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The Wine Library, Springfield, NJ


Joe H

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I know Puffeney's wines only slightly--they're not open for tasting much. If I remember correctly, he does a 100% Savagnin bottling in the traditional long-years-in-foudre style, which I found to be a bit too austere (in its context)...that said, it was several years ago and I don't have notes to look back on. I'd welcome an opportunity to revisit them.

His vin jaune, I believe, is a good bit more expensive that d'Arlay's.

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[quote name=Joe Riley' date='Jan 30 2006, 02:33

My post previous to yours was asking an honest question of Zora, I'd truly like to know the answer to it.

If that system works for you, more power to you. I think that there's room for everybody. I've shopped online before, and if you know precisely what you're looking for, it can be quite a boon.[/quote]

Mr. Riley-- I have bought wine on the Internet exactly twice. First, from Premier Cru I bought a case of Torbreck Woodcutter's Shiraz, paying for it in October (prior to its arrival in the US) and waiting until March to receive it, so that there would be no risk of it freezing en route. The second time was last week, when I bought one case from Wine Library. I have not had to deal with any bad bottles, but if I were to, it's likely that the wines in question are not so expensive that it would justify all of the trouble of returning one bottle, if it were an entire case I would ship it back. That is sometimes my attitude with the occasional bad bottle here--sometimes it is not worth the time and gas money to take it back to the store, because it was a cheap bottle to begin with. I have read online about heat damaged cases being sent back to out of state shippers, and any business that wants to keep customers and avoid having their name spread all over the internet wine boards as bad actors will take damaged wine back and issue refunds.

In recent weeks, I have bought bottles of wine where I usually buy wine: at Paul's, MacArthur's, The Vineyard, Rodman's, Balducci, P Street and Vienna Whole Foods, and Magruder's. I also shop occasionally at Arrowine, Rick's, Wide World of Wine and Total. I don't have a wine cellar or off-site storage. I almost never buy by the case, though I have about 200 bottles stashed in cool closets and cupboards in my house. I realize that you are trying to challenge me to make a point. Someone who buys as much wine as Joe H moving all of his wine purchasing to an Internet company might represent your worst nightmare and a harbinger of a major trend you must try to quash with persuasive rhetoric. But I am no threat to you, or local winesellers, since I don't shop in your store. I buy wines I am interested in for a variety of reasons, not just Parker scores, and I try to find them at the best price I can. I almost never buy any wine over $25 a bottle and I rarely go that high. Once in a while, if I taste a wine I really like, and decide that it is something I want to have multiple bottles of, AND I see it on the web at a price I doubt any local wine merchant can match--when you add $2 a bottle in shipping to an inexpensive wine, it's not always such a great deal--then I might buy on the Internet again.

Terry Thiese's remarks about connoisseurship and your badinage with JParrott about wines that few others have the sophisticated palates to appreciate remind me of the "high-fi" snobs of my youth--my brother was one. I'm sure they are more invested than ever in their audio snobbery, with all the high end home electronics around, but I'm not living with it anymore. My brother and his buddies would get together and listen to special recordings designed to highlight minute and subtle sound distinctions that only their very sensitive equipment could evoke. They were listening to sounds, not music... Me, I have a decent receiver and very good JBL speakers that allow me to have a pleasurable experience, listening to music I enjoy. It's probably not one that a sound geek could live with--it's about fifteen years old now. But I remember with great distaste how they used to congratulate each other on their superior auditory acuity and heap scorn on those who didn't have their superior ability to know good equipment from bad.

Those of us who enjoy good wine that gives pleasure, and enhances the experience of dining do not need to be derided for valuing the opinions of Robert Parker, or enjoying "international-style' wines that might not have enough terroir of the Jura to suit your superior palates. Snobbery is not at all appealing when viewed from outside the inner circle, fellas. Do it on PM instead.

Edited by zoramargolis
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Please, Zora - call me Joe, we're all friends here, right? :-)

I appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm truly not trying to challenge you to make a point or do anything else in this thread, really. If anything, I'm attempting to better understand the buying habits of knowledgeable wine consumers, that's all.

