— Maggie Gephard, general manager, Liquorama Wine Cellars
thought they were the smartest guys on earth – and I asked them what the best wine was. They just told me, 'The ones on the top shelf.'"
That answer did not satisfy Gephard. "I plowed all my salary back into wine," she said. Although other staff members have taken wine classes, Gephard never has. "I learned about wine the hard way – by drinking a lot," she said, laughing, adding, "Seriously, industry tastings, the big shows, are a great way to learn." The wine that first got her interested, way back when? "It was a 1978 Clos des Lambrays," Gephard remembered. "When I tasted it, it was like 'Oh, that's what it's all about.'" And the wine that made her ZINFNGAL? That was a bottle of 1979 Calera Zinfandel "that broke all over my shoes during inventory – I can still remember
that it was $7.99 and to this day, I can remember that aroma that turned me onto zin," she said. As Gephard became more and more interest- ed in wines back in the '80s, owner Dominic Giambona "was very good about letting me go," she said. Liquorama added so many wines to its selection that, by 1988, it needed to expand, moving into the space next door that used to house a deli. "That's
when we put in our specially built wine tables," said Gephard. And talk about personalized customer service: It was during that renovation and expansion that Liquorama made sure that every product was accessible to wheel-chair-bound customers, which remains so to this day.
Although the mall it is located in is less than daz- zling, "our store is filled with a lot of wood, it's warm and inviting. First-time people walk in and are amazed," said Gephard.
Wide Selection of Wines and Spirits
wines, ranging in price from $3.99 to $1,000 a bottle. The store also carries a full selection of spirits,
M
aybe especially because of those 4,000 different
28 • Beverage Dynamics • www.beveragedynamics.com • November/December 2011
