Brian Zucker helped pioneer the world of online wine shopping as an undergrad at U.C. Davis. In 1997, he still needed more credits to graduate (he was in his fifth year at Davis), and had noticed how popular the website was for the now defunct Virtual Vineyards, even though he thought that company's prices and selection weren't great. So he talked his AgEcon (Agricultural Economics) professor into giving him credit for designing a primitive online wine shop.

That school project became the basis for K&L Wine Merchant's industry leading online store of today. Zucker happens to be the son of one of the store's founders. "I knew I wanted to be in the business," he says, "but I wanted to carve out a distinctive niche within the company."

In my last post I wrote about the Bay Area's diverse selection of brick and mortar wine shops. This time, I'm covering online retailers.

The Wall Street Journal's Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher recently did a comprehensive piece on this subject, and rated their favorite sites. K&L topped the list--a real coup for the Bay Area. K&L's flagship store is in Redwood City, with major branches in San Francisco and Hollywood.

I don't shop for wine online, because I don't want to pay the shipping charges, which can be substantial. Zucker says there's "no shortage of people willing to try things we recommend and collectors looking for rare and highly rated wines for drinking or investment."

"Food and wine nuts with more eclectic tastes," are also model customers, according to Zucker.

"K&L succeeds," he says, "because it offers great prices." (It does.) But it also offers real-time inventory for its warehouse and all three stores. "With the core audience, that's the key. They know they'll get the product they want." Many other sites list wine that might be in inventory, or might have just sold out.

I went looking on K&L's site for California Cabernet Sauvignon, from 1989 (not a great vintage, but my daughter's birth year); I quickly found a dozen choices, including the last bottle of Duckhorn Howell Mountain Red for $90. Good price and could be delicious. The site tells you up front that the bottle is at K&L's Redwood City Store, so in fact, I could probably have had it at my door the next day. Zucker says that many customers from around Northern California order wine online and then pick it up at the San Francisco store to save shipping costs.

So how about something to drink tonight, now that spring is here and asparagus is sprouting in every produce aisle? Zucker recommends a 2007 Sancerre from Franck Millet ($17), imported by K&L. I tasted refreshing, delicious citrus in the mouth, and loved the lemongrass in the aromas. It should be great with hollandaise.

There's lots more online wine shopping possible out there, but the other Bay Area company worth browsing is Wine.com, —the leading Internet wine retailer, according to one rating service.

The company is working hard to "expand and enhance the community section," says Gwendolyn Osborn, Wine.com's director of content. "We're starting Twitter accounts, and we want to link that up for Facebook users and other social media so you'll be able to share reviews and tasting notes." The site already offers customer reviews to balance the point scores from the likes of Wine Spectator, and the powerful Robert Parker. Wine.com also features a fantastic Google mapping service, which shows the location of the winery and its neighbors. That feature is worth a visit, whether you're buying or not.

When you click on the wine you're looking for, both K&L and Wine.com suggest others you might like—a feature that's tougher to provide in a brick and mortar store. If you're looking for, say, a great Cornas from the Northern Rhone, the sites can quickly show you similar wines like Shiraz from Australia or Syrah from California or Washington state.

"The best customers," Osborn says, "are people who are open to trying new things and are willing to branch out from their favorites."

Osborn adds that one of her favorite wines right now is the hard-to-find 2006 A Donkey and Goat "The Recluse" Syrah ($34), made in Berkeley. Only one problem: it's sold out at Wine.com, proving how tricky it can be to keep track of inventory. That said, you can also shop for much of Wine.com's immense warehouse inventory at its new retail shop, on 4th Street in Berkeley.

Wine.com is easily your best choice if you're worried about shipping laws. Even with a U.S. Supreme Court decision a few years ago that set new rules for interstate shipping, it may be challenging to send a birthday wine to someone in Florida or other states. "We follow all the crazy shipping laws," Osborn explains, "and we have warehouses in Florida, for example. So if you're buying a wine for your friend, that wine would ship out of our warehouse there, saving you money and keeping carbon costs down. And it would arrive overnight."

Wine.com royally pissed off many competitors last year by running a sting to entrap them, then turning their names in to state authorities. "We want a fair playing field," says Osborn "If the states are going to enforce the laws for us, we want them to enforce them for others, or change them."

