International Wine Guild - August 2008

Recent Graduates: Mark Censits, New Jersey Wine Store Owner

After more than 20 years of helping to fix other people's businesses, Mark decided it was time to build his own. Wanting to pursue his passion for wine, he surveyed the landscape of wine retailing and identified a niche that he felt was ripe for a new venture. Enthusiasm for wine had grown in the US, yet consumers continued to be frustrated by the complexity of the wine market - so many regions, varieties, producers - wine experts touting this wine or that wine, with no regard variation in individual preferences. How can a wine lover find wines that suit his or her preferences with so many different factors to consider? As parts of his goal to become a "guide" for his customers' forays into the wine world, Mark turned to a few esteemed institutions for his own education. A 3-week course at the University of California in Davis to learn the business of wine and the Certification Seminar at the International Wine Guild formed the foundation of his knowledge...

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Star-Ledger - August 2008

Best Picnic Wines for Under $20

The right bottle of wine can turn your next barbecue or picnic into a celebration of the last days of summer. We polled some of New Jersey’s wine merchants to find out what makes a flavorful and festive late summer wine. Here’s what they’re putting in their picnic baskets these last weekends before Labor Day.

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Wall Street Journal - July 2008

Cultivating a Taste for Inexpensive Wine

My friend Jonathan brought my attention to this article recently posted in the Wall Street Journal. The author discusses the wine markup in restaurants, whether or not it is worth it, and how studies have found that the majority of people can not tell the difference between regular and reserve bottles of the same wine (reserve being made with the best grapes of the crop).

In response to that, I agree with much of what the author says, except that he doesn’t acknowledge that one can acquire a taste for better wine...and genuinely appreciate it. Take caviar as an analogy. Not that I can afford top-shelf caviar on a regular basis, but after having it maybe 20 times in my life now, I definitely can tell – and appreciate – the difference between cheap salmon eggs and high-quality sturgeon. Same with wine, I’m not just imagining the improved appreciation that I have for quality wine. For me, it tops out in the $150/bottle range, meaning anything above that is hard for me to justify in a price/quality way, but the difference between cheap mass-produced wine and a quality hand-crafted wine – whoa boy, I get goosebumps thinking about it!

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MyCentralNewJersey.com - July 30, 2008

Cool Wines Available at CoolVines

Thanks to My Central Jersey for really capturing the spirit of CoolVines. It helps when a journalist is a wine lover. I recommended one of our Aussie Shiraz’s as a good example of a NOT over the top, fruit-bomb...and he loved it!

Most ordinary wine shops group their bottles by country, forcing customers to browse through scores of French, Australian or Italian wines before locating their libation of choice.

Most ordinary wine shops also have the same monotonous titles, rarely changing things up and hardly offering new, different tastes.

That can't be said of CoolVines in Westfield. That's because the small-yet-amply stocked store isn't an ordinary wine shop. It doesn't just cater to the oenophile, or wine enthusiast. CoolVines also is for the "average joe" of the wine world, and that's saying something for a store who shares a street with some pretty upscale neighbors.

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