Basic Rules for Buying Good-Value Wines

“Here at the Auberge, we are only about seventy-five miles from Burgundy,” Mademoiselle Vivette said,“so I drive there in my big Simca station wagon and go shopping around for wine among the negotiants and producteurs, just as I did, years ago, among the little corner wine shops of Paris, when I lived there—or as I would in any city, whether I was in Brussels, or Rome, or New York, or San Francisco. . . . The basic principles for buying the best possible wine at the fairest possible price are the same everywhere.” She was, of course, absolutely right. In these days of spiraling wine inflation, one can hardly expect to find“good buys” without moving around.