Buying from the source!

There are 60,000 wineries in France, Spain and Italy alone, (compared to 10,000 in the USA) but if you look at the wine section of your grocery store, probably 75% of the shelves will be domestic wines, the vast majority being New World wines. The basic reality is that there are a great deal of Old World wines produced that you never get to taste. Our focus is an attempt to compensate a bit for that inequity and find for you the gems that you might not normally find in regular wine shops. Our focus is 99% on imported wines.

Secondly, we are varietal based – meaning that our main differentiation is the grape variety, as opposed to terroir, which growing up learning about French wines is somewhat heretical. But my belief is that if you like the basic ingredient, for example you like Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and Merlot grapes, you will probably like MOST Cabernet Sauvignons and Merlots, and probably Bordeaux blends since they are a mix of the two. When I read of stores that try to “flavor profile” consumers by asking about whether you like sugar or milk in your coffee, to me that’s marketing hogwash. It won’t work. However, if you like raspberry jam and you like strawberry jam, you’ll probably like strawberry/raspberry jam mix. It’s not that complicated as some people would like to proclaim. And while “terroir” has its place, IMHO, that’s because certain varietals are indigenous to certain geographies. Without question, Italian wines give a different impression than California wines – probably because Italian wines in large part utilize Sangiovese which is rarely produced in California. The bottom line – we believe that you the consumer should look first at the varietal, and understand which grape varietals are pleasing to you.

Craftmanship

At Wine VIP, we work with wineries that we think are really special and make remarkably enjoyable wines. Secondly, we endeavor to pair that enjoyment with great value.  Lastly, and most importantly, whenever possible, we try to bring them to you directly from the winery.

So we invite you to sample our small, but highly edited selection of wines. We are always here to answer any questions – and we invite you to contact us, because, in fact, everyone has different likes and preferences. If we can guide you through our assortment, we would be delighted.

Passion

If you get to travel, we encourage you to stop by and visit these winemakers. All of them are passionate, extremely personable, and dedicated to their craft. We have enjoyed meeting all of them, and moreover, we are very proud to be able to share their products with a larger audience.

Of course, to us, all our customers are Very Important People, and our mission is to discover and select the wines you will savour and enjoy. But the original intent of WineVIP was to offer wines that were first and foremost, Very Intelligent Purchases. There are a lot of places for you to buy wine online and offline. You will see online retailers with hundreds, no, thousands of wines, where they simply download the distributor’s catalog. There, you aren’t buying wine that anyone has tasted, rather, you are just throwing darts. We know what our wines taste like, and can stand behind them  100%!