Every month I’m hit with a new buzz, a different Zietgeist. Most recently it’s been the movie Sideways and Ice wine. This week, I was asked over a dozen times this week if I had a discount bin or sale rack.

Listen to me now and heed me later: the idea of a wine shop with a disco area (I picture a cart of 3 cases or less, or god forbid a freaking wicker basket) is right up their with discount day-old sushi. Don’t do it. Don’t.

Yeah, but what if… No, don’t.

What goes into a disco bin: that last bottle of a wine that just kept hanging around and around and around. Wine shops should have a natural turn over, ideally 4 to 6 times per year. Beware of wine shops that have stacks and stacks–think about those bottles in the bottom back of the stack. Eventually (months from now) they’ll be rotated up for sale, maybe that bottle you’re buying now was actually purchased 10 months ago.

So what? Isn’t some wine meant to be aged? Yeah, in your basement, not a store where the temperature constantly changes and 14 weeks of floor mopping have seeped into that bottom case with the bottles stored upside down doing who knows what to the cork.

OK, so instead of scaring you from buying wine, how do you combat poor storage techniques? Simple. Use your three adjectives and ask if there’s anything new the buyer has purchased that she’s particularly excited about. Scan their newsletter for new arrivals. This is where I shamelessly plug my end of the profession–the specialty wine shop. It pays to be a regular. When I say regular, I mean frequent, as in a $10 bottle every week or so. That’s it. That’s all it takes. If you make a habit of a wine shop, they’ll make a habit of stearing you in the right direction–and not pawning any of their mistakes off on you.

  Charvin Cotes du Rhone  - Charvin anything. Cotes du Rhone is an area I expect to underwhelm me. But I always hope. Charvin always manages to offer one of the best values–intensity, character, and balance–that belies the AOC’s mediocrity.