Rant: Useless Wine Recommendations

If you're knowledgeable about wine or other alcoholic drinks, then you'll often have family, friends and others asking you for recommendations. They commonly want specific recommendations, to help them better explore or understand a general category. They don't want to be told to just try a Greek wine or a Sake, but they want to know which specific one to purchase. The more specific the recommendation, the easier it is for that consumer, and they often want it to be as easy as possible.  

It's then also simple for you to provide that person a handful of recommendations, to give them a list of several choices. You can hone that list down according to the person's requirements, such as price or flavor style. However, a problem can often arise when that person takes their list of recommendations to their local wine shop. None of those recommendations may be available in that wine store, and that's frustrating. What do they do then? 

The issue is that there are many thousands of different wines available, from all all over the world, and most wine shops only carry a few hundred or so. So, the chances that any specific wine shop carries the specific wines you recommended can be low. Some wine shops might not even carry certain wine categories. For example, your local wine shop might not carry Croatian or Greek wines, so a recommendation for those wines would be largely useless. 

It's possible that these wines could be ordered through the wine shop, but that takes times and not every wine is available in every state. For example, if you're in Arizona and giving wine recommendations to someone in Massachusetts, you should know that each state has its own importers and they will bring in some wines which won't be found in the other state.

So, how you can provide better recommendations, avoiding the issue of a wine shop not stocking your choices? 

I'm often asked for Sake recommendations and it's very difficult for me to provide specific choices as many wine shops carry very little Sake, if any. It's even difficult to provide recommendations when a specific shop carries a decent selection, as they might not carry the particular Sakes I suggest to someone. 

Because of those issues, I've developed a new response to when someone asks me for a Sake recommendation, one which enables me to provide far better choices, and choices which are readily available. This response would work for wine or any other alcoholic beverage, and avoids the problem of your recommendations not being available at a person's local wine shop. 

When someone asks me for a Sake recommendation, I ask them to go to their local shop and take a picture of their Sake selection. Then, they send me a copy of that picture and I can tell them which of those Sakes I would recommend. That ensures they will be able to easily obtain the Sake I recommend, and won't be disappointed by going to a store with one of my recommendations but not being able to find it. If their local shop has only a few Sake selections, none of them might be worthy of my recommendation. Then, I suggest they seek out a different shop, or maybe they need to order it online,

This may be the best way to recommend wines and other alcoholic drinks, to ensure their availability to the requester. It is more helpful than just providing a list of different choices. More people need to be doing this, assisting those seeking wine recommendations. With the holiday season looming, lots of people will be seeking recommendations, for gifts, parties, and more. Do them a service and better help them select the wines that are readily available to them.