I've learned a great deal from wine retailers over the years. One of the insights that has stuck with me is something that Joe Salamone, head buyer at Crush Wine & Spirits, said several years ago. I'd asked him which words were useful wine descriptors and which were not. Mr. Salamone didn't hesitate in addressing the latter. "Smooth," he said. It's such an ambiguous and subjective word that it is almost impossible to decipher what someone means. After all, one person's smooth wine might be another's rough.

This is just one of the many observations that Mr. Salamone has shared with me over the years—along with his taste in wine, of course. He's introduced me to some great German Rieslings, sparkling wines from Savoie and Austrian Rotgipflers. And while I've occasionally disagreed with him about a particular bottle, I've always found his descriptions to be remarkably accurate and straightforward. This was Mr. Salamone's description of Mondeuse, a red wine from Savoie: "I like it for its freshness and structure, although it's not a profound wine by any means."

Mr. Salamone, 36 years old, has been with Crush since 2005. His first position at the wine shop was a delivery job. It was quite a change—fiscally and psychically—from his previous career as a teacher of autistic children. In fact, Mr. Salamone admitted that his family was actually "horrified" when he went from working with children to delivering bottles of wine.

But Mr. Salamone was quickly promoted to sales associate and a few months later to a junior wine buyer's job, where he was "tossed little assignments that the senior wine buyer didn't have patience for—such as cheap wines; anything that was under $25," noted Mr. Salamone, who now buys just about every wine in the store, save for old and rare bottles. And he tastes just about every wine, too, which is decidedly uncommon for a buyer with so much responsibility. "I taste anywhere from three to seven times a week," said Mr. Salamone, who puts in a 55- to 65-hour week.

Crush Wines is a relatively small store on East 57th Street. The selection is tightly edited but features a good many great German, Austrian and French wines, most notable Burgundy and Champagne and plenty of esoteric selections. There aren't many from California, save for a few cult wines and what Mr. Salamone calls "new wave" producers.