Joe H hardly represents my "worst nightmare", and I'm not trying to "quash any trends with persuasive rhetoric". I'd like to think that I'm merely pointing out the positive aspects of traditional wine retail, since they seem to take a bit of a bashing here, as well as point out that there are trade-offs in every aspect of commerce.

95% of my business is telephone deliver and events. Most of my non-catering and corporate customers don't have the time, nor want to have to TAKE the time to do in-depth Internet shopping and research, they have other interests which occupy their time. They'd rather place themselves into the hands of a trusted professional and I'm pleased when they choose me to help them.

If I've offended you or come across as hostile, please forgive me, it was never my intention - I don't post "angry". Inflection, timber and nuance can get misconstrued on message boards. I'm merely trying to be earnest, and Don seems to prefer that threads not get "chatty", so I'm doing my best to comply with his wishes.

Since it seems that you've made the tour of many local wine establishments, I invite you to drop by sometime and just check us out. Have a meal at Chef Geoff's next door or shop at Balducci's and make an afternoon of it. You don't have to buy anything (though I'd be willing to make it worth your while :-) but you might be surprised at what we have to offer. Not a challenge, just a friendly invitation. Take it for what it is worth. I won't be offended if you don't.

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I'm not at all tuned up to have an argument on the definition of snobbery, but I will say that there's a fair amount of snobbishness in saying that appreciating wines like d'Arlay's and Puffeney's is snobbery in that it reflects an outre approach to wine. Zora, you've got a good enough palate that you are extremely selective and interested in the nuance of foodstuffs, so you should be familiar with the timbre of Riley's and my attitudes toward wine.

So then why does Alain Junguenet, the best importer of Chateauneuf and other southern Rhone wines in America, choose to drop nearly a thousand bucks, plus the not-insubstantal cost of samples, to give d'Arlay a table at one of the country's leading drunkfests? Well I've got news for you--it worked. All during the afternoon, when newbies came to our table and expressed even the barest modicum of interest in our stuff, I would tell them that they needed to taste at d'Arlay, they needed that taste experience, they needed to know that process, and that the d'Arlay table represented a wonderful opportunity that far outstripped sloshing your way through Gallo of Sonoma or Bolla. More that a dozen of the folks that I sent over came back gushing about the wines, the experience, the whole thing.

So I think what Terry Theise is saying, and what I'm trying to say is, when you hear something that sounds like snobbery about a subject as intricate as wine (or food, or music), there may just be a kernel in there that changes the way you think. Maybe not (hi-fi in particular is an example there--partially because the error bands in music media is probably broader than the sound distinction good systems can make), but give it a shot.

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In many ways, TWL is that wine shop you love to hate. I can't shake the fact that watching the staff reminds me entirely of a car dealership - lots of know-nothing stockboys, nearly as many know-not-more middle managers keenly supervising every square foot while clutching their all-important walkie-talkies, and only a couple of people on the floor who actually seem to have some clue, although not the encyclopedic knowledge one would hope for. That seems to be the exclusive domain of Gary Vaynerchuk, their popstar blogger (whose blog is actually quite entertaining and educational). Alas, no Gary on the floor helping customers today.

That said, as a consumer, it's well worth a browse. The selection is huge. With many of their regular customers hooked on points-based shopping, I can hardly fault them for deploying shelf-talkers like crabgrass. The situation is really no worse than at BevMo or Total...in fact, there are plenty of interesting items probably getting marked down because they have no point rating to attract random shoppers. Seven or eight Lopez de Heredia bottlings? (Thanks, Jake.) I picked up a few Gimmonet releases to try (with Theise/Skurnik labels on the back...thanks, Rocks) that I simply haven't seen elsewhere. And some Joe H-endorsed shiraz...because occasionally, I actually do want a "fruit bomb". (Thanks, Joe.)

TWL is located just east of NJ-24 and just north of I-78. It's on the way, if you're headed to/from NYC by way of I-270/Harrisburg/I-78 (40 miles longer but less likely to back up than the I-95 corridor).

