In a WRO blog entry (keep scrolling down) in mid-November, Robert Whitley said what a clever idea he thinks it is for a wine shop to organize its wines by their taste rather than by region or grape variety.
As he mentioned (in referring to our book, WineStyle, www.winestylebook.com), Ed McCarthy and I also think it’s a great approach to wine. After all, what could be more important about a wine than its taste?
We’ve been using this approach — categorizing wines according to their taste, or style — for about two decades now, going back to when we created a course called ‘A Study of Styles’ at the International Wine Center in NYC.
The first wine shop to incorporate a stylistic approach to wine into its retailing concept was, we believe, Best Cellars (www.bestcellars.com), which opened in New York City some time in the 1980s. Joshua Wesson, a founder of Best Cellars, became a missionary for the idea that a wine’s taste is key in purchasing a wine. Today, Best Cellars has seven stores in five states.
3