CoolVines currently in Princeton and Westfield is a wine retailer that focuses on the boutique wine market with an emphasis on showcasing wines from small producers. Mark Censits founder and CEO of CoolVines and his team, personally scout out distributors and importers that specialize in this niche market — avoiding wines that are mass marketed and produced. Though the occasional heavily branded wine like Kendall Jackson or big ticket cult wine appears on the shelf; emphasizing there’s a wine for everyone, most of CoolVines shelves are stocked with wines that are not as broadly marketed.

“We don’t expect our customers to have an extensive knowledge of wine region or grape varietal. “, comments Censits. “Our store layouts are easy to navigate, creating a safe, unintimidating place to explore.” We don’t expect our customers to be wine experts but rather wine enthusiasts.

As far as pricing goes, CoolVines is not a deep discount retailer. “We’re not looking to be the lowest priced retailer in the market”, comments Censtis. “ Yet we don’t put anything on the shelf that we feel is not a good value for the customer.”

CoolVines arranges their wines according to flavor profiles and skips the “shelf talkers” and wine ratings from industry experts. To the average wine consumer this approach is less intimidating and more engaging. Why buy a 90 point rated wine, if you don’t like the flavor? Seems senseless to some. And adds Censits, “We have a well-educated staff ready to help our customers based on their likes and dislikes.”

CoolVines participated in the first Virtual Winemaker Tasting at both their New Jersey locations, on December 9th, featuring the wines from Iron Horse Vineyards, where both Joy Sterling, CEO and David Munksgard, Winemaker interacted virtually from CA (piping through flat panels and ipad’s at Cool Vines ) during the event. Store participants at both locations as well as virtual participants followed the hashtag #IHVNJ — while the folks at the winery answered questions about flavor profiles and recommended food pairings with special recipes (Ocean Reserve — a joint venture with National Geographic informational video and recipes are here at this link .This created a dialogue both in the store and on Twitter that was engaging and educational and quite a lot of fun for a Thursday night in both Princeton and Westfield!

Iron Horse wines served at the event and available for purchase at Cool Vines are:

*Ocean Reserve

*Wedding Cuvee

*Estate Chard

*UnOaked Chard

*Estate Pinot Noir

Tweets overheard from the event:

“What food goes with Pinot Noir”-Tweet from participant

“ Pinot Noir goes with anything to do with mushrooms.”-Tweet from Joy Sterling

“ How about frogs legs and Chardonnay-unoaked”- Tweet from participant

“Ocean Reserve is a wine we made with The National Geographic Society”-Tweet from Iron Horse Vineyards”

In the end it was the bubbly that stole the show-

“Ocean Reserve is on fire at CoolVines”-Tweet