{"id":1748,"date":"2021-01-28T17:21:56","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T17:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1748"},"modified":"2021-01-28T17:26:51","modified_gmt":"2021-01-28T17:26:51","slug":"shopping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1748","title":{"rendered":"Shopping"},"content":{"rendered":"

The idea of a winery as a shopping mart is almost exclusively a California thing.\u00a0 We have never encountered non-wine related merchandise in a winery anywhere outside the United States.\u00a0 We have encountered an establishment in the Central Coast that bills itself as a gift shop and winery, in that order.\u00a0 (In keeping with Power Tasting\u2019s<\/em> speak-no-evil policy, they will go unnamed, but let us assure you that the wine in a self-described gift shop is likely to be awful.)\u00a0 Many wineries sell a few items \u2013 shirts, baseball caps, coasters and wine glasses \u2013 emblazoned with their name or logo.\u00a0 We aren\u2019t talking about those; we mean wineries with sizable retail establishments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The shop at Robert Mondavi Winery.<\/em><\/p>\n

Most of these are in Napa Valley, with a few in Sonoma County.\u00a0 There are some where we make a point, whenever we visit, to see what they\u2019re selling because we have occasionally found things we like and bought some gifts.\u00a0 Among these is Robert Mondavi Winery, where our primary interest is the wine, of course.\u00a0 They have an extensive gift shop that is particularly attractive at Christmastime.\u00a0 The shop has an interesting selection of books, mostly of the coffee-table variety, on wine and wineries. \u00a0Besides books, we have bought Christmas-tree ornaments and decorative ceramics there.<\/p>\n

Beringer Vineyards<\/a> also features beautiful wares for Christmas.\u00a0 Their shop is not very large, but they do have quite a few beautiful things.\u00a0 Once again, the reason to visit is not for the shopping, but for the wine and the architecture.\u00a0 Still, there are lovely items available for sale.<\/p>\n

Inglenook Vineyard, once known as Niebaum Coppola, is a testimonial to the life, career (and ego) of Francis Ford Coppola, the film director.\u00a0 Despite that, Inglenook makes some top-end wine, especially their Rubicon blend.\u00a0 The architecture and grounds are attractive and the selection in their shop is, for a winery, extensive and idiosyncratic.\u00a0 On several occasions, we have bought tablecloths there; like many of their items these evoked Mr. Coppola\u2019s Italian-American heritage.\u00a0 The products on sale differ every time we have been to Inglenook, so other than corkscrews and coasters, don\u2019t expect to find the same things twice.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Darioush.<\/em><\/p>\n

The most opulent winery shopping experience is to be found at Darioush (which to our opinion is way too much.)\u00a0 In keeping with their Persian temple architecture, the items they sell are luxurious, perhaps extravagant. Many of them are Iranian-themed, such as a pomegranate plate or Persian cookbooks.\u00a0 The handbags and clothing, housewares and backgammon sets are all beautiful and well-made. Management at Darioush has made it clear to us that their intended market for their wines is interested in luxury items, which they also extend in their non-wine wares.<\/p>\n

You may notice that we haven\u2019t mentioned prices.\u00a0 None of the winery shops are inexpensive. Likewise, all the shopping locations we mention are also producers of top-quality wine.\u00a0 That\u2019s probably not a coincidence.\u00a0 People who like great wine are also likely to be customers for beautiful goods.\u00a0 At the same time, there are many other wineries with excellent wine who only focus on the wine-tasting experience, not merchandise.\u00a0 Our advice is to visit wineries for the wine.\u00a0 If there are pretty things to buy, why not look them over?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The idea of a winery as a shopping mart is almost exclusively a California thing.\u00a0 We have never encountered non-wine related merchandise in a winery anywhere outside the United States.\u00a0 We have encountered an establishment in the Central Coast that bills itself as a gift shop and winery, in that order.\u00a0 (In keeping with Power … Continue reading Shopping<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1748"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1754,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1748\/revisions\/1754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}