know our customers will like with all of their varied preferences and tastes. It allows us also to cover all the wine “bases,” including varietals and appellations. We make sure that all the wines we select for placement in our shop are well made, regardless of style.
For each of you, as wine lovers and consumers, you should find the wine professional that works best for you. When you are choosing a wine professional ask the candidates, “Have you tried this wine?” Follow up with questions regarding how often they taste wine and how many they cover in any given week. Ask who their favorite winemakers are. Use this to gauge if their palates will line up with yours. Then, once you decide on the right person to work with, and this is the most important part, buy 90 percent of your wine from them. This allows your chosen professional to get to know your palate and recommend the bottle that most fits your individual taste. It gives all of us in the wine business the ability to contact you when we know we have just tasted the perfect bottle for you and say with confidence, “You have to try this wine the next time you are in the shop.”
The importance of the bottles you drink most days can’t be overstated. These are the wines that are the signposts along your own wine journey. They are the wines you share with family and friends. They are those by which you will judge all other bottles in some cases, including those in the super premium price categories. So invest the time and energy in getting these right. They will help guide you in selecting the right wine most every time, regardless of your price goal.
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If there is a topic you would like to read about or questions on wine you can email George@thedinnerpartyshop.com or make suggestions by contacting the Healthy Community section at the Coeur d’Alene Press.
George Balling is co-owner with his wife Mary Lancaster of the dinner party, a wine and gift shop in Coeur d’Alene by Costco. The dinner party has won the award for best wine shop in North Idaho twice, including for 2018. George is also published in several other publications around the country. After working in wineries in California and judging many wine competitions he moved to Coeur d’Alene with Mary over 10 years ago to open the shop. You can also follow us on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/dinnerpartyshop .