gerald wrote:
> I live in DC area, which is the birthplace of Total Beverage(herbie
> hanf and dart drug).
> any store that big has a few mistakes. very few now a days.
> most name brand wines(high end burgandy or boredeau) are the crummy
> vintage.
> most staff is new and does not know a lot about wine.
> prices are pure cost + 50%(std markup).
> almost all sales are on mystery wines.
> On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:49:34 -0800, AxisOfBeagles >
> wrote:

Actually the company is from New Jersey. They bought Herbert Haft's 5
Total Wine stores in Northern Virginia at least 5 years after they
were operating two stores in Maryland and more to the north. They
did have some very knowledgeable people working in their stores but
there is no doubt that they had a lot of people that were fairly
new to wine pushing stuff they had never tasted. Most of the people
in this group would go into a warehouse to 'buy' rather than wanting
someone to 'sell' to them.
I found over the years that they stock a lot of different Chards
and Shiraz but are light on Zin, Cab and Italian. You will never
find the new hot wine there. Very conservative buyers that are using
last year's catalog.