What guides our selections

Typicality, personality, style, good value, and fresh discoveries are the guiding principles of our selections.

Typicality, as explained in detail on the page of our Typical Collection, is the result of native grapes grown in a specific soil, with a specific micro-climate that helps the grape best express its nature.

Personality—because wines are like persons: they can be refined or rude, precise or messy, bold or easy. I like both bold and easy wines, but I do not like messy or rude wines—and there are plenty out there! I trust you will not find any of those in my selections.

Style: winemaking can be oriented so as to standardize the wine and make it pleasant for almost everyone, or it can be oriented to express the character and the unique nature of the grape, of the appellation, of the terroir. I prefer the latter, the non-standardized, so for The Organic Wine Store I select wines that—though different in style—are each a precise expression of the place and culture of origin.

Good value is the relationship between quality and price. Different wine regions have very different average prices, driven by many variables: the cost of land, the challenging conditions of the viticulture processes, the scarcity of the product compared to the demand for it.
In our selection we choose the best quality/price ratio in each viticultural area.

Discovery: because some of us feel it’s fun to try new things. This collection is designed to facilitate a curated discovery process through our descriptions, where you will find guidance on what to expect from each wine you’ve never met before.

 

A note about pricing

Is there a correlation between price and quality? The answer is yes…but!
YES, for two reasons: it is very difficult to find a great bottle of wine for $15 dollars or less; and it’s also rare that a very expensive wine is terrible….
BUT shelves are full of mediocre $100+ wines, while there are excellent $40 wines. We have excluded all the former kind, and selected many of the latter kind, for you.