West Side Wine

I’ve gone on and on about folks coming in and not being able to articulate exactly what they want.  You know how it works — I get into the “20 questions” thing before we agree on a wine. 

Well, here’s another weird phenomenon. It’s the “I need a wine, it doesn’t matter what it is, I want to pay blank, and make it a red” shopper.  Sounds realtively simple enough, you’d think.  I just walk around the store, eyeball a candidate, pull it off the shelf and ring it up, right?  Nope. There’s alot more to these shoppers than you’d think.

A perfect example was one the other day. Same specs as above.  I tried to ask her a few questions beforehand, including one about any no-nos, but  was quickly rebuffed with an impatient, “I said it doesn’t matter what it is.” 

Okey dokey. So I wandered around a bit and pulled a nice Bordeaux. 

“What’s this?”  she asked.

“It’s a red Bordeaux.” 

“I hate the French. No French wine.” 

Alrighty, then.  “How about this really nice Washington State Merlot?” I tried.

 ”Didn’t you see that movie about the guy who hates Merlot?  Merlot is bad, I agree with that guy.” 

“You’re the boss. Would you consider a Chianti?” 

“You mean that cheap red wine from Italy with the wicker basket attached to the bottle?  Yuk.” 

“Well, our Chianti’s don’t have those wicker baskets attached to the bottle, but if you have a problem with Chianti, we’ll move on.” 

This went on for about 20  minutes longer, until we finally settled on a red wine that cost about blank, that really didn’t matter what it was in the first place.  

You think this wine selling thing is easy?  It would be a lot easier if we could at least let out all of the “I wouldn’t be caught dead with…” or the “You can’t be serious, people drink Zinfandel?” opinions from the start.  A process of elimination is better than a stab in the dark.

Communication is a good thing. In the end, we’ll settle on something.  We always do.

I know it’s hard to believe, what with several feet of snow on the ground in Washington D.C. and Baltimore, but it’s true.  Spring’s a-comin’. My yearly indicator for this are the frantic requests by distributors for my rosé wish list. Every year I have to pre-order rosés for future delivery, which will start in mid-March. And this was the week where those requests came in.

So relax.  There will be another Spring, and depending upon which groundhog you believe, it will be here very soon.  Once again, WSW will be rosé headquarters, with a choice of over 30 different choices from all over the world.  I’m always loking for new and different bottles, so if you guys have any favorites (or know of some that are obscure, affordable and delicious) let me know.

And hang in there. The next sound you’ll be hearing is “Batter up!”

I see a lot of wine salespeople in my shop, and they’re all a lot younger than me.  That doesn’t bother me because, frankly, I don’t spend that much time thinking about how old I am.  It never meant much to me.  But today I drew the line.  The first guy comes in, we taste some wine, and he asks me if he can come back in a few days to taste me on a number of wines made by a guy named Fess Parker.  Now, for you youngsters out there, Fess Parker in his former life was a famous actor. We’re talking the 50′s.  He played a chararcter named Davey Crockett on TV, and was extremely popular. As kids, we all had a replica of his coonskin hat and wore it whenever the show came on.  Lame?  Maybe in hindsight. But hell, we were kids. 

So this guys proceeds to tell me that the number of people who recognize Fess Parker’s name is “rapidly diminishing.” “Excuse me?” I respond.  “Not only do I know who he is, but I still have a pulse.” 

“Well, you know what I mean,”,he says. 

“No, not really,” I reply, having some fun watching him squirm and dig himself a deeper hole.

So, right after he leaves another young turk comes in with some wines, one of which was really quite good.  I ask him to give me some background on it.

“It’s a very lovely, quaint story,” he says. “An older couple, you know in their early 60′s, decided to change their lives and become winemakers.”  Wham!  Another assault on the “old folks”.   I told him the Davey Crockett story and informed him that “quaint” wasn’t a word that should be used in referring to folks in that age group.  To his credit, he and I  just cracked up at the juxtaposition of the two incidents, and I’m going to buy the lovely quaint wine anyway.  I will enjoy it on my rocking chair.