Some stores track what their shoppers buy, which is great service. You can use their record either as a simple memory device (“I had this white wine that I really liked, but I can’t remember what it was. … ”) or to build on your experiences (“I really liked that wine. Can you recommend a different bottle that I also may like?”).

At her two Unwined shops in Alexandria, Va., Vanessa Moore trains her staff to recognize customers by name and to get to know their tastes. Her shops specialize in small-production, family wineries, and her inventory is constantly shifting, a difficult notion for customers to accept if they are used to widely available brands. It requires winning their trust.

“I want my stores to be like I’m entertaining in my own home,” she said. “I want to anticipate what everybody needs to be really happy.”

Such eager accommodation is not the norm. About 35 percent of retail wine sales are in supermarkets, according to Nielsen, where hospitality essentially consists of loudspeaker announcements like, “Mop needed in Aisle 4.”

Strolling through a Safeway recently in Santa Rosa, Calif., one of more than 35 states that permit wine to be sold in supermarkets, I couldn’t help but gape at the selection of brand names. Sweets lovers could chew on wines called Layer Cake, Cupcake or Cherry Tart. Romantics could fantasize about Bewitched, Dalliance, Ménage à Trois or Zin-Phomaniac (“You’ll never get enough!”). Self-loathers could take a deep dive into Freakshow and Plungerhead.

Such mass-market selections represent the junk-food aisles of wine, filled with vacuous bottles that will leave any wine lover malnourished. Many good wine shops don’t carry any mass-market brands at all, especially if they are readily available elsewhere nearby. The best shops have a guiding point of view and individual, sometimes quirky characteristics.

Appellation Wine & Spirits, which after 10 years on 10th Avenue in west Chelsea will soon be moving to London Terrace, sells only wines from organically, biodynamically or sustainably farmed grapes. Some Good Wine, on West Eighth Street in Greenwich Village, offers a wide range mostly from small producers. The owner, Jeremy Block, has a particular passion for wines from the Canary Islands, Corsica and the Czech Republic.