It’s not complicated to explain why one of the biggest corporate beverage outfits won Best of the Beach, even in a community that embraces its mom and pops shops. BevMo offers more than 3,000 types of wines, 1,500 types of spirits, and 1,200 types of beers. They were pioneers in the liquor megastore business and added the innovation of having their own wine curator, Wilfred Wong, a wine writer and industry analyst who tastes 8,000 bottles a year (that’s 40 a day). He’s become the corporate equivalent of Robert Parker, giving wines his own ratings and identifying overlooked gems.
“He is not a shill,” Robert Smiley, the director of Wine Studies at UC Davis, told the LA Times. “He knows what he’s talking about when it comes to wine.”
BevMo!
bevmo.com
Runner-up: Roberts Liquor
74 Pier Ave., Hermosa Beach
(310) 372-8200
