Wine Retail Shop Visit
For my retail wine shop visit I went to one that was not on the list but after my visit I really believe it should be. I went to the Brooklyn Wine Exchange. It is located at 139 court st Brooklyn NY. Upon entering I felt sort of defeated because I just came from another wine shop where the bottles where dusty and the attendant didn’t even know what a shelf talker was. Entering the BWE was a different experience. I walked up to the cash register and told the attendant that I was a City-Tech student and I was interesting in learning more about wine. I said I was writing a paper on a visit to a wine shop. I asked if it was ok to take pictures and walk around. He said yes. He told me his name was Scott and if I had any questions feel free to ask. I proceeded to look around customers made purchases. The first thing I notice is how clean and bright it is. Every bottle was shining. When I walked up to examine the bottles and to see what these little cards where in front of the bottles. I notice is how it was a shelf talker and every wine bottle had its own personalized shelf talker. As I was taking pictures of the wine bottles and the shelf talkers Scott came up to me and proceeded to tell me how every column of wine is separated by country. Then he said that every 3 to 4 rows within the section is a region and that Within those shelves that’s when it is broken down by the grape. That the BWE tries to make finding and exploring wine easy. Not that it is short of staff eager to help I could over hear conversations with between staff and customers. Giving tasting notes and food pairings you can tell the staff enjoys wine but their jobs too everyone had a smile on their face. I asked Scott what the bigger cards on extra lit shelves with only a few wine bottles on it. He said those are the wines of the month and throughout the store you will see the bigger cards describing the wines of the month. He also said they have a program for their BWE members for $180 a month you get three of the wines from the wine of the month club, access to early a seating at their wine and spirit classes, discounts every time you shop at BWE, special discounts on paid events, including wine dinners & reserve wine class. That’s when he showed me the classroom that had a few farmhouse size tables and more wine exclusive to the room on display. Then he went on to tell me that at the Brooklyn Wine Exchange holds two classes a month and open to the public if you call the day of and see if seats are available. The classes are either free or low cost. This retail shop is novice friendly. I would recommend this location to anyone looking to buy wine or if you are interested in learning.
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Photo of the brightly lit Shelving
Wine of the month African editon
Waris-Larmandier Champange
Tasting/Classroom
The wine club seems to be of great value for the wine enthusiast who purchases a lot of wine regularly.