Page 51 - Wine Spectator (January 2020)
P. 51
HOW TO BUY WINE
RETAIL Shelf Esteem
Your neighborhood wineshop can be source of BY ALISON
reliable advice and guided exploration NAPJUS
rick-and-mortar wineshops come in all reports common to many other industries.
READER POLL
shapes and sizes, and chances are, there are Yet prowling the aisles need not be a Herculean
Bseveral to choose from near your home or Buy Wine at Retail task. Rather, it should be the amuse bouche that
office. Once you’re a regular customer, your local 1% gets you excited to go home and open your new-
shopping experience can be an easy in and out est acquisition. Good wine retailers know this, and
with a bottle or two you’re sure to like. But at first, 11% with just a little effort on your part and theirs,
you might find navigation trickier: Every wine you’ll build a relationship that provides rewarding
store stocks different items; it can be hard to lo- 25% drinking and neighborhood goodwill.
cate what you have in mind among the many of- 63% At Wally’s Wine & Spirits’ two locations in Los
ferings; inventory is regularly depleted and not Angeles, the wine-buying experience has evolved
always restocked with the same bottles; and rele- to represent what owner Christian Navarro refers
vant information about a particular wine is rarely to as a “lifestyle community,” intermixing wine
summed up as efficiently as it is in the consumer Q FREQUENTLY Q SOMETIMES Q RARELY Q NEVER and fine food retail with a bar and restaurant.
JAN. 31 – FEB. 29, 2020 • WINE SPECTATOR 47
