Taste the difference a little TLC makes for fine wine.
You hear it so often from people back from a European vacation it’s cliché: “The wine over there is So. Much. Better.” Same deal with the Napa Valley. You just have to go there to appreciate the wine at its source.
Or! You can buy the wine there and then transport it home in a climate-controlled container (monitoring temperatures the whole way, to be sure). Store it in your fridge until you’re ready to drink it.
Sound like a hassle? Really, all you have to do is drive 20 minutes to Pennsauken NJ…
TRUE STORY: You won’t find any “big name” wines at Greg’s table. Moore Brothers Wine Company specializes in local vintners that are making fabulous wine but not enough to meet the demands of Total Wine-type distributors. Sustainable, family-owned vineyards, some stretching back centuries. Greg and his brother David during Philly’s first restaurant boom back in the 80’s.
The brothers both were sommeliers at big-name Center City restaurants at the time, with David following Greg, who ran the wine program at Le-Bec Fin, which included purchasing. When a friend started a climate-controlled wine-shipping company, the brothers realized an opportunity to share the wine they loved as it was intended to be enjoyed.
Because, apparently, we drink a lot of flat/stale wine in the US.
Not all wine we buy at your average state store has gone funky, but it’s a gamble. Wine is very susceptible to heat damage – temps above 70 degrees for any significant period can permanently taint the flavor of wine. Above 80 degrees and you are literally cooking it. You know that funky-sour-jammy taste? That’s cooked wine.
You’ll never have to worry about cooked wine from Moore Brothers Wine Company. Every bottle is gently shipped in climate-controlled containers from vineyard to the store for sale, which is also chilled to 56 degrees Fahrenheit (bring a sweater or use one of their loaner fleeces).
A parishioner of St. Marks downtown, Greg Moore hosts frequent tasting tables at fundraisers for St. James School in nearby Allegheny West (including Art & Architecture this October). We recently took a trip over the bridge and popped in on the man himself at the company’s flagship store in an industrial-y area of Pennsauken. He popped open three amazing bottles for us: a sparkling wine, a Prosecco, and a Sauvignon Blanc.
Greg provides lots of great info and tips during tastings, and in Moore Brothers Wine Company’s popular newsletter. If you made it out to Art & Architecture, we hope you enjoyed a unique opportunity to sample spectacular regional vintages from around the world in a historic Gothic splendor – surrounded by museum-worthy art! It was like a European vacation in one night at St. James.
Of course, you can taste wine with the knowledgeable staffers at Moore Brothers Wine Company, or maybe even Greg or David who split their time between Pennsauken and their other stores in Brooklyn, NYC and Wilmington, DE.
For all the trouble that goes into transporting their wine, Moore Brothers’ prices are not unreasonable — a few bucks more than state stores, but that makes sense. The wines we purchased were like $15 a bottle, and we know they’ll be great because we’ve followed Greg’s directions to put them straight in the fridge when we got them home.
“You can’t refrigerate wine too much,” he told us before we left, “Seriously, even reds. Leave them in there. Take them out 20 minutes before you drink them.”
Good advice from a great local resource for truly special wine.
Thanks to Moore Brothers Wine Company
7200 N. Park Drive
Pennsuaken, NJ
888-686-6673
Open Mon – Fri 10am – 8pm, Saturday 9am – 6pm, Sunday 11am – 5pm
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