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My manager at the restaurant I was working at up here in NJ is a very good childhood friend and now wine drinking buddy of Gary's (They are going on a wine tour of France together in the next couple of months I believe) so I am assuming some of the viewpoints he used to express are passed on from Gary. He seemed very down on ratings but noted they are often a necessity of doing business because the consumer still cares about them. He seemed to typically like Robert parker's ratings though. I like Gary because he seems to realize that good and bad are all relative. If you love white zin by the box and it satisfies your palate than no amount of wine critics or ratings should make you think it isn't a "good" wine. I think internet buying allows a lot of people the opportunity to buy what they like or buy what is in their price range in secret because they are intimidated (possibly by past experiences) of walking into a wine store and asking for something considered crap by "experts" or asking for a suggestion by the dollar amount and getting scoffed at by some winesnob. I also want to note that Joe is great about this and on numerous occasions I have gone in to Ace and gotten fantastic suggestions (and NO snobbery) by going in and saying, "Give me some reds around 10 dollars".

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I stopped by at the end of August, and found the place to have a very supermarkety feel. I generally look to establish a relationship with the vintners that I use and the Wine Library does not strike me as a place where I could do that. I was really unimpressed with the Champagne selection that they had, it was not Macarthur (by far their weakest section) or Total bad, but still I kind of expected more.

On a positive note, the liquor prices were very good. Raj was selling for $40 a bottle, and a bottle of Yellow Chartreuse could be swooped-up for $28.

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I stopped by at the end of August, and found the place to have a very supermarkety feel. I generally look to establish a relationship with the vintners that I use and the Wine Library does not strike me as a place where I could do that. I was really unimpressed with the Champagne selection that they had, it was not Macarthur (by far their weakest section) or Total bad, but still I kind of expected more.

On a positive note, the liquor prices were very good. Raj was selling for $40 a bottle, and a bottle of Yellow Chartreuse could be swooped-up for $28.

Gary has a great show on the web also. tv.winelibrary.com... if you havent seen it , or it hasnt been written about yet.

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Since I began posting about the Wine Library 18 to 20 months ago I've since found a second out of town store that I really like which compliments the WL and Arrowwine for who I buy the bulk of my wine from: Grapes in Norwalk, CT. The irony of this is that I found this store because of a wine that I liked in Italy, tracked down the importer who, when I asked who I should call to order it from, recommended Grapes. The wine that I am talking about is the tre biccheri Tenuta Sant Antonio La Bandina which I posted extensively about on here. Grapes was the only store that made the effort to find this for me.

I've spent X number of thousands of dollars with them since.

John Caplan is the South African born owner of Grapes and seems to have a taste in wine virtually identical to mine. He's also in to Jake's kind of small almost unheard of vintners who turn out fantastic wines that have never been reviewed. Most importantly, I've learned to trust his taste over this time. Currently, his latest discovery is '03 Tenuta Chicherri Valpolicella (yes, ANOTHER Valpolicella) which blows away a lot of amarone I've tasted. Speaking of amarone John has also turned up the WS 95 point Michael Castellane '03 which I have not seen anywhere else.

John will also negotiate if one is willing to buy by the case.

Grapes: www.grapeswine.com

Point being that some wine I buy exclusively for the best price I can find; other (such as Arrowine and Grapes) for a combination of the taste of the owner and the price they are willing to sell for. For anyone reading this: if you are willing to buy by the case and if you find someone whose taste you trust, I would suggest that they will work with you to give you the price you need to complete the sale. I should also note that I rarely, if ever, go to Total. And, for all of the comments about the Wine Library: they are currently selling the '05 Fetish the Watcher (WS under $20 second rated wine of the year) for $14.99. If you, as I live in VA, and order it on Friday it is delivered to my stoop within 24 hours, by noon on Saturday. For that matter I have learned that I order almost exclusively from them before noon on Friday and have, without exception for two years now, received delivery by noon on Saturday.

