A lot of the wine that we drink is random. A friend fills our glass at a dinner party. A server suggests a wine with or without our input. A label jumps out at us on a shelf. We have a smart phone application that suggests a purchase. Or we follow scores. Even when we know we love Chianti or Central Coast Pinot Noir or even the wines of a particular producer, if not exactly random, the act of buying in the absence of tasting is a leap of faith. The wines that we can actually taste first present the best opportunity for future enjoyment, but often we don’t take advantage of the introduction.
Let’s say that we’re sitting in a restaurant with a friend, and the server brings us the glass of wine that we’ve ordered more or less whimsically. It turns out to be terrific, so much so that it derails the conversation that had engaged us. What now? The answer is two-pronged and, of course, involves the internet. But the equally important prong is that we buy a case or more even if we’re not in the habit of spending a couple of hundred dollars all at once on wine, or whatever a case might cost. If we think that buying a case replaces 12 different bottles that we might buy on various occasions without tasting and with various degrees of satisfaction after we pop the cork, purchasing multiple bottles that we already know we love becomes eminently sensible.
Locating the wine will be an easy task if it was made in Californian. You Google the winery name, send an email, and order a case. If the laws in your state make that choice difficult or impossible, you can ask the winery where to buy the wine locally. Since you discovered the wine on your home turf, you know that the winery distributes there.
But if you are an equal opportunity wine drinker and appreciate world wines, the back label becomes essential reading material if you want more of the wine. The front label can be extremely puzzling. In a foreign language, the name of the winery, the name of the wine, the region where the wine is produced, what grape varieties might be in the bottle are often impossible to understand. And in terms of finding the right wine merchant, all of that verbiage is irrelevant.
Behold! The back label has one line of information in English that is crucial and easily found. The law requires that the name of the importer be written there. You can Google that company, and although the importer won’t be able to ship to you, the business will be happy to tell you where you can find the wine in your state. At that point, you can show up at the wine shop or ask it to ship to you if its location is too remote to be convenient.
I would be remiss if not stupid, to ignore the tasting opportunities that Celebrations Wine Club offers. You do not directly taste the wines before they arrive on your porch, but you’ve requested that I do that for you. Those wines that you especially prefer you can order at lower prices than you’ll ever find at the winey or in shops. Simple. But generally, taking the time to inquire about the name of a wine that came your way and that you particularly enjoyed, making the effort to reach out to the purveyor, and then buying multiple bottles is the most targeted and rewarding wine purchase that you can make. Enjoy!
Everything on a bottle that helps you find it again
The front label is designed to be memorable, not searchable. The back label is where the identifying information lives, and on an imported bottle it is the only part written in English by law. Photographing both labels takes two seconds and preserves the details memory drops within a day.
Four items do nearly all the work. The producer’s name as it appears on the label, the exact wine name, the appellation, and the vintage together identify a specific bottling rather than a family of them. Without the vintage, a search often returns a different wine wearing the same name.
The importer line matters for a second reason beyond what the post above describes. Importers usually work with a single distributor in each state, so the importer’s name is a shortcut to the wholesaler whose salespeople know which restaurants and merchants carry the wine locally.
| Label element | Useful for tracking a wine down | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Producer name | Essential | The one term a merchant can search directly |
| Vintage | Essential | Distinguishes bottlings that share a name |
| Appellation | Very useful | Separates producers with similar names |
| Importer | Very useful on imports | Points to the regional distributor |
| Tasting note on the back | Not useful | Written by the producer, not an identifier |
| Medal or score stickers | Not useful | Applied to selected lots, not the whole bottling |
Why the wine is available in one state and not the next
American alcohol distribution runs on state law, and each state licenses producers, wholesalers and retailers separately. A winery may hold permits to ship directly to residents of some states and none at all in others, which is why the same wine can be a phone call away in one place and unavailable a state line away.
California’s licensing framework is a useful illustration, since the state issues distinct license types for producing, wholesaling, retailing and direct shipment. The California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control publishes its catalog of license types and what each one permits, which explains why a winery’s answer to a request depends so heavily on where you live. Nothing about that structure is intuitive, and it changes by legislature rather than by season.
Keeping a record that is actually worth keeping
A note that says the wine was terrific is useless three months later. A note that captures the producer, vintage, appellation and where you drank it turns a pleasant evening into something repeatable. Adding one line about what you ate alongside it is what makes the record useful for planning a meal later.
The place and the occasion belong in the note too. A wine tasted on a warm patio with grilled food rarely presents itself the same way indoors in February, and remembering the circumstances explains why a bottle sometimes disappoints later. Context is part of the record, not a distraction from it.
Patterns emerge faster than most people expect. After a dozen entries, the list usually shows a preference for a region, a level of ripeness or a family of grapes rather than for individual bottles. That pattern is more valuable than any single recommendation, because it applies to wines you have not met yet.
Celebrations Wine Club built its selections around the same logic, tasting through candidates so members could form those preferences over time rather than one bottle at a time. Our sections on wine skills and knowledge and food and wine pairing cover the note-taking habits that make a record worth revisiting.
Tracking down a wine: FAQ
What if the restaurant only lists the wine by the glass?
Ask to see the bottle. Servers produce it readily, and thirty seconds with the back label captures everything a search needs.
Does the vintage really matter that much?
For identification, always. Producers keep names for decades, so the year is often the only thing separating the wine you enjoyed from a different one under the same label.
Is a case ever the wrong choice?
It can be, if the wine is delicate and you drink slowly. Bottles evolve, and a case of something fragile may finish its best stretch before the last bottles are opened. Splitting a case with a friend is the usual answer.