The Conspicuous Consumer

To many, the prospect of buying wine for a dinner party, social gathering, or simply to enjoy with that special someone can be a daunting task.

It’s easy to understand how it can be intimidating to look at the wide variety of wines available in most wine shops and that’s why I’ve prepared this basic guide to buying wine, aimed at wine novices and those who wish to expand their horizons.

In most places, it is possible to buy wine in supermarkets, specialty wine shops, liquor stores, and even in gas stations. Specialty shops usually carry a wide range of wines, but your local supermarket will also usually have a good selection of inexpensive, but lower quality wines.

Let’s first take a look at the two most common places to purchase wine: Supermarkets and Specialty Wine Shops.

Supermarkets

If you’re just looking for inexpensive wine, a supermarket is usually a fairly good bet. Most supermarkets do not stock a large variety of higher quality or more expensive wines. The selection is usually limited to choices from large commercial mega-wineries like Kendall Jackson, Robert Mondavi, or Beringer.

Typically, at a supermarket or bulk store you are not going to find someone who is very knowledgeable to assist you in deciding which wines to purchase. Also, in many cases the wines are not properly stored (keeping the bottles upright), which can lead to the cork drying out and potential spoilage of the wine.

Specialty Wine Shops

A quality wine shop is one that will typically have the following:

• Good selection - A good selection of wine will range across types of wine, regions of origin, and price. Note that as you become a more dedicated drinker of wine you may “outgrow” a selection that once seemed perfectly adequate.
• Expertise - Expertise means two different things. It means that the wine seller has firsthand knowledge of the wines int he store (he or she knows its tastes and qualities). If you ask a wine seller about a wine and receive an answer about its “ratings” rather than its qualities, then that wine seller has no expertise. Another sort of expertise is the ability to recommend wines based on your preferences for taste, structure, or texture, or simply based on other wines that you’ve liked. If a wine seller consistently recommends wines you don’t like, you may want to find another wine seller.
• Proper Storage - Wine should be stored in cool, dry, dark, constant conditions. It should not be placed in direct sunlight, or near a cooling or heating source. In addition, wine should be stored lying down as opposed to upright. If the wine you buy from a wine seller consistently tastes bad, move on to a different wine store.
• Good prices - A happy fact for most food wine store owners is that wine buyers tend to care less about price than selection, expertise, service, and storage. Of course, you should do some comparison shopping and avoid wine stores that sell at exorbitant prices. But many wine lovers are willing to spend an extra dollar or two out of loyalty and appreciation for a wine seller who really knows and cares about wine and customers.

After you’ve selected your wine shop, the next thing you need to understand about buying wine is the way that wines are rated. This system is not infallible and one reviewer’s opinion may be vastly different from another’s. All in all, the system of rating wine that is most often used can be a good indicator of whether the bottle you are thinking about buying is a good buy or an overpriced wine.

Most wine ratings use a 100 point scale to rate wines, with the following being the general rule for these ratings:

• 95-100 - Extraordinary
• 90-94 - Excellent
• 85-89 - Very Good
• 80-84 - Above Average
• 75-79 - Average
• 70-74 - Below Average
• below 69 - Poor

Price Limits

When setting out to purchase wine, set your spending limit before you walk into the wine shop. By letting know the wine seller what you are willing to spend up front, it will make it easier for him to assist you in finding the right wines that meet your quality and price requirements.

Expanding Your Horizons

The best way to expand your horizons and find the fine wines that best suit you is to experiment - pick up a highly recommended bottle and see if you like it. However, if you want outside help to point you in the right direction, there are a variety of ways to find new wines and and develop your own taste in wine:

• Tasting Rooms - Whether you are in the Napa Valley or the Loire Valley of France, visit several wineries and sample a variety of wines. There are many areas of the United States that grow wine, so if you’re near a winery, pay them a visit and see what they have to offer.
• Wine Shops - In addition to an expert staff, most wine shops will offer tasting nights or seminars where you have the opportunity to taste various wines. These tasting sessions are often themed (for example, there may be a night dedicated to New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs) and will often include food.
• Ask a Friend - One of the easiest ways to expand your wine horizons. If you have a friend who enjoys wine, ask them to recommend some of their favorites. Or, go even further and have a tasting party with a group of friends and ask them to each bring a favorite bottle.
• Wine Clubs - Many vineyards in California and other areas have wine clubs. Membership in these clubs often includes monthly or quarterly shipments of wine, as well as newsletters. These are a great way to keep your wine rack stocked with quality wine and also give you a good sampling of the wines a vineyard produces.
• Magazines and Review Sites - Magazines like Wine Spectator can be a tremendous resource in finding your next wine purchase. These publications are full of reviews and listings of wines, with ratings. Online, a site like eRobertParker (Robert Parker is one of the top wine reviewers in the United States) can also be a great resource.

Finally, just keep in mind that wine is something to be enjoyed and experienced. Don’t get stuck in the ratings hype and 98 point wines. If a friend tells you about a $9 bottle she found at the supermarket, grab a bottle and see if you like it. Just because Wine Spectator doesn’t consider it a “great wine” doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy it.

Many people think that you just can’t eat gourmet food while trying to lose weight or diet. While it is more difficult, great gourmet food is available for just about any diet you may be embarked on.