Grapes takes longer-in fact they are almost eccentric in how they ship. Still, they, as the Wine Library and Arrowine, I trust them.

I should also note here in my mention of Arrowine, I am talking about the once a week special e-mail list which offers incredibly low prices on several wines. He comes across closeouts and specials where he will buy out all that a distributor/wholesaler has, knowing that he can turn around 35-100 or more cases within 24 hours. For anyone reading this who is willing to buy (again, by the case) this is a list you desperately want to be on! The in store prices can be high-but it is the e-mail list that is truly special. He frequently advertises the "best price in the United States." He is serious!

Last, I believe that many retailers will provide the service, taste and willingness to negotiate if you are able to buy quantity. For myself, I've organized groups of neighbors to buy multiple cases of wines from different outlets. The difference in cost can be striking: not just 20, but often 30 or more per cent! With the American dollar's value eroding daily this is quite literally a time to buy as much as you can from "offshore" wine. Shelf prices today reflect the U. S. dollar from a year or two ago, not the all time highs recorded almost daily from various currency. If you can buy by the case, not only will you get the most competitive price in the market but, more than likely, you'll get a much better price than what will be available a year or more from now for similar wine.

I should also mention in closing that "ten per cent off" is a starting point for a case price. Good customers are rewarded by their retailers...

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When they send you a case of the wrong wine, it is extraordinarily annoying to be dealing with an internet shop. And they didn't seem to care too much when I called. Yes, they are sending me the right case and a shipping label for the wrong one, but what a total pain in the ass!

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That hasn't happened to me yet. But, when it does, if it's a "lesser" wine I'm sure I'll be totally pissed. A better wine and it will never be mentioned. Real question is how they respond to the mistake. I find the DAILY e-mails from the WL to be really annoying. Still, I really like them a lot which includes three visits to their store in Springfield, NJ.

Recently, I've had another very good experience from Wade's Wines in Westlake Village, CA which is in the Simi Valley north of L. A. I found a wine that I absolutely love called Mantra Revelations 2003. This is VERY SIMILAR to Silver Oak Alexander (I am dead serious in this statement-the winery is literally across the road and uses similar oak and time to age the wine) but sells for $25.50 which is the multi case discount from $35.00. Silver Oak Alexander is north of $60. Several friends of mine and I have collectively bought eleven cases from Wade's in the past two weeks. This includes several neighbors who share my taste for cab. The price represents a 27% discount for a wine that is not sold east of the Mississippi. To the best of my knowledge it has also not been reviewed by any major magazine. If you go on www.wine-searcher.com you'll find that just about every place that formerly sold it is now sold out. If we have a major ice storm on Friday I will be sipping Mantra around this same time, looking out my patio window at the woods behind our house and thankful that I have more than one bottle for the evening...

For that matter, anyone who finds themself in Reston after six on Friday is welcome to come by and have a sip...or two or three. Just e-mail me at wwthrills@aol.com.

Wade's wines: http://www.wadeswines.com/

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As posted on the "Inexpensive but Tasty Sparkling Wines" thread -

I just got back from a trip to/through New Jersey and stopped at Wine Library, about 4 miles off the Turnpike in Springfield. The Gruet was a startling $10.98 and the Riondo a ridonkulous $8.98. The store has a wide selection, fantastic prices, and lots of tasty cheese samples for free nibbling in their gourmet shop. Next time your driving by, it's probably worth the 20 minute detour off the highway.

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As posted on the "Inexpensive but Tasty Sparkling Wines" thread -

I just got back from a trip to/through New Jersey and stopped at Wine Library, about 4 miles off the Turnpike in Springfield. The Gruet was a startling $10.98 and the Riondo a ridonkulous $8.98. The store has a wide selection, fantastic prices, and lots of tasty cheese samples for free nibbling in their gourmet shop. This probably isn't the best place to put this, but it didn't seem to fit into the "Intrepid Traveler" or "My Favorite Wine Shop" threads. Either way, next time your driving by, it's probably worth the 20 minute detour off the highway.

There's a saying in the wine business: Buy with bread, sell with cheese.

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