Slate.com just published a good article about a boutique wine store in Manhattan. Located just five blocks from the old World Trade Center tower site, the shop almost didn't survive 9-11. But now it's thriving.
Its secrets:
1. The owners don't display critics' scores. Their reasons are (a) scores have crept up over the years, thereby having diminished importance; (b) the owners' palates differ from the tastes of most professional critics'; and (c) for some reason, younger wine drinkers are paying less attention to critic scores.
2. The owners choose only wines which they, the owners, like. This results (in their case) in a huge selection of wines from the Loire Valley, and a puny selection from Napa and Bordeaux.
I say Bravo! to this effort to chart an honest, personal course through Wine World. Chambers Street Wines sounds a lot like the old Square Deal wine shop here in Portland. Square Deal focused on littler, unknown wineries that the shop owners loved; my only issue with Square Deal (and I really liked the owners and their business model and their passion) was that my palate was so different from theirs that I really had difficulty liking many of the wines on their floor.
Apparently, that is not an issue for the steady stream of customers at Chambers Street.
No comments:
Post a Comment