Wine shopping can be a gamble, and I get a lot of questions about where to buy wines and what to buy.

In California, where I lived for many years, I sent them to Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant in Berkeley, for stellar choices and great values, as well as wines for special occasions.

Kermit Lynch, whose fifty-year-old Berkeley wine shop is well worth a visit, brought to the attention of American wine drinkers delicious French and Italian wines, both familiar and unusual. For example, before Kermit brought imported the wines of Bandol, in Provençe they were mostly unknown in this country. Domaine Tempier’s wines are in high demand nowadays–their rosé is definitive–thanks to Kermit’s focused pursuit unfiltered, unmanipulated wines; he’s been bringing “natural” wines since he began importing, and long before the term was in vogue.

I like Kermit’s shop because I can find reliably delicious wines, reasonably priced wines. I seldom drink expensive wines, and only if someone else is buying. The shop has so many terrific values, and the staff is deeply knowledgeable of their inventory, and never condescending.

The KLWM website including their online shop is exceptionally well done and easy to navigate, and is full of interesting, meticulously detailed information about their wines, estates, and producers. Kermit has a personal relationship with every producer whose wine he sells. His engaging, informative, fun-to-read monthly newsletter features stories about vintners and their wines, and sometimes food. The introductions are entertaining and well-written wine, with detailed technical pages for the wine geeks.

I don’t shop much beyond the KL wines I can afford to regularly purchase and enjoy–wines under $30, or less–though my curiosity leads to an amount of window shopping. The shop sells exceptional wines in higher-priced categories for more festive occasions–red and white Burgundies, Chablis, Champagne, Barolo, many large format bottles, some aged wines. You can also subscribe to one of their wine clubs, for which I wrote scores of recipes over the past 25 years. What a nice task that was!

Since moving to upstate New York and the upper Hudson Valley, I’ve been happy to find a couple of outstanding wine shops not far from us.

Hudson Wine Merchants is a great shop I’ve recently come to know, with a great inventory of wines, including many Kermit Lynch producers. The shop is well organized and attractive, and the staff is friendly and informed. Check them out if you’re looking for a terrific, accessible selection of wines.

Kinderhook Bottle Shop, a sweet, curated but well-stocked shop, lies a few miles northeast of Hudson in the small town of Kinderhook. My friend, Liz Cunningham, the knowledgeable proprietor, has a focus on local wineries and distilleries, though she has plenty of European and domestic wines from other parts of the country, too. Stop by for a pleasant chat, or stop by for one of their wine events that seem to bring out everyone in neighborhood.