Why I get more hangovers (or, The posts get longer when she's unemployed)

I know it's become blogger cliche to go on about one's drinking habits and the suffering due to them, but I really have to complain about the cheap swill I've been forced to drink lately.

I can't seem to buy a mid-priced, decent bottle of wine in my neighborhood, which is crazy because there are several liquor stores within walking distance of my apartment. Well actually there are four, but two of them are those pints-behind-bullet-proof-glass affairs who only stock hard liquor--which is useless to a wine drinker--so I don't count them. Which leaves the other two.

I call the first store the "Fancy-Pants Wine Store". It's a small place with an upscale vibe that opened about three years ago, who sell fine domestic and imported wines and top-shelf liquors exclusively. According to the owners the choice to exclude more reasonably priced brands (like second-shelf vodkas, or magnums of say, Chilean wine) was deliberate. They explained they were there to fill the niche the pints-behind-bullet-proof-glass places do not--which is a legitimate need in this neighborhood. Like I said, you can go anywhere and get a bottle of vodka around here, but nobody had a good selection of decent wine. However, I became suspicious what they stock has more to do with clientele control than market needs after this exchange:

It was the first Friday night after the store opened. Two nattily dressed young African-American men walked in, talking about their plans for the evening. Before they made it fully into the store and had a chance to look around (as I had, and was doing), the woman behind the counter asked, "Can I help you find something?"

One of the guys answered, "Yeah, I'd like a bottle of Courvoisier, VSOP." He took out his cash.

She winced. "We don't carry Courvoisier, but we do have several other cognacs on the shelf over there."

He either didn't notice the wince, or didn't care, and continued politely, "You don't have Courvoisier?"

This time she rolled her eyes, "No. We don't."

"Oh, but you just opened up, right? I mean, you didn't get it in yet?"

"Yes we've just opened, but we have no plans to sell Courvoisier." She became aware of her tone, changed it, and (I'm betting) lied. "We, um, don't have an account with the people who distribute it."

"That's too bad." said the man, putting a fat roll of pay-day cash back in his pocket. They said goodnight more politely than she deserved, and left. She then turned to me, gave a conspiratorial 'some people!' expression, and began a casting pearls before swine speech during which she used the term "street liquor" more than once.

I was stunned. Street liquor? Now obviously if their point of being is to cater to the more discerning customer they're not going to carry malt wine like Boone's Farm, or half-pints of two-dollar swill for the die-hard alkies; but the last time I checked Courvoisier VSOP was on the top shelf, and cost about fifty dollars a bottle retail...pretty high-end according to my pocketbook. And why single out Courvoisier? Why have six other pricey cognacs on the shelf and not the equally pricey top-selling brand? It has it's own fucking rap song for crying out loud. OH, right.

I couldn't let it slide. I asked what made fifty-dollar-a-bottle cognac from a two hundred year old European company "street liquor". She restated her position: they wanted to cater to a specific kind of customer. "Like people who drink that?" I asked, pointing to the totally out of place gallon jugs of six dollar Almaden 'white' on a shelf. "We have to sell that," she answered with a smile, "it's what the locals [elderly, working-class Italian people] drink, what they come in for. You've got to fill the needs of your community."

I vowed I would never shop there again. And I didn't, until they started opening on Sunday and began carrying a particular brand of Pinot I could afford. So I suck. But as a form of protest I still ask them when they will start carrying Courvoisier. My fear is one day they will, and I'll have to shell out fifty bucks to prove a point. And I hate cognac. Even pricey stuff with its own rap song.

Which leaves wine store number two. They've been my old reliable for years. The place where you can get a nicer bottle to bring to a dinner party, or that magnum of Concha y Toro to bring to a bash. They have the low end sherry you need for cooking, and the off-brand dark rum my baby occasionally spikes his cokes with. But most importantly, they carry the middle tier stuff--the all-important level between jug-O rot-gut and the $20 and up tier that's out of the question for a daily wine drinker; the magnum of Banrock Station Cab, the Mouton Cadet white Bordeux, a doable Pinot Grigio. Palatable, cheap wine.

But the racist Fancy Pants Wine Store is ruining things. Due to their booming business selling only high priced items, my wine store wants in on the action. Over the last few months they've phased out the middle bracket. My wine, my babe's rum. The smaller bottles of hooch. The only wine left in my price bracket are the aforementioned (and apparently mandatory) Almaden jugs, a few really shitty Californian reds, and Gallo's attempt at a drinkable Chardonnay. Yeah, that Gallo. I've happily lowered my standards during the current on-again off-again employment situation, but heaven for freaking bid. Gallo?

Posted by Antigeist at August 11, 2005 12:19 PM