K&L was one of the wineries named in the complaint. And while K&L's Zucker admits they "have a difference of opinion about the legality of that particular shipment," he graciously adds the people at Wine.com are "good guys."

Tasting Notes

I've been building up a surplus of tasting notes since I last posted. The most interesting set come from a recent tasting I did with Napa Valley's Tom Eddy. He grows fabulous under-the-radar Cabernet Sauvignon on Diamond Mountain, and other hilly sites, and is on a rampage these days against "over-the-top wines—too ripe, too tannic, with not enough acid, and way too much alcohol."

Eddy invited some wine writers to what he called the "Take Back the Cab '09 Tour" at Cav Wine Bar and Kitchen in San Francisco, pitting his wines against other Napa Cabs from the much vaunted (and perhaps overrated) 1997 vintage, and from 2004.

The competition (I'm only listing the most striking disappointments) didn't show very well. The 1997 Beringer Home Vineyard ($123) offered great chocolate truffle in the nose, but seemed fumed out of the glass, and tasted out of balance. The 1997 Chateau Montelena Estate Cabernet ($165) was soft and lovely in the mouth, but showed volatile acidity and baby-diaper character in the nose.

Eddy's 1997 Napa Valley Cabernet was more restrained, but lovely, with cedar and tobacco leaf in the nose, and layers and layers of flavor in the mouth, with just enough tannin to go a few more years.

The 2004s were more fetching as a group. The 2004 Harlan Estate Cabernet Sauvignon ($518!) seemed pruny and hot, hot, hot, and not very interesting in the mouth. I liked the 2004 Vineyard 29 ($238) Cabernet Sauvignon, with its dill and rich mocha aromas, and long finish. But Eddy's 2004 Napa Valley Cabernet ($90, but not yet released) still stood out for its truth in varietal character—with cedar, black currant, coffee, and green leaves in the nose, and firm tannins and delicious fruit in the mouth.

It was a reminder to take wine ratings from Wine Spectator, Robert Parker, and others with a grain of salt. The moral: Trust your own palate.

By the way, if you're looking for any of these wines to buy, try these sites: wine-searcher.com or vinquire.com. You may notice Wine.com and K&L pop up a lot when you're searching for hard-to-find wines.

Chuck Hayward from The Jug Shop

I'm a wine devotée, so I'm also a habitué of wine shops, and a seeker after their treasures. The best stores are often cool, warehouse-like spaces, with cases of wine stacked precariously, row upon row. The wine shops where I've worked--in Northampton, Mass., New York City, and San Francisco were all modest establishments, but in each one a customer could find a small masterpiece, a miracle of art and nature.

The good bottles, and there were always more good than bad, captured the sun and warmth of a fall day, and the full ripeness of the harvest. Open a bottle, and the wine tells a story about geography and weather, about a winemaker and his or her passions.

In New York one year, we sold 1973 Chateau Mouton Rothschild for just $11.99 a bottle. Not a great vintage, but still a great value-- a wine of grace and power. The bottles bore a label featuring a drawing by Pablo Picasso, one of his last commissions. That was the year Mouton won long sought "first-growth" status, the only promotion ever granted after the 1855 classification. See: not just a bottle of wine, but a piece of cultural history.

So I'm writing today about wine shops, and what I look for in them, now, as a customer. Please submit your comments, noting your favorite wine shops, or warehouses, and why you like them.

Chuck Hayward from The Jug Shop

For example, I like The Jug Shop on San Francisco's Polk Street, because Chuck Hayward and his staff are such a gas. Hayward says a good retailer "has an incredible thirst for knowledge, and an incredible thirst." He talks very fast as he says that, and then explains how he began specializing in wines from the Southern Hemisphere in the early '90s, to distinguish his store from bigger chains. Now he's the man to see for hard to find New Zealand Pinot Noirs, and Australian GSM wines (that’s Aussie Châteauneuf-du-Pape: Grenache, Shiraz, and Mourvèdre).

"We have to be like record shops and book stores, and come up with unique offerings."

I especially like Hayward's disdain for wine snobbery, what he calls "The piss down approach to wine sales. If you don't like the wine I recommend, you're stupid."

