Ben

But the key to why I like Howard’s so much is that unlike many other smaller shops I’ve been in, I’ve never felt like he was unloading overpriced wines on me simply because I didn’t know any better. When I go in and ask for a $15 wine, he’ll sell me a $13-15 bottle instead of trying to push a $18-20 bottle on me. And the only wines I haven’t liked were wines from mixed cases I asked him to make for me. Even those, I don’t think were bad wines; I usually just didn’t care for the style.

Now, his store is certainly geared more towards French (especially Burgundy), Italian (especially Piedmont) and German whites. His Californian selection might suck. I wouldn’t know; I’m still exploring French and Italian wines.

As for prices, I seem to remember comparing prices of wines I got at Howard’s with prices I could find online for Binny’s or Sam’s and finding that they all had identical prices. As far as I can tell, Howard doesn’t seem to charge any larger markup than the big stores. It was hardly an exhaustive comparison though. But I’ve never felt ripped off (for whatever that’s worth).

Anyway, next time you’re in Chicago, I’d humbly suggest you take a couple of hours and poke around Howard’s. It might be fun as an expert to engage a fellow expert in conversation about the mertis of Californian wines or whatever else happens to be on your mind (at least as far as wine goes; I don’t think he’d be much help with models of 40 extra dimensions). If nothing else, it’s a new wine shop. Then, revisit Sam’s and blog about a comparison of the two: size, quality, and value of the selection, prices, etc. That would certainly be my favorite non-physics post here…

Ah – that’s the scoop. One of my favorite things is nosing through a totally packed wine shop (with bottles still in boxes, not laid out fancifully on shelves), without the meddling interference of the merchant intent on recommending overpriced wines that I don’t want. But for one who is learning the wine world, it is a different story – in that case, recommendations (from all sorts of different sources, never rely on just one!) are very useful.

Sam’s is (or at least used to be) the king for Claret or Burgundy and had the best prices in Chicago-land. They sucked on CA wines. Of course, that was 12 years ago, back in the dark ages, when I lived there.

Howard’s on the other hand, is the place to go when you’re willing to rely on the wine merchant to reccomend wines. Give him whatever parameters you want (price, region, age, ageability, stlye, aromas, flavors, etc.) and he’ll go into his tiny shop packed to the gills and come back with the best wine he can. For a novice like me, this is fantastic. For an expert like you, I’d imagine this would be even better (if only b/c sometimes I don’t give quite enough info for what I want).

Anyway, I could go on, but I think I’ll just stop and apologize for this little attempt to proselytize (sometimes I just can’t help myself).

Ben, forgot to ask, you do have a warm coat and gloves, right?