Is the stores layout wine friendly?
Remember, wines don’t like heat. While it is too expensive for stores to maintain the proper cellar temperature of 54 degrees (more or less), you should feel noticeably cool and the bottles should feel cool to your touch. Wines don’t like light, either. Sunlight and fluorescent light can penetrate bottles and damage the wine. So be wary of warehouse stores and window displays, especially if the vintage dates – or the dust – suggest the bottles may have been there a long time. Ideally, bottles should be stored on their sides or upside down (in boxes or through holes in the shelves) to keep the corks from drying out. This is really only a danger with older vintages that may have been in the store awhile, but proper shelf storage is a classy touch and a sign of a store that cares about its product. Does the consultant know the wines? Consultants who take pride in their jobs will have tasted most if not all wines in the store. Some will have written logs of their tasting notes handy for cu