Over the next few days, weeks, months, and decades (ok, maybe not decades!) I’ll post some of my ideas on where to find gourmet food for any diet or lifestyle.

My first suggestion is this:

Use a Food Delivery Service
I’m not talking about diet programs like Nutrisystem, although I have heard good things about their product. What I’m talking about is services around the country that focus on delivering their clients high quality, healthy meals on a daily or weekly basis.

These companies usually only deliver within a local area. For example, SunFare only delivers within the Los Angeles and Phoenix areas. However, if you live in or near a major city you should be able to find a food delivery service that can cater to your needs and provide you with meals for your diet. A quick Google search or check of your local business directory should help you find a food delivery service in your area.

The downside to these services is that they are usually fairly expensive. For example, SunFare’s Vegetarian program can cost almost $70 for a single day’s meals for one person.

On a side note, check out some of the food delivery service web sites as some do offer free recipes for some of the meals that they prepare and deliver. Usually this involves signing up for their mailing list.

Ok, I know what you’re thinking… The rest of the tech geek world has already used and abused Google Chrome and moved on to the next target. I actually have been toying with Chrome for a few weeks and have had very mixed feelings about this new fangled web browser from the good people at Google.

Most of the time, I use Flock for my personal browsing and Internet Explorer 7 for business (since my corporate intranet requires IE 7, I’m fairly stuck). The reason I like Flock is because of the features and ready availability of Firefox plugins.

The area that Google Chrome truly delivers is in its speed. Man, is that browser fast. I can literally load Chrome, access my email, log in, and read my first email before Flock even finishes loading. That’s seriously fast. I like it’s stripped down feature set - avoiding burdening itself with tons of features, plugins, and graphical whiz bang really lets Chrome fly.

While Chrome’s speed is a tremendous benefit, I have to admit that I do like to have some bells and whistles. For my use, this is where Chrome falls behind. Personally, I’m willing to sacrifice some of that speed to be able to take advantage of the built in social networking features, access to Firefox plugins, and interface that a browser like Flock provides.

Still, for a first foray into the browser world, I have to say that Google did a very good job. Chrome is sleek, slim, and delivers exactly what it promises - fast browsing without a lot of fluff.

About two months ago, I made the decision to become a vegetarian. Not that I am some sort of off-the-deep-end animal rights person that thinks people are wrong for eating meat - to be honest, I like meat. I really do. What made me choose to become a vegetarian was the health benefits of a diet that doesn’t consist of 3 or 4 meals a day full of fattening, artery clogging foods like beef, bacon, etc.

So, two months in, I can say with all honesty that I really don’t miss meat all that much. Yeah, I’ve cheated a couple of times and had a buffalo burger when I was in Park City, Utah a few weeks ago and some chicken on a salad at a restaurant last week. In fact, I’ve felt better than I can ever remember since I stopped eating meat on a daily basis…

In fact, I’ll come right out and say that companies producing vegetarian and organic frozen entrees are consistently producing some of the best pre-packaged meals I’ve ever had. Kudos to Amy’s Kitchen for enabling me to eat healthy meals even when I only have about 5 minutes of prep time.

All that comes before is wonderful, but it brings me to the “struggling” part. I love to cook. I consider myself to be somewhat of an amateur gourmet. The problem with vegetarianism is that your protein choices just don’t give you too many options for high quality, gourmet meals. Yeah, I can make a mean tofu stir fry or tofu scramble, but what I can’t figure out is how to use something like tempeh or tofu to replicate some of my favorite animal protein based dishes like my sauteed salmon on top of homemade gnocchi with my infamously fattening (but good) pink cream sauce.

Consider this a cry to the vegetarian masses…

Saw this post today and just had to add my two cents. Yeah, I’m into the fancy stuff. I like the dark, $9.00 a bottle stuff that most people take one sip of and make a face that looks like they just ate a sour candy and chased it with lemon juice.

But, is a $1,000 bottle of beer just a little bit ridiculous? Is it really that much better than, say, a $38 bottle of beer? Either way, once I get an extra $1,000 sitting around I may just figure out how to get myself some of this stuff.

Check out the Top 3 Most Expensive Beers. I have to admit, I really want to try the Tutankhamen Brew and that, while I haven’t had the Sam Adams Utopia, I have had some of their other high end beers - they’re good, but I’m not sure I’m willing to drop $100 on a bottle of Sam Adams.

After several adventures in blogging, running web sites, and just being a general internet nuisance I’ve decided to delve into a new adventure… a blog about me and the things I actually LIKE.

To start, I’d just like to talk a little about myself. My name is not “Conspicuous Consumer”, but many of my friends would probably agree that it’s a good nome de plume for me. By day, I am an account executive for a Fortune 100 company but my true interests lie in areas like technology, travel, and what The Robb Report calls the “Luxury Lifestyle”. I currently run a couple web sites on topics that I enjoy, particularly history. These sites are by no means household names or even very popular, but it is enjoyable to me to know that students around the country are actually using my sites and research for their own studies.

When I’m not on the road selling or working on a new web project, I am often taking a trip to one of my favorite vacation spots like New York, Park City, or the Napa Valley.