This past Saturday, I visited North Berkeley Wines\ to see how their store was doing. North Berkeley Wines used to be located on Shattuck in Berkeley. I usually buy gift wines at NBW because I figured that a $40 wine must be good. Ahem! That was five years ago and now, I have to taste the wine before I give it the thumbs up.

The new store (ate least for me) is very classy with wooden blinds. The wines are all laid out in their glorious cherry cabinets. The interesting thing about NBW is that they travel to Europe, taste the wine from the barrels, and negotiate with the owner of the wineries about bottling and importing the wine for NBW. Talk about high maintenance!!! The bottle label will even have the name of NBW on it.

The main business for NBW is mail-order. The store has a catalog which discusses the various finds from around the world. I wish I could spend $300 on wine. I would have liked to try some of them out.