Trusted wine importers

If I'm browsing around a wine shop and find myself unsure about the quality of a wine that I may be interested in, I often look at the back label to identify the importer. There are a few importers that, particularly for European wines, I consider to provide a high degree of comfort for the quality of wine in the bottle. Two that come to mind for me are Kermit Lynch and Neal Rosenthal. Are there other importers out there that you rely on in similar fashion?

[Jenise]

Off the top of my head the two you mentioned plus Terry Thiese for Germany/Austria and Joe Dressner for the inexpensive, weird and offbeat Europeans. Robert Kracher, Weygandt and Kysala are others I've built up some confidence in.

Slate has a list that's pretty good:
http://www.slate.com/id/2217878/

[David M. Bueker]

Rudi Wiest (Germans), Mosel Wine Merchants (ditto), Hand-Picked Selections/Dan Kravitz (mostly French) among others.

Although arguably more "modern" in style, I've had good wine from North Berkeley Imports.
In the "natural wine" field, Jenny&Francois can import good stuff...but also pretty funky stuff.

[David M. Bueker]

If you like modern-styled wines then Eric Solomon selections is highly reliable.

I'd say Oliver McCrum but he's not on East Coast (but I seem to like most of the wines he takes to the West Coast). A NY importer called Selected Estates has several of same wines, but not tasted widely enough to buy on SE name alone.

Lots of great importers here, but some I'm more likely to buy if very cheap, because their more expensive offerings (like over $12) tend be a bit bit OTT for me (Kacher for example). And sometimes Jenny and Francois are more natural than tasty, though lots of fun stuff.

Kermit Lynch
Louis/Dressner
Neil Rosenthal
Weygandt-Metzler
J et R (local)
Terry Thiese/Skurnick
Rudi Wiest

Mark Lipton

Here in Canada, I think Empson Imports is doing really well, especially with Italy. I see that he has an east coast office too.

Scott Levy (I think he works out of Atlanta, Georgia) has a very good Burgundy portfolio.

Aside from that, I second the recommendations that have already been made in this thread.

-Paul W.

Kermit Lynch
Louis/Dressner
Neil Rosenthal
Weygandt-Metzler
J et R (local)
Terry Thiese/Skurnick
Rudi Wiest

Mark Lipton

I notice you've listed yourself as an importer, at least it might appear that way. Would you mind sending me a price list. I usually pay in 90 days and I'm sure you can meet the terms for the prestige of aquiring my business.

Kermit Lynch
Louis/Dressner
Neil Rosenthal
Weygandt-Metzler
J et R (local)
Terry Thiese/Skurnick
Rudi Wiest

Add:
Jose Pastor
De Maison Selections

Best, Jim

Louis-Dressner, of course. A consistent style and vision, reliable. I'm not a fan of all the wines, but many are excellent and they have championed some under-appreciated regions. I have also found Charles Neal (based in the SF Bay area) wines to be very much to my taste and consistent. He's an expert on Armagnac and brings in some terrific QPR wines from Southwest France in particular.

Although arguably more "modern" in style, I've had good wine from North Berkeley Imports.

+1

Was surprised not to see them on the Slate list. Very reliable importer of modern-styled European wines, in a vein similar to Eric Solomon.

[James Roscoe]

Let me add my two cents for that Mark Lipton imports! He evidently is great with CdP.

I will also add my praise to the Slate list. For Spanish wines I find that Ordonez is a pretty trustworthy name.

My 1.5 cents:

Though N Berkeley has some nice wines, especially on the low end, when it comes to Burgundy, which they feature, they have a house styIe that can too often run roughshod over the Burgundian nuances,including terroir (to the degree I am able to distinguish this at all). I was once at a blind burgundy tasting (at the Winehouse in LA) where this predeliction became clear to pretty much everyone in the room.
Becky Wasserman Selections, for burgundy, seems to me worth adding to the list (and it appears on the one on Slate).

Josh