Wine Spectator Bashing

[Thomas]

At my shop, is-wine, we NEVER post a rating on wine, and I NEVER buy anything I and my staff had not tasted and agreed on. (I say never, but I have failed in that policy a few times, and each time I bought something without tasting it, I was disappointed.)

Our aim is for the staff to come to consensus so that we give equal weight to the sale of wine in the shop. We also encourage our customers to talk with us; therefore, we use no shelf talkers, no ratings and no advertising of any sort in the store. We even move the stock around from one shelf space to another often, so that customers do not get into the habit of walking over to their favorite wine and grabbing a bottle of it at the expense of trying one of the new wines we got in.

And, since I believe tasting is all important, we introduce new wines or vintages at our weekly Saturday tastings.

We also keep the stock to a minimum--rarely have like varieties fighting for shelf space. With so much out there, and with a low stock, we appear to be introducing something new every week--actually, we do.

Consumer magazines are like elevator music. When I want vineyard and wine information, I read trade magazines for their orchestration of the news.

[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 01-13-2003).]