Instead he flatters his customers. "They're very smart, he says, they know good wine, but these days they're looking for the $10 wine that tastes like $20; and the $20 bottle that tastes like $40."

I asked for two recommendations, a red and a white, for the modern, budget minded shopper; say someone celebrating landing a half-time job just good enough to pay the rent. He showed me a bottle of 2006 Sebastiani Sonoma Unoaked Chardonnay, a crisp, golden delicious apple of a wine, and a deal at $9.99. For a red he suggested The 2006 D'Arenberg Stump Jump, an Australian GSM wine full of raspberries and spice for $9.99.

Hayward and his staff host a lot of tastings (recently they coordinated the first Twitter tasting of Pinot Noir I've heard of), and that's also the mark of a great wine shop. It's one reason I stop in often at Farmstead Cheeses and Wines, with its two East Bay locations, Alameda and Montclair Village. Wine makers and wine brokers stop in on Friday (Montclair), and Saturday (Alameda) to pour in the back of these two tiny shops. You can taste upward of half a dozen wines (Your $3 is reimbursed if you buy anything; there's no cost to wine club members), before choosing what you want for dinner. It's very civilized.

Jeff Diamond owner of Farmstead Cheeses and Wines

Owner Jeff Diamond is a warm, effervescent man, a former publicist for arts groups and nonprofits. He embraces the scholarly connoisseur looking for St. Joseph from Yves Cuilleron, or Viognier from Alban Vineyards, as well as the picnicker upgrading from White Zinfandel. His motto: "Relax, it's just food." In fact, he got into the wine business to offer an alternative to elitist stores. "I would buy wine and come home really angry," Diamond says. "And my wife, Carol, would ask, 'Why are you so upset?' And I'd say, 'I just spent $1000 and I had to put up with someone else's agenda.'"

Diamond says Farmstead has one advantage over other shops, "Wine and cheese speak to each other." He often has California burrata (a kind of mozzarella with a creamy center). So on a Saturday afternoon, you can stop by the Feel Good Bakery, housed in the same Alameda Marketplace as Farmstead, and buy a baguette to rival any in the East Bay, then taste wine and cheese at Farmstead, tearing off pieces of your baguette to wash it down.

I challenged Diamond, as I did Chuck Hayward, for two wallet friendly wines, bottles to stave off thirst while preparing my taxes. He responded with the 2007 Morandé Terrarum Sauvignon Blanc from Chile ($10). It features fabulous lemon grass and grapefruit aromas, and leaves you wanting more and more. His favorite value in reds (this week) is the 2007 Monte Oton from Spain's Bodegas Borsao, a raspberry and black pepper treat made with grapes from 50-75 year old Grenache vines ($10).

You can't beat the attention and care that Diamond and Hayward take as they match their inventories to the tastes of their customers. But I confess I also buy wine at Safeway, which features utter commercial dreck next to incredible values. This week I'm drinking the terrific 2007 Ménage à Trois California Red from Napa's Folie a Deux ($7.98). They blend Zinfandel, Merlot, and Cabernet into a wine that's full-bodied, spicy, and gulpable. For a white, I grabbed the 2007 Clos la Chance Unoaked Chardonnay ($6.98). It's crisp and lemony, and without another thought in its head. These are great bargains, but you won't find interesting imports at Safeway, or knowledgeable staff to help to match the wine to your meal.

Here in Northern California, we have dozens of other fabulous stores (and I hope you, my readers, will tell us about more of them). K&L features a dazzlingly deep selection online and in its three stores (San Francisco, Redwood City, and Hollywood). The East Bay features Kermit Lynch, arguably the most influential shop in the U.S., but narrow in its focus (France and Italy), and pricey. North Berkeley Imports has carved out a niche for its exclusive imports from Burgundy and Champagne. Solano Cellars pours oodles of good wine at its wine bar, and Paul Marcus shows off his impeccable taste at his store in Rockridge Market Hall.

The best thing is finding a store in your neighborhood-- (it's nice to walk home, not drive, after tastings!), where they get to know you, in the same way your barber or hairstylist knows you. And if you say you want a fruity red, with a little off the top, they know just what your palate needs.

Next time, I'll talk about buying online.