This wine is lambrusco dell’emilia azienda agricola. It is a red wine from Italy.

This is a sign that sits outside of Slope Cellars promoting their weekly wine tastings and what they will be having.

One wall of shelves in the store. This is the first thing that caught my eye when I walked in. A large variety of wines filled the wall and was overwhelming at a first look.

The wine shop I visited was Slope Cellars located at 436 7th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215. When you first walk up to the store there is a large display window with fall decorations in them. My first thought on that was that it was a nice display but it was outdated. It’s a few months past those holidays so I didn’t expect to see those decorations. When we walked in we were automatically greeted by the employees and one of their dogs which gave me a very welcoming feeling. My first impression was that the shelves looked a little busy and crowded but taking a closer look it was a lot more organized than what I thought. I’ve never been in a wine shop before so maybe that is what it usually looks like on the shelves. There was soft music playing, I couldn’t tell exactly what it was but it was nice music, not too loud so you can have a conversation with someone at a comfortable volume. Something else that stood out to me was the lighting. Directly down the middle of the store it was low lighting but there were small lights pointing to the shelves so you could still see clearly.

Upon speaking to the owner, Mrs. Patty Lenartz, we learned a little about the business and how she got into it. Before owning a wine shop she was an elementary school teacher and she implements things from that into her shop. For example, she has a color coded system to help customers pick a wine if they’re basing it on price. If the label is yellow it means the wine is between $10-$15, the blue is $15-$20 and the green is over $20. She wanted it to be visual for the customers. She also has some of them labeled with stars which means they are organic. The reason Ms. Lenartz does this, so the customer can guide themselves through the shop by themselves if they want to. Their most expensive bottle of wine is about $350 and the cheapest wine is about $8. Because she wanted to organize the shop not by price, she used this labeling system. The way the shop is organized is old world wines in the front and new world wines in the back. Starting with France, going to Italy, Germany and Austria.

Something that is very important to Mrs. Lenartz is that they aren’t like every other wine shop. She says why would you want to have something that everyone else has? Why buy 100 bottles of wine that the other 5 wine shops in the area have when you can stand out and have 15 bottles of something they don’t have. She likes to have a more natural and organic selection of wines. Their community impact isn’t very large but they are known by a few people. They find it very important to know everyone who comes into their store. It’s also important to the owner that everyone is greeted when they come in no matter what. They know their customers by name and I witnessed that as I was talking to Mrs. Lenartz. When someone came in if one of the employees didn’t say hello she excused herself from our conversation to say hi. When a frequent customer came in I heard the employees ask them about something that is going on in their life like how their kids are or their dogs. Speaking of dogs, they are welcome in the store; one of the employees’ dogs, Graham, comes to the store everyday with him. I found this to make the environment a lot friendlier and homey than other places but I thought it could also pose a problem for someone with a dog allergy. There was no indication that there was a dog in the store that I could see so you wouldn’t know until you walked in.

Overall the wine shop was a very friendly place to go to and the customer service was great. I would recommend going to Slope Cellars if you are looking for great customer service and a different variety of wines than the average wine shop.