I am proud to say I've been in the beer/wine industry for about 5 years now. In that time I have learned a lot through hands on experience and academics. My long term goal for the last 3-4 years has been to eventually open my own bottle shop and in that time I have worked in at least half a dozen specialty beverage stores while having seen the best and worst sides of operating that type of store. With all that said I want to give thanks and respect to Bine & Vine Bottle Shop. I have never seen a bottle shop that is run as well as his from storage, inventory, customer service, and knowledge. I could not recommend a shop to lend your patronage to more. I didn't write this post to showcase what I know, but more so to show I do not make a recommendation without plenty of thought put behind it. If you haven't checked out his store make a point to stop in sometime.
I posted this to facebook, but thought it might start a good discussion on here too. The hot topics of the last week have been on big brewery buy outs. We all have very high standards for out brewery's yet seem to fall short when it comes to retailers. Keep money in SD with local quality shops and not the Bevmo/chain type shops. What's everyone opinions and do you have any stand outs you've seen here locally or elsewhere?
Love that place. Always have such good stuff, and they seem to get it sooner than everyone else. I only wish I lived a little closer.. 45 minutes is a long way for a beer store..
Yeah that's pretty far. But there's so many other good beer related reasons to come down this way Whats are stand outs for North County? (Assuming that's where you're at)
Distiller's Outlet in Poway. Crazy selection sometimes. Holiday Wine Cellar in Escondido has a lot of stuff, but I find freshness to be an issue sometimes. Royal Liquor in Encinitas is good spot to find stuff you think it sold out. I found Abyss there months after everywhere else sold out. Aside from that, just go to Churchill's and enjoy their bottle list.. Many of the bottles are available for take-home.
Here's three: Holiday Wine Cellar, Escondido; Texas Wine & Spirits, Carlsbad; Leucadia Liquor, Encinitas
I always forget you can buy stuff for take away at Churchills. I've only been to Distillers and Holiday Wine Cellar, and my issues with them are also warm storage and freshness. Holiday Wine is all around awesome and it would be very easy for them to step it up just a tad and blow it out of the water. With all that said, it in no way means that I wouldn't shop at and support these other places. I think it's time we start holding retail spots to the high standards we hold every other aspect of the industry. In a perfect world there would be many places like Bine and Vine and people would only buy beer and wine from these places, but that's not possible. Do I still buy beer at the grocery store? Yes. Do I shop at places that don't have perfect storage and rotation? Yes.
My only nitpick at Bine and Vine is that Alpine bottles cost $9 there. But other than that Geoi has always been super nice and helpful the times I've been there. Great email communication too.
