Long’s Wines and Liquors is a wine retail store located 79^th street 5^th avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. According to my experience and the reputation of the retail store, I believe that they will be able to provide answers for my inquiries. Another reason of choosing this retail store is that they draw passenger attention with free wine tasting on Fridays and well-designed display window, which gets changed by seasons and holiday.

There were three employees working at that moment Andrew was the employee with most experience, and other two employees were fairly new. However, the 7 months and 2 months of experienced employees, Greg and Coleen, helped me answering most of my questions.

I planned out three questions before I visited the retail shop. The first question is how they suggest wine to their customers. Greg’s answer was little different from what I expected. I expected the suggestions were made based on grape varieties or regions. Their answers were more realistic. According to Greg, he asks about fruit flavor and sweetness. Depending on type of fruit, such as lemon black berries, plums, or citric, he then suggests grape variety. The range of price for these suggestions is between $12 and $25.

The second question was about the displays. I wanted to know why the structure of the display designed this way. As I was walking in, I saw American wines first then all other wines from Europe. Andrew was able to answer this question. The front half of the store was wines of new world, and the back half of the store was wines of old world. Greg told me his opinion on top of the fact that Andrew told me. Because both employees and customers can associate and read the descriptions better with the American wines and the word ‘New’ sounded it belongs in front, American wines were the first section people would walk into. Sections for some regions were interesting set up the retail store. Greek wines had its own section based on Greek population in the neighborhood. Beside from Greece, many different interesting regions such as Israel, New Zealand or Australia had smaller sections.

The last question was about the customers. I have been taking longer time choosing a wine now because I know more than before I took the class. I asked if the customers they have are educated wine consumers. Roughly about 70% of their customers appeared to be educated wine consumers according to the employees. However, they seemed to be unsure when I asked if their guests will notice the difference if they suggest same grape variety from two very different location.

The retail store visit could have been much better if there is a person who is really in charge of everything. I picked Friday to visit them since they have wine tasting. I have assumed a manager would supervise on the special day like wine tasting day. Although Long’s Wines and Liquors is doing great on training the new employees, they can definitely improve on selecting motivated swift manager. Throughout the visit, Andrew seemed the least motivated employee. Greg has less knowledge about wine because this is first job dealing with wines, he said, but he seems highly motivated and has knowledge about liquors and beers. Overall, I think the retail store keeps everything neat and on point. I would still go shop at this retail store over other wine retailing stores in the neighborhood.