the great state of Utah wishes to deceive you

In Utah, the only place you can purchase wine and alcoholic spirits, aside from 3.2 percent alcohol beer, is in a Utah state liquor store.   Liquor stores vary widely in selection and the knowledge of the staff.   For example, the downtown store that specializes in wine has some very skilled workers who can guide you to that perfect bottle of wine or that excellent deal.   The new megawine store on 300 West has an enormous selection, but the staff are generally clueless about what they are selling.   It is good that they have such a wide selection, but you have to know what you want when you walk in.

The state liquor stores put little labels above some wines that have been rated by Wine Spectator or some peer-reviewed journal or other luminary body; these are what passes for advertising for wine in Utah since no other advertisement is allowed.   It turns out there is a big sale the first week of October in the downtown wine store to clear out the previous year's vintage, but there is absolutely no advertising of this fact.   You have to put it in your scheduling package well in advance or you lose out every time.  However, as to this wee bit of legal advertising, I have been told it is the wine vendors who provide these little placards.  But the state stores provide a bracket in which to place the 2 inch by 3 inch informational placard if the vendor wishes to tout a particularly noteworthy wine, spirit or high alcoholic content beer.

When I was in the downtown wine store some years ago, I noticed that a placard was promoting a vintage that was different than the bottle for sale that was in the slotted rack below it.   I called this to the attention of one of the employees and he immediately confiscated the placard and complained that the vendors sometimes do this to promote sales even when the highly rated wine does not match the year of the wine for sale.

On January 19, I visited the wine store at 5056 South State Street in Murray at about four in the afternoon.   My company has an office in the vicinity and it was convenient to stop there.  I was looking for a particular wine called Red Silk, but this store did not have the inventory to cover this wine.   While I was browsing for bargains, I noticed a wine called Predator that had a placard touting it as rated 91 and having won the Australian Gold Medal.   The normally $16 bottle of wine was on sale for $11.99, or something similar, and it was an old vine Zinfandel from Lodi that sounded attractive.   I was about to snatch a bottle or two when I noticed that the placard was extolling the virtues of the 2008 vintage and the wine for sale was the 2010 vintage.   Anyone who knows wine realizes that the vintage is everything.  Maybe it was great in 2008, but growing conditions or a misstep in processing in 2010 could have produced an inferior wine.  (A quick online search reveals cellartracker rated 2010 an 87; interestingly, the 2008 did not rate any better.  Maybe there is more here than meets the eye.)

I called this discrepancy to the attention of the young man ringing up sales.   He was totally unconcerned!   “We do it all the time”, he said.   “Nobody cares.   It is still the same wine.”  I objected heartily.   “It is not the same wine.   Wine varies year to year.   This is a deceptive sales practice.   The normal person is unlikely to note the difference in years and will walk out thinking they have the wine depicted on the placard, but they do not.”  Despite all my entreaties, he was totally unfazed.

In the ensuing week and a half I had a bad experience with a tire salesman trying to sell me a DT model Uniroyal Tiger Paw Touring tire as if it were the superior NT model.   They do not tell you that this tire is made in multiple grades, of course.  He was quite willing to drop the price to the inferior grade to entice me, but he had no intention of telling me there were two versions of the same tire and he was going to pawn off the inferior version as if it were the top-of-the-line model.  This whole issue of deceptive sales practices was starting to stick in my craw.

Today, January 27, I had the day off and a bit of spare time and I went back to state liquor store 09 at 5056 South State Street to see if this bottle was still being marketed as before.   I suppose there was some chance the young man had come to a new perspective and persuaded someone to reform their ways.   But no, it was still there.  91 out of 100 points; best buy.  I asked to speak with the manager of the store.   A young Asian-looking woman named Thao came out to meet me.   I explained that I believed this was a deceptive sales practice.   I stated that as a citizen I am part owner of this store and I expect the store to tell me the truth.   She noted that the year is listed on the placard.   What is there to complain about?   We went round and round on this for a few minutes and I could see that I was getting nowhere again.  I tried to explain how the 2008 vintage may have been very good, but the 2010 could be a “piece of shit.”   Whoops, that set her off!   She was incensed that I would use crude language.  From then on, that was all she could focus on.   Forget the real issue, I had used crude language and that was the only thing that counted.   I was clearly a low life and should be banished immediately.   I gave up and left.

All right, it is true that my language can be a bit crude.   I just had my right hip replaced and was off work for a month and my verbiage did deteriorate during that hiatus from work.   My wife and I even set up a “curse jar” where we deposit a quarter for every bad word we utter in an effort to keep from offending all the upright citizens of the great, peculiar state of Utah.  So I offended Thao with my language, but I think she was very ready to seize on that as an excuse to throw off the discussion from the real topic.  In my post-encounter fantasy, I wonder if she is not a Mormon convert who thinks that the customers who shop in the store she manages are beneath her and do not deserve her respect.  Mormons, of course, do not drink alcohol.   Perhaps she believes me to be an infidel.

In my humble opinion, if the state liquor store puts a placard above a bottle of wine that is not the same vintage as described on the placard, there should be a brightly colored sticker that declares this fact:  “different year”.  Any other approach is deceptive and misleading to busy shoppers who seldom have time to read every detail to ensure that their state is not trying to suck them into buying an inferior model tire.  

In a vain effort to change the system, I have forwarded this essay to my state senator and representative.   Amazingly, they are both democrats and may even have some sympathy to my concern.   But I really doubt anything will change in store 09.