Rant: Wine Selfies

While working at the wine store, I sometimes encounter a customer who is seeking a specific wine, yet they remember very little about it. They might only know that it had a blue label or that the name of the producer began with a "P." That leads to a "game" of Twenty Questions as I try to determine the wine's identity, asking question after question to narrow down the possible choices. Sometimes I am successful, and sometimes not. I am most successful when the wine in question is something that the customer previously purchased at the store.

When the customer is trying to recall a wine that had at a restaurant, or purchased at another store, it is much tougher. There are thousands of wines out there, so trying to determine its identity from very limited information is difficult, if not impossible. However, there is something simple that consumers can do to make these type of situations much easier for all involved. And it will allow the consumer to better locate the wines they desire.

During the last couple days that I have worked at the wine store, several people have availed themselves of this simple solution, and it made it easier to locate the wines they sought, or something similar. I have even talked about this simple solution before, but it is worthy of being spotlighted again. It is a solution that I use, and which a number of my wine friends also use. And it is a solution that all wine consumers should know and use.

All you have to do is to take a picture of the wine bottle you enjoy.

Nearly everyone carries a smart phone, with the capability to take photos, so you always have a camera handy. It only takes a few seconds to snap a photo of a wine label. You don't have to write anything down, to take any notes about the wine. The picture becomes your memory of the wine, a memory that can be easily shared with others. The picture of the wine label should be sufficient for most any wine store to identify the wine. And you won't need to play Twenty Questions with the wine store staff to identify the wine that you previously enjoyed.    

Though the occasional customer at the wine store has previously showed me a wine label photo, there were about five customers within the last couple days that did so. I hope this is a positive sign that more people are now taking this simple action. There is little reason why more people can't take such pictures. If you enjoy a wine, then take a few seconds to memorialize that occasion with a photo, a quick picture of the wine label.