Misleading hang tags in wine stores really annoy me. You know those little things the merchants put on the shelf to draw your attention to a particular bottle. Done right they can be really helpful. Done wrong they are negligent at best or fraudulent at worst. They all start the same way: the rating is in screaming big font “92 pts Robert Parker” or something like that. Then come the tricks. I’ve seen all types. The most common is the rating and description is from another vintage. Sometimes the only way you can figure this out by looking at the picture of the label on the tag. The label is from 2008, but the bottle behind it on the shelf is from 2009. Other times it’s from another bottling from the same producer. The biggest violator that I have found in the Frederick area is Ye Old Spirits Shoppe. Yesterday I saw at least three tags that gave superb rating from vintages different than the one they have on sale. If they are just putting the tags there to say last years vintage was highly rated so you should try this year’s then it should be clearly stated. Otherwise you have to believe they are doing it to sucker customers.
Many years ago I was charged with picking the wines for Thanksgiving and headed over to Ye Olde Spirits. I’ve never noticed the vintage issue, but the descriptions can be very entertaining. That year, one wine description had all the normal fruity type references but I wish I had stolen the little tag when I read that the wine had a “cat pee aroma”. If I hadn’t had a witness with me I probably would have thought I’d imagined it.
I bet it was a Sauvignon Blanc?
It may have been.
To be fair, many times the posting of these score tags is done not by the store employees or management, but by the distributor’s salespeople that call upon the store and are charged with the particular wine’s movement and placement. If a store isn’t diligent and on the ball, a label’s highly rated vintage can change, and what is on the shelf can be different than that which has been rated highly. Stores should still be aware of this and on the ball, but the whole “shelf tag bait and switch” is more than likely inadvertent and simply an innocent case of overlooking and not a devious sales technique.
Thanks for the comment. I understand where you are coming from Bryan but ultimately it is the merchant’s responsibility to ensure accuracy. I go to a store like the Wine Library in New Jersey where I would estimate 50% of their bottles have hang tags and I have never seen an inaccurate one. So it certainly is possible if the store makes the effort.