LAYING DOWN A GAUNTLET

For this weekend’s in-store tastings, I’ve given the staff a daunting task – to nominate their selection as the best wine we have in the store. The daunting part of this is that taste is such a subjective thing, that one person’s ambrosia could be another’s a…, uh-hum, so the parameters of the mission are as follows:

1) The wine can be any price point, and of any availability, as so long as it’s available now.
2) It doesn’t matter what distributor it comes from, just that it’s available now.
3) It has to be something we already sell (No ringers).

And that’s it. Pretty simple, eh?

Now the fun part…

I will assemble these wines in two parts – 5 wines from Covington’s staff and 5 wines from Fort Thomas’ staff. On Friday night, Covington tastes Covington’s and Fort Thomas, Fort Thomas’. Saturday we switch. I will lay these wines out and ask our customers to choose which one is the best of them all.

What’s in it for them? Bragging rights mostly, but they will get a place in the front of each store to display their selection(s) each month for the next six months (the next showcase comes in January 2009). They will get to claim bragging rights as the top wino of the store (one winner for Covington and one winner for Fort Thomas).

And what’s in it for you? Though we can’t give out anything in the way of a raffle or the like (not legal), what we do give you is hopefully, one awesome tasting.

We will have ballots at the table instead of the usual tasting sheets. We invite you all to participate in this battle royale. See you this weekend.