Survey Says...

At the end of February, we launched a customer survey in one of our Bottle Club® emails. The response was tremendous, and we'll post the Amazon Gift Card winners shortly. Meanwhile, we'd like to address some of the issues raised in the survey responses. We appreciate all of the kind words that were offered, and we'll share them with our store associates. This blog post, however, will deal with questions or concerns that you've brought to our attention.

One concern came from a customer who was looking for a warm case of a specific brand of beer. We do stock this beer, but we only sell it cold. The customer really didn't have room to keep a full case of beer in the refrigerator, and preferred buying a warm case, to be able to chill only as many beers as needed.

Light, not temperature change, is the primary enemy of beer flavor. Bottled beer, green or clear in  particular, is susceptible to "skunking" if it's been stored where it's exposed to light. From the time a beer leaves the brewery to the time it arrives at our doors, it's liable to have changed temperature more than once. For more information on beer basics, see Beer Advocate's Beer 101.

The important caveat on the temperature question is about extremes. Leaving beer in your car on a very hot summer day, or a very cold winter night, could negatively impact the beer's flavor.

Someone asked us for more rebate offers. In that regard, we rely on our vendor partners to keep us fully stocked on rebates - and we do remind them frequently. In Lawrenceville, the Rebate Center is near the exit door. In Woodbridge, it's close to the entrance, near Customer Service.

A few people commented on how our wine selections are organized. There's probably no perfect way to organize a store with as many selections as we have, but we think it will make more sense with a brief explanation.

For our international wines, they are first grouped by country, then by region. Our domestic wines are first organized by varietal (counting blends as a varietal), then they are more-or-less alphabetical within the variety. So many of our international wines are blends (Bordeaux and Rhone in particular) that it would be impossible to break them down by varietal.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in this survey. We do enjoy receiving compliments on what we're doing well, and we take seriously the opportunity to improve our service to you.